"Frankly speaking, with the new labor agreement, the Dynasty team will disappear. You will always remember our warriors, because we are the last Dynasty you can talk about."
In the podcast, the warrior star Drummond Green once explained the difficulty of Denver defending its title and establishing a dynasty, but he did not like Denver.
Green's prediction came true (temporarily): restricted by the new labor agreement, the Nuggets who lost Bruce Brown and Jeff Green did not use the free market and the trading market to introduce famous veterans for reinforcement. Of the 16 teams in the playoffs, Denver's substitute players ranked second to last with an average score of 14.8 points per game. In the Western Conference semifinal tiebreaker, only Braun got 5 points when the three Nuggets substitutes came on. The Nuggets lost the tiebreaker and lost the championship.
It is widely believed that Nuggets' management was too idealistic during the off-season last year, and General Manager Booth wasted Jokic's peak as a crime. Consequentialism, these are facts. But is the failure of Denver to defend its championship equal to the complete failure of Denver's team building idea? In the face of the harsh new labor agreement, they really can't find their own way to achieve the goal of "becoming the Spurs of the new era"?
These questions can't be answered for the time being. Maybe they can only be answered when we look back and sum up on the day when the Denver championship window closes.
On June 10, 2023, the Denver Nuggets, who were in the finals, traded with the Thunder. Denver sent the first round of 2029 in exchange for the second round of 2023, 2024 and the first round of 2024. According to statistics, since 1977, no team in the finals has completed the transaction.
Nuggets' intentions are very clear. Under the threat of the new labor agreement, teams with heavy salary burdens will be subject to many restrictions. Nuggets, who know they can't keep Brown, want to plan and prepare in advance. Compared with the Celtics, Suns, Warriors and Clippers who completed the big deal at the last minute, Denver took a completely opposite path.
Most championship teams will use the base salary contract to recruit veterans who are eager to win the championship after the salary space explodes, and fill the bench lineup. Based on the continuity and long-term development of the lineup, Booth decided to "use the draft to cultivate role players". His layout actually began in 2022.
In the 2022 draft conference, Booth won Braun with the 21st draw and Payton Watson with the 30th. In the 2023 draft conference, Booth won Strauss with No. 29, Pickett with No. 32, and Hunter Tyson with No. 37. The three rookies selected by Booth in 2023 received a total salary of $28.3 million in four years, with an average of $2.4 million per player per year. If one person enters the rotation and becomes a reliable substitute, Nuggets will become a big winner.
Booth's decision in the 2023 draft conference may originate from Braun's performance in last year's playoffs. Braun has already played a role in the rookie season and has been praised as a "mature young man". This season, his annual salary is less than $3 million. Denver wants to cultivate more Braun with good quality and low price.
"Our primary goal is to make every effort to ensure the sustainable development of the team," said Booth, who firmly opposes the team's benches being composed of foreign base salary veterans and changing them every year. He also hopes that the young people he selected in 2022 and 2023 can grow into the main rotation players of the team in a few years. Therefore, when Brown and Green left, Booth chose to renew the contracts of Nagy, Reggie Jackson and Little Jordan, three old acquaintances. The only external recruit was to sign Justin Hollady.
Booth's thinking is a bit like the Warriors' "dual track system", filling young players around the core lineup. But Booth obviously learned the lesson of the warrior. He did not pursue the original talent, but paid more attention to the combat power. Braun played for three years in the University of Kansas, Strauss played for three years in the University of Gonzaga, Pickett and Tyson played for five years in college, and they were 23 years old when they entered the NBA.
These players are all in line with Booth's basketball philosophy. They have excellent basketball IQ, good personality, outstanding physique among players in the same position, and no obvious technical defects. At least three of these four conditions are met.
From the perspective of Booth's draft, he prefers to introduce wingers who are tall, have the ability to shoot, have solid basic skills, and have rich college experience. After taking office, Booth asked his staff to study all the teams that have entered the finals since 2008, and calculated the average arm span and weight of the core eight person group of these teams. The results show that the average arm span of the core eight member team in the finals is 2.11 meters, and the average weight is 103 kilograms. Only the Heat in 2013 failed to reach the standard but entered the finals.
Booth doesn't think Denver can be an exception like the Heat. The probability of being an exception is too low, so Booth is crazy about introducing big players. In the market, a winger with body shape, technology, athletic ability and good personality started with an annual salary of 20 million dollars. Nuggets could hardly find such a player. They could only find Puyu in the draft conference and try to use the rookie contract bonus.
From Nuggets management to coach Malone, they mentioned the Spurs as Nuggets' role model more than once. From 1999 to 2014, the Spurs, who started out by draft, won five championships. They never won consecutive championships, but this did not prevent many people from calling the Spurs a "dynastic team".
"I have done a lot of research on the past trends and history. How should you try to do what the Spurs have done? You must learn to block the noise. The outside world will question why you don't build an experienced team and keep trying," Booth said.
In the 2023-24 season, Booth's initial attempt ended in the failure of Denver to defend its championship. Booth left Reggie, which was a controversial point of Booth during the offseason last year. His original intention was to keep the continuity of the team's lineup, but Reggie almost fell out of rotation in the playoffs. Booth gave Nagy an early contract extension, leaving Jordan Jr., but in the playoffs, Nagy and Jordan Jr. were not in the rotation at all. The Denver Nuggets had great pressure inside, and the rotation time was more for Gordon to play center. As for the three new stars selected by Booth, none can be used.
Objectively speaking, the Nuggets did not make good use of the valuable championship window, wasting the precious peak period of the Nuggets' first five. But Booth stubbornly believes that investing in the future is a better choice, even at the cost of sacrificing the near future glory.
As for whether this idea is right or not, different people have different opinions.
"We want to work hard to develop our own players, which is sustainable. If it makes us lose the chance to win the championship this year, we will accept it," Booth said before the start of this season.
Is that the failure to defend the championship equal to the failure of team building? Booth firmly refuses to admit that he hopes people can be patient and take a long-term view of the problem. In Booth's opinion, if the core team is stable, young players emerge, and Nuggets become the most successful team in the decade, who will care if they fail to win consecutive championships?
"What we care more about is not two consecutive championships, but three championships in six years, three championships in seven years, and four championships in eight years. Our goal should not be just to win two championships, but to win three or four, and more is better."
