This is a talented team:
Three years ago the Denver Nuggets won 57 games, earned the three-seed in the brutal Western Conference and lost to the Golden State Warriors, a team we now recognize to have been a budding super power.
The next season the Nuggets won 36 games and missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade.
What changed? Well, head coach George Karl was jettisoned out of town, Andre Iguodala spurned the Nuggets in favor of Warriors and Danilo Gallinari missed the next season-plus with a torn ACL. Other than that, not much.
Really, the Nuggets have remained a talented team despite two straight disappointing seasons; unfortunately, they had a coach who wasn’t capable of using the talent he was given.
But in Mike Malone, the Nuggets have a coach that gets it; they have a guy who understands that the only way to play basketball in Denver is fast.
It’s time for a new era of Denver Nuggets basketball, and the only way for them to do that is by getting back to their roots.
