With the Kyrie Irving sweepstakes heating up, we know the Denver Nuggets may have to give up a lot to the Cleveland Cavaliers in order to get him. This begs the question on which player is expendable, Gary Harris or Jamal Murray.
The Denver Nuggets have a promising young core and the main focal parts of it outside of Nikola Jokic consists of Gary Harris and Jamal Murray.
If Denver does decide to pull the trigger on Kyrie Irving, then they will be taking a huge gamble. Both players present their own specialty which benefits the Nuggets and it is worth considering whether the Nuggets should even bother contacting Cleveland if they do, in fact, want both players.
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By trading Gary Harris, the Nuggets would lose the main focal part of their defense. This carries a tremendous risk when one looks at the team defensive stats from last season and realizes Harris was about the only one who tried on defense. Not to mention, Gary has been improving every year and saw a break out season on the offensive end finishing as a top 10 three-point shooter.
Jamal Murray presents a different type of challenge for the opposition. He is a young talent with with a sky high ceiling who has proven he is tougher than nails playing through two sports hernias his rookie year. Not to mention, he has a silky smooth jump shot and many even say he has the potential to be the next Steph Curry. Now think about it for a minute. Should Denver risk trading potentially the next Curry for Kyrie Irving who might not want to be in Denver long term? It is a difficult question to analyze.
Both players are young and great assets and the Nuggets need to really weigh the pros and cons of trading one of them if they do pursue Kyrie Irving.
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In my opinion, neither one should be expendable, but we all know not everyone gets their way in this league.