Nugg Love roundtable: Two sides to pursuing Kyrie Irving

Tom’s take.

I get all the reasons for the Nuggets to avoid trading for Kyrie Irving. The team is building something pretty special around Nikola Jokic and they have an exciting young core, so why mess with it? I also need to mention that if the Cavs demand Jamal Murray and Gary Harris in their package for Irving, I’m against it. That’s too much if Irving leaves in two years when he’s a free agent and should be an easy no.

Denver Nuggets

However, there are a handful of big reasons why I think the Nuggets absolutely should pursue a trade.

For a start, the Nuggets need better ball handling. Murray is developing in that regard and I love his ceiling as a scorer and complementary ball handler next to Jokic (and simply his ceiling overall), but he isn’t a point guard yet and may always be more of a shooting guard. The Nuggets need better ball handling and a 35-year-old Jameer Nelson and a struggling Emmanuel Mudiay don’t cut it going forward. Even though so much offense can run through Jokic, he can’t do everything. Having one of the best ball handlers in the world instead to initiate offense, provide some diversity against tough defenses and ensure not so much is riding on Jokic would be so helpful.

This leads straight onto the next (obvious) benefit of Irving: scoring. Sure, the Nuggets led the league in offensive rating after Jokic became the starting center on December 15, so you can easily say “why add more offense over defense?” That’s understandable.

However, the Nuggets could clearly use a better point guard and having one of the top few isolation scorers in the league is particularly valuable when the team needs a bucket in clutch situations or teams have game planned to stop Jokic in the playoffs and another weapon is needed. Irving doesn’t just take loads of isolation shots and dribble into nothingness, either: he’s awesome at it. He ranked in the 94th percentile last season on isolation plays, per NBA.com, and only Russell Westbrook and James Harden scored more points on such plays (six and 6.6, respectively, to Irving’s 5.7). They were also far less efficient, scoring 0.94 and 0.97 points, respectively, while Irving was way ahead at 1.12.

So Jokic isn’t forced into too many shots and to avoid Paul Millsap doing too much, having Irving in clutch situations, tough playoff series and we-need-a-bucket-situations in general would be incredibly useful. Just look at how important that skill set was for Cleveland, and they have LeBron James.

The main benefits of Irving aren’t that complicated. He could still be leading scorer to keep himself happy and Jokic isn’t an overwhelming on and off court presence like LeBron, yet his passing could still create great looks for Irving on cuts and spot-up threes to make his life a little easier when need be (strong off-ball play is another way he could fit perfectly next to Jokic). Irving could also be staggered with Jokic sometimes to help the second unit, he can dominate in late-game scenarios, destroy teams in the pick-and-roll with Jokic, and use everything in his bag of tricks to help elevate this young team. Another important factor with Irving is that he’s still young at 25 and he’s guaranteed to be this great offensively, whereas no matter how good Murray/Harris can become, we don’t know for certain what level they’ll get to (that applies more to the 20-year-old Murray, of course).

For far more detail and numbers on my thoughts behind trading for Irving, click here and (hopefully) enjoy. It would elevate the team in a few key areas, especially for the playoffs, and give the Nuggets one of the best starting lineups in the entire league.