The Denver Nuggets have a promising young core with Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic, and Gary Harris leading the way.
So how high can we dream? I’d like to compare them to comparable player’s moving from this point of their career into the next. In doing so we can see the high point of what we may be witnessing. Let’s start with Gary Harris for this post.
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Gary Harris vs Klay Thompson
The two great defenders and scorers have similarity’s to me so let’s see what Klay did along with Gary. Years three and four were pretty comparable, so in jumping from year four to year five, let’s look at what we can expect from Gary Harris. (All stats from ESPN.com.) In year four Klay’s read 21.7 PPG, 3.2RPG, and 2.9 AST to go with 1.1 steals. Gary’s read 17.5 PPG, 2.6 RPG, and 2.9 AST to go with 1.8 steals.
In the next year Klay posted 22.1 PPG, 3.8 RPG, and 2.1 AST with 0.8 steals. Klay never looked back, so I expect Gary to make that jump as well. Both players are surrounded by talent and play for teams on the rise so the career path has every reason to follow suit.
Not to mention, both players happen to serve a similar role on their respective squads. Both are elite three and D guys who can hit the perimeter jump shot along with guarding the best perimeter player on the opposing team. Obviously, Klay is still far better than Gary right now, but Harris is certainly on the right path with his trajectory.
So, I think we have our first piece of the Super Team puzzle. I hope the rest of the pieces fit and I’ll soon post what I find there. We already know Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic will play vital roles, but let’s see how effective they will be in the future.