What would it look like if the Denver Nuggets wanted to add Al Horford?
The Denver Nuggets haven’t been linked to free agent Al Horford, but here’s what it would look like if they went after the effective big now that he has opted out of his contract with the Celtics.
The Nuggets aren’t likely to acquire unrestricted free Al Horford, but if the 33-year old center decided that playing a sixth man role on in Denver was the perfect way to close out his career, president of basketball operations Tim Connelly could make it happen.
Denver will be entering this offseason with pretty much little to no cap room. To maneuver and gain enough cap space to offer Al Horford a contract that even gets his attention, Denver would need to make some moves involving key players.
If the Nuggets decline the $30 million team option on Paul Millsap and renounce the rights to restricted free agent Trey Lyles, they would have approximately $19 million in cap space.
Equipped with $19 million in cap space, the Denver Nuggets could not offer Horford a deal that would be anywhere near what he could command on the open market. But creating more cap space would take a dramatic contract restructuring from Paul Millsap or multiple trades, but again, Horford’s defense and shooting is a big deal for a team with title aspirations.
https://twitter.com/NBA/status/991119038402134016
Adding Horford to be the backup center of this team as opposed to Mason Plumlee would be great in high-leverage situations. Horford provides a floor spacing element that Plumlee (a non-shooter) does not.
Al Horford works on his jumper off pick and roll action in preseason warmups pic.twitter.com/eSN0uQJYGk
— Mike Petraglia (@Trags) October 2, 2017
On top of that, Horford is more proficient perimeter shooter than Nuggets wing Torrey Craig (32 percent from 3-point range in 2018-19 season), who played a significant role in 2019.
Al Horford would be the best floor-spacing big man on the roster and he steps it up in the playoffs, as he Horford has hit 41 percent of his 3-pointers over 11 different postseason runs.
If Connelly was to throw Horford a short term deal, it would likely be a one-year deal, somewhere around $19 million. A long term deal would look more like four-years, $75-to-$76 million. The Nuggets would move forward without Millsap on the roster, instead of using Jokic at the four. The bench depth would still be intact, but the new look starting lineup would look like this:
Will Barton (or Torrey Craig)
Al Horford
That lineup is the stuff of the modern NBA besides the fact that Jokic and Horford have both played less than 20 percent of their career minutes at power forward, but they possess the skill sets to make it work. Jokic took strides this year as a defender and performed well in a drop back coverage.
Playing the four would put more pressure on The Joker in terms of lateral movement, but hiding on the weakest shooter on the floor and having him crash in as a help defender would be the best way to make this lineup work.
If they could hold up against small-ball lineups, this lineup could be awesome on offense. Horford and Jokic would be the best passing frontcourt in the league by far, which I genuinely believe would lead to career-best seasons from Jamal Murray and Gary Harris.
Realistically, the Nuggets would need to move off significant salary to get Horford, who NY Times reporter Marc Stein reports is to get quite a large contract on the market.
The belief making the front-office rounds tonight is that Al Horford already knows there’s a four-year contract worth in excess of $100 million waiting out there for him June 30 .. knowledge that led to Horford’s talks with the Celtics dissolving
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) June 19, 2019
As we’ve seen in this league, if a player makes his mind up on where he wants to go, it is definitely possible to get the deal done. The players the Nuggets would need to move in order to free up salary cap space include Will Barton, Mason Plumlee and Gary Harris (Editor’s note: Bad idea to trade Gary Harris), all players many teams in the league would be interested in.
There is also the possibility that Millsap and Horford want to be teammates again, after playing on three very solid Atlanta Hawks teams together, including the 60-win Hawks in 2015.
Related Story. 5 Potential Al Horford Landing Spots. light
Al Horford is one of the more interesting free agents. He possesses an extremely high basketball IQ, can still space the floor from the 3-point line and generally raises the ceiling of any team he joins. Horford is one of the many free agents we don’t have a good read on. If the Nuggets were the mystery team in on him, any combination of Jokic, Millsap, and Horford would be a boon for Mike Malone in 2019-20.