Denver Nuggets: Five takeaways from the 2020-21 season
By Sean Carroll
The Denver Nuggets made the right call with Aaron Gordon
After trading for Aaron Gordon at the trade deadline, everything clicked for the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets finally had the ideal power forward next to Nikola Jokic, a fast, stretchy, athletic forward that can switch on defense and cover for the Serbian’s mistakes on that end.
Immediately after the trade, the Nuggets went on an 11-2 run with some big wins against teams like the Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Clippers. Then Jamal Murray went down and the team kept winning, going 9-1 in the immediate games following.
The lineup with AG, Jokic, Murray, Michael Porter Jr, and Will Barton played just over 110 minutes together and was +16.7 points better per 100 possessions according to basketball-reference. Building on that, the lineup with Austin Rivers and Facundo Campazzo in place of the injured Barton and Murray is +20.4 on the season.
Gordon has an outstandingly positive net rating when playing with Jokic or MPJ, something which wasn’t the case when he played next to Nikola Vucevic or Evan Fournier in Orlando.
If you want to feel even better, since touching down in Denver, AG hasn’t shot the ball well from three at all, hitting 27 percent of his threes on similar attempts to the rest of his career per Cleaning the Glass. If he simply makes his threes at his average clip, he’ll only get better.
A contingency of Nuggets fans wanted the team to go all-in on a trade in the past year with their eyes on Jrue Holiday and Bradley Beal to name a few. While Gordon doesn’t have the same star power or big name as those two, he has fit in seamlessly and with another year left on his current contract, there’s time to grow with this core.