Under-the-radar trade targets for the Denver Nuggets
By Sean Carroll
Denver Nuggets under-the-radar trade candidates: Max Strus
Is this even a buy low, under-the-radar player anymore? Max Strus has been handed an opportunity in his second season with the Miami Heat and is taking it with both hands.
Strus first got to ‘Strus his stuff’ in Summer League, lighting it up with plenty of scoring and a sudden death game-winner. On top of that, you can assume that most young, unproven players that Miami pick up will turn into some kind of rotation player eventually, they’ve just been that consistent on the draft front.
In the month of December, Strus was given more of the ball with injuries to players like Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo and averaged 14.3 points a night in 13 games (three starts). He shot 42 percent from the 3-point line and spaced the floor for his team to operate.
He’s leading all wings in points per 100 shot attempts at 131.2 according to Cleaning the Glass, filtering out low-minute players and garbage time. He’s making 71 percent of his attempts at the rim and is the ideal analytical player, nearly cutting out the mid-range game altogether.
Miami could look at a possible trade with Denver as a sell high, swapping their undrafted find for a player with a recent draft pedigree. Would the Nuggets really want to move on from a recent draftee to get a player who projects as a solid 3-and-D role player? With Jamal and MPJ back next season, there’s currently a vacancy on the wing for someone who can hit shots off the gravity of the stars, is that vacancy for Strus?