Under-the-radar trade targets for the Denver Nuggets

Denver Nuggets under-the-radar trade candidates: Rui Hachimura

This is one of my favorite names this coming trade deadline. Rui Hachimura hasn’t played a single game in the 2021-22 NBA season and neither he nor the Washington Wizards have mentioned why.

It doesn’t appear as though the team and player aren’t on the same page and I’m assuming it’s a non-basketball-related issue. For the purposes of this trade deadline, let’s assume that Rui comes back at some point in the next month and plays just as he has his whole career.

Hachimura is a bit of a strange fit in today’s NBA. As I’ve mentioned on The Deep Two NBA Podcast previously, Rui is the sort of player that would benefit from being the alpha on a worse team. He’s a low-efficiency scorer who plays as though he’s the first option but has been asked to slide in wherever he can fit in a Wizards uniform.

That’s not to say there isn’t a high-efficiency scorer hiding behind his 13 points a night, it’s just really hard to see when he’s spotting up around better players and trying to create on the second unit.

If there’s a team out there who sees more than what Rui has shown thus far, the Nuggets might be the team to unlock it. I’ll mention this one last time, but the Jokic boost can’t be understated here. Putting the Japanese forward next to the most unselfish superstar in the league would be amazing.

Not only would Rui get better looks on his own with defenses constantly zoned in on Jokic, he’d make the most of his athleticism and finishing while playing around Jokic in the post.

I don’t know what a potential deal would look like here. Are Washington happy just letting him go to get any form of production on the roster? If so, would they just take a young player or salary plus a first-round pick?

If Hachimura is available at the deadline, what’s stopping a team like OKC from throwing a couple of bad picks at him to see how he’d operate in Oklahoma? He’d have much more of the ball in his hands and could act as the alpha scorer he looks like he can be.

Maybe Rui isn’t the perfect fit in Denver but maybe he isn’t the perfect fit for most teams in the league. With a season essentially lost due to injuries, what’s the reason not to see how a great finisher would fit? Plus, not all buy low trades have to be taken into next season, if his value increases next to Jokic, he might be an offseason trade piece.