Incredibly Frustrating: Nuggets cast-off now a success story with West rival

If there is any team in the NBA that could really benefit from hitting a lottery ticket, it’s the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets did the hard part and built a championship core, striking gold with Nikola Jokic and to a lesser extent, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. They made the right trades to vault that group over the top, acquiring guys like Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

But success complicates things, as key players have moved on, and retaining the core has become very expensive. To keep winning teams going and build dynasties, front offices have to be shrewd, they have to make smart but difficult decisions, and they need a little bit of luck.

The Nuggets have done their best with late draft picks, minimum free agents, and guys who have bounced around the league. They’ve made a big bet on their scouting department and being able to build up their young players. But so far, the jury is still out on this entire venture.

They’ve gotten decent play from the guys they’ve drafted late in the first round and early in the second round; Christian Braun is at least solid, Peyton Watson seems like a rotation player, and the same goes for Julian Strawther. But the team hasn’t gotten lucky recently and hit big on an unknown player or a project.

Former Nugget Jay Huff signs with Grizzlies

To make matters worse, it seems they may have recently had one of those guys on their roster and failed to tap into the potential. Former Nuggets two-way player, Jay Huff signed a four-year deal with the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday.

Huff was on a two-way contract with the Nuggets all of last season, spending most of his time in the G-League, and appearing in 20 games for Denver. He failed to make an impression and was not brought back this season. Instead, he signed a two-way deal with Memphis and was expected to play mostly for their G-League team.

But thanks partly to injuries creating an opportunity, and partially to earning the spot, Huff has been playing a lot of minutes for the Grizzlies. And he has played so well that the team can’t keep him off the court.

Huff, the 27-year-old 7-footer out of Virginia has played 19 minutes a game this year and he’s scoring 13 points per game while shooting almost 60% from three-point range. His play has been so impressive, that the Grizzlies have already converted his two-way deal to a standard NBA contract.

On the one hand, Huff has been bouncing around the G-League for over three years now so it’s hard to say the Nuggets missed an opportunity. But on the other hand, that’s a total cop-out. This guy was on the roster and in the gym every day for an entire year - just a few months ago! And now he’s playing big minutes for another Western Conference contender. The cost to keep him would have been essentially nothing and the Nuggets’ biggest issues are depth and three-point shooting.

The Nuggets deserve a lot of grace and credit for the way they’ve built the rosters over the years, but right now it’s tough to watch. The bench has been awful and outside of Jokic, the stars aren’t living up to their contracts. The team needs a lot of help and it’s hard to see where that help will be coming from.

Seeing one of last year’s two-way players helping another contending team this season is infuriating. Hitting on an undrafted two-way player and being able to get ~20 minutes a game out of a guy like that could make all the difference in the world for the Nuggets and their current roster. This is the kind of blunder the team simply cannot afford.