The Nuggets had a very controversial offseason this past summer, which was mostly met with criticism. The team took a somewhat frustrating approach, deciding to let Kentavious Caldwell-Pope walk in free agency and replacing him with just the young players on the roster and cheap veterans.
The decision was met with scrutiny as it seemed like a cost-cutting move in the prime of Nikola Jokic’s career, but in a vacuum, it may have been the right one. KCP has fallen off a cliff offensively in Orlando and already appears to be drastically overpaid in year one of his three-year, $66 million deal.
Christian Braun has actually been an upgrade and the Nuggets look like they dodged a bullet. The problem is what they did with their other moves, especially using their taxpayer midlevel exception on Dario Saric. Saric has been a complete dud, unplayable, and sucking up a valuable roster spot and $5.2 million in salary.
Beyond that cost is the opportunity cost. The Nuggets could have used that exception to sign a number of players who could be helping the team and making a positive impact in the rotation. Honestly, as the team struggles with depth, almost any player would be more useful than Saric who can’t even sniff the floor. But one player sticks out like a sore thumb as a huge whiff in free agency.
Former Nugget Malik Beasley lighting it up in Detroit
2017 Nuggets draft pick Malik Beasley was let go after one unsuccessful year in Milwaukee and signed a one-year, $6 million deal with the Pistons. Beasley had some success early on in Denver and has bounced around the league ever since, failing to fully catch on with a team and carve out a big role.
But that has all changed this season as Beasley has had an incredible breakout, starring for the Pistons off the bench, scoring 16.3 points per game and shooting 42% from three-point range on a ridiculous 9.3 attempts per game.
Beasley has been one of the best signings of the offseason and he has been a huge part of the resurgence in Detroit that has seen the Pistons more than triple their win total from last season as they head toward a top 5 seed in the Eastern Conference. In conjunction with that, Beasley has played himself squarely into the Sixth Man of the Year conversation.
Who knows if the Nuggets could have signed Beasley, but on a recent episode of the Game Theory podcast, Sam Vecenie and Bryce Simon pointed out that Beasley had almost no market and signed with the Pistons for less than a million dollars more than the Nuggets could have offered him.
Beasley could have gone back to Denver with a chance at heavy minutes, to possibly replace KCP in the starting lineup, play alongside Nikola Jokic, and have a green light to fire up unlimited threes off of Jokic’s gravity and passing.
Beasley would have had to take slightly less money, but it would have been an incredible chance to revive his career and his shooting would be doing wonders for this Nuggets roster. Instead, Denver struck out on Saric and Beasley is lighting the world on fire in Detroit. Oh, what could have been.