The Denver Nuggets' new front office has been extremely calculated this summer, and they’ve done an outstanding job of building out the roster to compete for a title. However, the one area they have largely neglected is the backup point guard position.
Last season, that job was held down by Russell Westbrook, the team’s sixth man, who played a major role on a nightly basis, carrying that heavy workload into the playoffs. But despite having a solid season in Denver, Westbrook remains unsigned while the Nuggets have prioritized other parts of the roster.
They are relatively loaded in the frontcourt and on the wing, but in the backcourt, things get a bit shaky. Behind Jamal Murray, the only other point guard on the roster is Jalen Pickett. Murray is great, but he’s hardly the most durable player, missing at least 15 games in each of the past six seasons.
The team should be going out of its way to keep Murray fresh and well-rested for the playoffs, but it may be challenging given the rest of the depth. Pickett has shown some nice flashes, but he may never even reach the status of league-average backup.
Nuggets should add a veteran point guard
He struggled to crack the rotation on a consistent basis and has looked much more comfortable in the G League. He certainly deserves a chance to prove he can play, but a lot is now riding on his shoulders with virtually nothing behind him.
The other option for the Nuggets is playing without a true point guard and balancing playmaking duties between a number of guys. Bruce Brown has done it in the past, Nikola Jokic can obviously take on a lot of those responsibilities, and Cam Johnson, Christian Braun, and others can run a set here and there in a pinch.
Maybe that will prove to be good enough, but over the course of a long 82-game season, there are probably going to be some nights where it would be nice to have a reliable, veteran backup point guard to come in and handle that role for 20 minutes or so. Not to mention whatever games Murray sits out.
Overall, it’s more of a regular-season problem than anything else, but considering we’ve seen this team wear down in back-to-back years and the lengths they’ve gone to fortify the depth, it would be nice to see them add that final missing piece so that every base is covered.