Grade the trade pitches: NBA writer & podcaster offers 4 Nuggets deals for summer

It’s the time of year when everyone and their uncle has fake trades they want to propose and see happen for their favorite NBA teams. The rumor mill will be crazy for the next couple of months and surely things will happen that we can’t even fathom right now.

The Nuggets certainly aren’t the most interesting team to speculate about this offseason. For one, they have been steady contenders building through the draft for years. They’ve made a couple of big moves along the way, but they aren’t really in a position to shake things up. 

Beyond that, the team is right up against the second apron of the salary cap, so even if they wanted to make big moves, it would be very difficult. The most likely moves for the team are ones around the margins that will improve depth and the bench and possibly free up some money down the road.

But even a relatively uninteresting team by NBA standards can still have an incredibly interesting and impactful offseason with a number of transactions along the way. That’s what people are expecting in Denver. After falling short this season, the team needs to make some changes, and the team isn’t getting any younger or less expensive.

Fake trade ideas for the Denver Nuggets

There have been plenty of hypothetical trade proposals that I’ve tackled on the blog already this offseason, mostly coming from national media members. Some of those trades were reasonable and made sense for the Nuggets, but some were probably wishful thinking and ultimately not very likely to happen.

Now let’s focus on one of the best in local media, Ryan Blackburn, who covers the Nuggets for Mile High Sports in Denver. Ryan also hosts the Pickaxe and Roll podcast and that’s where he played trade roulette for almost an hour on the June 5th episode of the show.

Blackburn entertained trades proposed by fans and listeners for several minutes; many of them weren’t legal trades, many were impractical or unrealistic, but there were a few solid ideas. At the end of the show, Blackburn gave his four best offers that he had created himself. Let’s break them down and grade how much they’d help the Nuggets one by one.