Jamal Murray's health and the 3 most important Nuggets preseason stories to watch

2.) The role of Russell Westbrook

One of the most fun things for Nuggets fans should be seeing what the future Hall-of-Famer Russell Westbrook looks like in a Nuggets uniform. Russ will go down as an all-time great and his legacy is already solidified, but the one thing missing is an NBA championship.

His MVP-caliber seasons are long behind him, but he clearly is still a great athlete and a skilled player. But can Russ adapt his game and change the things he needs to in order to help the team reach their potential?

The Nuggets badly need a backup point guard, another ballhandler, and a veteran leader in the second unit. In theory, Russ can solve all of those problems and fill every hole. But other teams have idealized this theory and it hasn’t come to fruition.

Part of it is on Russ and part is on other teams. The Nuggets have said all the right things and so has Russ, but this is how things have started with all his teams. The reality has been that he hasn’t been able to carve out his niche and find the perfect balance of doing enough but not too much.

Again, the preseason won’t tell us everything, but it will be very interesting early on just to see how Westbrook fits, what his role is, what lineups he’s used in, and what it all looks like. The experiment begins on Friday.