Denver does have 6 of them in the next 2 or 3 years. No point in drafting so many rookies at the bottom.
Wow, it's good Denver's got a good, young team. Cause they're not getting a good draft pick for a loooooong time! The Nuggets are gonna be be BEASTLY next year though!
I agree. Plus New Orleans is coming aboard. Damn, our division will be TOUGH. I don't see how LA makes the playoffs.
I just hope they're OUR draft picks and not the ones that the Clippers, Wizards and Sixers owe us. Martin still scares me a little though. Like it was posted above, we have 6 over the next 3 years. We could trade our next three and still go only one draft without a first round pick.
Yeah we posted at the same time. I didn't know the Nuggets had picks to give away like that, but thanks for clearing it up!
When the 2005 draft rolls around or whenevery they are due, the nugs will hand over the lowest #1 pick that they have. When you have multiple draft picks, you get to choose which ones to give away to complete trades.
So do y'all think the Nuggets will make the playoffs? Twolves, Spurs, Rockets, Kings, Lakers or Clippers, Suns, Grizzlies, Nuggets..and MAVERICKS..they'll be competing. Nene and KMart..hmm
I'd rate them above the suns, memphis and jazz now. Maybe even above the LA team and Dallas. With Melo's improvement and some added toughness inside, they're gonna be tough to beat.
The Nuggets and Jazz are going to be very tough teams, simply by having a balanced roster of strong (if not great) players. All Denver is missing is a solid SG, and all the Jazz need is a real center (Okur won't cut it). Dallas is in danger of imploding if Cuban keeps making moves. New Orleans is all but guaranteed to be whacked next year. If Phoenix couldn't get things going last year, no way do the Hornets make noise. The Suns could still sign Dampier if they wanted to, and I can't understand why they haven't. Trading Marion will come back to bite them if they pull the trigger on a deal. T-Wolves, Kings, and Spurs are a lock to be there. Whichever LA team Kobe plays for will also be up there, at least in the regular season. Evan
So what do the Nuggets fans think about the contract, Nuggets4? I'm personally don't think this is a bad deal for the Nuggets. Sure, $90 mil is overpaying, but at least it's overpaying for talent. And Martin is YOUNG talent. He is much more likely to get better than to get worse, and unless he starts to flounder, will unlikely ever be overpaid by much. Denver already has a young core group of players in Melo, Miller, Nene and 3 future likely high picks. Martin fits quite well with this group. This is a team that can stay together for a while. That said, the problem with this deal is that Denver now has little chance of having two superstars on the team. Melo might be a superstar, but no one else will come close. Utah has the same problem. I still think that you win with top of the line talent, and that the Wolves, the Spurs, and the Rockets are more likely to have the advantage when the playoffs come.
Is there any doubt now that Rod Thorn is among the very best GM's in the NBA? He built a winner/NBA finalist in Jersey out of ashes when he stole Kidd in exchange for Marbury and then smartly took a pass on Griffin and got Jefferson, then, when put in a nasty position of having to shell out too much for Kenyon w/a lame duck franchiese and lose him for nothing, manages to extract 3 number 1's out of it. How many freaking forwards is Denver collecting now, btw? Anthony, Martin, Nene, Tskitshavili, Elson, Anderson, Camby....got enough there guys?
Not only could Denver trade a bunch of their draft picks, they'd most likely be forced to trade some eventually rather than to add six new 3-year guaranteed deals and stay under the cap and LT.
So many comments, I'll try to address them. Contract? We're pretty much all in agreement it's the going rate for a big man. No one seems to think we overpaid too much. I'm ok with the contract. The trade on the other hand has some scared. Reportedly we gave up the Clippers pick, the Wizards pick and one of ours. Meaning we have the Sixers pick and that's it. Honestly, I don't think that the Nets would have matched. I'm hoping we did this deal for some financial flexibility this year so we can still go sign Trenton Hassell (who I've been pimping since FA started). 3 picks is too much IMO, I would have given one lottery pick and one of ours. But hey, I trust Kiki. Andersen's a free agent (who I'm hoping signs with NO like rumored, not a fan) and I think Skita only counts for .5 of a forward. The other .5 is "European stiff". Judging by his play in the summer league, he'd better get his butt in gear or we're talking another year of splinter problems. Look at Kevin McHale in Boston, he played more than 12 mpg. Last year we had to limit Camby to around 25 mpg due to health concerns. Odds are, Nene will be our starting 5 and K-Mart is our starting 4. Camby off of the bench to run and wind the opponents big men. Elson will probably only get 12 mpg and I don't think Birdman will be back (as mentioned above). It wouldn't surprise me to see 5-10 minutes a game of a lineup of Camby, Nene, Martin, Melo and Miller/Boykins. Go big, can still run. I'm happy with this deal overall. K-Mart scares me still (dude is unstable, he needs to tone it down), but there's no doubting the talent and how well he'll fit in our offense. I just want to see us grab Trenton Hassel now (if MArtin's contract only is $10 mil the first year, we'll still have $5 mil in cap space -- enough to land him). We have 3.5 scorers in our lineup (Melo's a scorer, Martin's a scorer, and Miller and Nene/Camby are both .75 scorers). Hassell will be our defensive stopper. I saw what he can do on D to an opponent in the playoffs. PG - Miller/Boykins SG - Hassell/Vo or J. Barry SF - Melo/Bowen? PF - Martin/Elson C - Nene/Camby
Not necessarily. Draft pick obligations' specifics vary from trade to trade. Sometimes, they allow the sender to pick which pick, sometimes the deal specifies which one. Martin is being overpaid. Fans will complain later. Also, I would have signed him outright (especially given the amount) and taken the chance on the Nets matching. Denver did well to stick to their guns with Nene, but I doubt they had to give up anything. And, they could have always used the draft picks in trade if they didn't want them. They could trade them for later picks.
Do you know what protections are on those picks owed you that you traded away? Depending on the protection, the picks might not be worth a whole lot.
