Hello! Welcome to the first edition of the Stiffs Mailbag for the 2019-20 season. I will be taking over the mailbag for Ryan Blackburn this year and look forward to answering any questions you may have.
If you have a question about anything, send it my way and I will do my best to answer it. So, without further ado, here are the questions and responses for this week’s mail!
I do not anticipate any consolidation moves and here is why: the Nuggets already have a really deep roster in place and there is no real “hole” to fill when you look across their starting or bench unit. Like you mentioned, the Nuggets are ridiculously deep and that is a great problem to have.
A way the front office and coaching staff can handle that is simple, play the best 10-11 guys and continue to be successful. Sure, not every one is going to be happy with that plan, but that is the best course of action for the Nuggets to have success with their current group.
The Nuggets have an incredibly close team and every player wants to see their teammate succeed. That is why you see a guy like Juancho Hernangomez always cheering his heart out on the bench, even though he rarely gets playing time.
So, to answer your question, I do not see the Nuggets making any consolidation moves and I believe they should stick with this roster for the rest of the season. Tim Connelly and the front office built this kingdom and there is no need to alter the current plan they have in place.
Like you said, it is early, but one trend we noticed through one game is that the Nuggets can really shoot the three. Even though it is an extremely small, small sample size, Denver won against Portland because they shot the ball extremely well from distance.
It was not like Denver shot bad from two-point range (34-of-81, 42 percent) against Portland, but their three-foot shooting certainly won them the game. The Nuggets shot 18-of-32 from three, which is a whopping 56.3 percent.
Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Paul Millsap each had three triples a piece, while Will Barton, Torrey Craig, and Malik Beasley each drilled another two three-pointers. If the Nuggets can keep that up, they are basically going to be unstoppable moving forward.
Even though he is having a down season — Mason Rudolph is not helping — I would start Ju-Ju over Robert Woods. Ju-Ju has a really good matchup against the Dolphins and even though Woods has a nice one as well (Bengals), there is a great chance that Copper Kupp and Brandin Cooks get a lot of balls thrown their way.
The only Steelers players that could get in the way of Ju-Ju’s production are James Connor and Diontae Johnson and the Rams have a lot more options within their offense. Role with Ju-Ju you might have a chance.
