There are only limited times when meaningful change doesn’t require sizable risk.
This is not one of those times for the Nuggets.
Change is at hand. And this one will be risky.
As The Denver Post recently reported, the Nuggets had already tried and were going to make another run at trading for big-time scoring center Brook Lopez of the Brooklyn Nets. It’s happening now.
Nuggets Mailbag: Pose a question for Christopher Dempsey
But what Brooklyn isn’t about to do is just hand him over, even though he can opt out of his contract at the end of the season and become an unrestricted free agent. Friday, ESPN’s Marc Stein reported that the Nets brushed aside a Nuggets offer that included JaVale McGee and J.J. Hickson heading to Brooklyn.
The Nuggets are in asset-collection mode. In two trades, they’ve already procured two first-round picks and a player, guard Jameer Nelson, who would be a positive veteran force on the court and in the locker room in the future, if he sticks with the Nuggets after the season ends.
But Lopez would be the biggest prize.
And yet, the question is: How much is too much to give?
With a narrow focus on this one deal, there’s so much to consider. Let’s say the Nuggets wanted to sweeten the pot by throwing in the Memphis first-round pick they just got from Cleveland in the Timofey Mozgov trade, and that was the trigger to get the deal done. At best, that pick just got the Nuggets a center who would re-sign with them for multiple seasons. At worst, that pick just sealed the Nuggets opening up salary cap space when Lopez doesn’t return.
And if McGee and Hickson were involved, the Nuggets would have sliced $17 million in guaranteed salary off next year’s payroll. That’s a big-time chunk of change, and it would allow the Nuggets to be a player in free agency. But is it worth moving a pick that coveted?
Real change might require that.
If you’re Brooklyn, you’ve already pointed that out, framed as a win either way for the Nuggets. That’s why the Nets are not doing the deal for just anything. If it gets done, McGee is going to be part of it, no matter what. The structure beyond that is ever-changing.
So the issue, by the Feb. 19 trade deadline, might not be how desperate the Nets are to unload Lopez, but how motivated are the Nuggets to acquire him.
Practically, getting Lopez in the fold allows the Nuggets to start to refashion themselves as an inside-out basketball team, a team that is about business more than it is about stuff off the court. We’ve seen the best of what Lopez can be as recently as Friday night, when he scored 35 points, grabbed 12 rebounds, had three steals and blocked three shots in the Nets’ overtime loss to Toronto. He played 41 minutes off the bench in that game.
Back in December, the Nuggets got a small taste of what he could do up close, when he returned to action against them after a lengthy injury absence, scoring six points and grabbing four rebounds in just eight minutes.
Beyond his playing impact, Lopez’s inclusion sets up the Nuggets for many more moves to come in a trade deadline, and then an offseason, that is setting up to rank as one of the franchise’s three or four busiest in its NBA history.
And all of that begins with one step — a step that requires guts, but could pay off big in the end.
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dempseypost
