NUGGETS COULDN’T TRUST BONES HYLAND
Kevin Durant is in Phoenix. Kyrie Irving is in Dallas. And yet Denver is still the team to beat in the NBA's Western Conference.
Name one move — one — since last summer that’s blown up in Calvin Booth’s face.
Go on. Seriously. Give me one. Booth, who moved to the head chair of the Nuggets’ front office last June when Tim Connelly went north, has yet to put a foot wrong on the job.
He swapped out Will Barton and Monte Morris for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Ish Smith. Granted, losing Morris felt like someone ripping a Band-Aid off your shin without fair warning. But flash forward a few months, and the Washington Wizards were reportedly working on a buyout of Barton’s contract.
Meanwhile, KCP has turned into one of those beautiful missing puzzle pieces for a roster that needed more shooters and more active, engaged defenders.
Booth signed Bruce Brown, another perfect puzzle piece. Booth drafted Christian Braun, who’s 21 and fears no one. Booth signed DeAndre Jordan, who combined with buddy Jeff Green, another savvy vet, to give the Nuggets two Paul Millsaps — big brothers, glue guys — at a fraction of Millsap’s 2017-2021 costs. No. 1 seed in the West. 38-18 overall.
28-11 against the rest of the conference.
26-4 at home.
And you’re STILL crying about Bones Hyland?
It’s too early to say Booth “won” his first trade deadline day as general manager. But he sure as heck didn’t lose it. No matter how much Twitter tries to convince you otherwise.
The Nuggets needed a post scorer in the second unit. So Booth snatched 6-foot-10 Thomas Bryant, a center who’d put up a ridiculous 137 Offensive Rating — as in, scoring 137 points per 100 minutes played, per Basketball-Reference.com — over 41 games with the Lakers.
As imports go, you’d have loved to see more. Especially as the rest of the West contenders went shopping for superstars like it was a midnight sale the day after Thanksgiving.
Kyrie Irving is a Mav. Eric Gordon is a Clipper. Luke Kennard is a Grizzly. Josh Richardson is a Pelican. And Kevin Durant is a Sun, giving Phoenix one of those “super teams” that ESPN won’t shut up about for the next five months.
But here’s the thing: Those franchises swung big because they HAD to. The Nuggets went into Thursday night’s action with a four-and-a-half game lead on Memphis for the best record in the West. Denver had an 8.5-game lead on Phoenix and Dallas.
Michael Malone has his own “super team” to coach, and the next 27 regular-season tilts are about seeding, rotations, chemistry, health and load management. Not necessarily in that order.
In hindsight, sure, you’d have liked to see Booth push some more chips to the center of the table — again, Nikola Jokic isn’t going to play forever, and the championship window is right here, right now. It would’ve been nice to add another ball-handler into the mix (a “Morris type,” if you will). Maybe another 3-and-D guy with length.
But Boston, the beast of the East, also largely stood pat, adding a bench big in Mike Muscala. Milwaukee traded for wily vet Jae Crowder, who’s been angling for a way out of Phoenix since the start of the season, and called it a day. Memphis star Ja Morant says he’s “fine in the West,” and management obliged, adding only Kennard at the deadline.
Booth, meanwhile, probably isn’t done. Nor did he lose anyone Malone was going to give serious minutes — or possibly ANY minutes —in the postseason.
That includes Hyland, the fun, gifted guard who was traded to the Clippers for two second-round picks, largely because he’d become too big a baby for even the Nuggets to put up with.
As my Post colleague Mike Singer reported, there wasn’t just one good reason why Bones wasn’t playing. There were several. Over the last few weeks, Hyland proved that it’s possible to be a crowd favorite and a clubhouse cancer at the same time.
In a “me” league, the Nuggets have always made it about the “we,” and Jokic and Murray are stars who walk that line even better than they talk it. When Bones left the bench early in the fourth quarter against the Thunder back on Jan. 22, it was the last straw.
Malone doesn’t suffer fools, selfishness, or defensive indifference, and The Bones Experience had become about all three. Hyland was always either going to shape up or get shipped out.
Funny, though, isn’t it? In the three games without Bones at the start of the month in which they were actually trying, the Nuggets went 3-0, averaged 136 points per game and outscored the opposition by an average of 24 per tilt.
Yeah, he’ll be missed. Just not nearly as much as the myth will. And if there’s a question of trusting Bones or trusting Booth down the stretch with a title on the line, based on the last nine months, it’s no contest.