CHICAGO — The Nuggets were carrying a lucky 13 on their roster for their first game since the NBA trade deadline.
Spencer Jones was out with a concussion, eliminating the immediacy of Denver’s plan to convert his two-way contract and give him a roster spot. He was technically ineligible to play in Chicago, but he wouldn’t have been able to anyway. Hunter Tyson was gone, traded to Brooklyn and waived by the Nets while the Nuggets were hanging out in New York for the trade deadline on Thursday.
Carrying 13 is only allowed for up to two consecutive weeks, meaning the Nuggets have until Feb. 19 to fill one of the two job openings. The more intriguing question now is how they might fill both.
The Nuggets are confident they’ll be able to add Jones and another player to the payroll without going back into the luxury tax, a league source told The Denver Post this week, and they’ve already been active on the buyout market by looking into recently waived Cavaliers guard Lonzo Ball.
How Spencer Jones’ LinkedIn account represents Nuggets’ most unlikely success story
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So where exactly would they prefer to bolster their depth as they wait for other candidates to become available?
"The conversations we've had have been interesting," coach David Adelman said Saturday. "Because you could look at it like, 'Well, we've had injuries at these spots. We should go get somebody that can take that spot if we got into a bad moment where someone couldn't come back, if we're in (the playoffs) at the end of the year.' ... And there's the other part of you that says, 'I don't know who'd we play if we made the playoffs.' And every team out West demands something different. Maybe you're looking at, we could use more ball-handling. Maybe you're looking at, we could use more size with the current injuries for the wing position."
The obvious subtext is Aaron Gordon, who checks both of those boxes but is currently out with a right hamstring strain for his second extended absence this season. His soft tissue injuries have been an increasing concern for Denver over the last two years. Nine months ago, his left hamstring changed the complexion of a winner-take-all Game 7 that Denver lost to Oklahoma City.
Jones, who's been starting in Gordon's spot, will already be part of the call for reinforcements. Once his contract is converted, he'll be eligible to play in the playoffs.
Could Denver want even more forward help on the buyout market? One source told The Post on Thursday that a position-based pursuit isn't necessarily how the team wants go about this. After all, waived players who sign with a new team midseason usually don't turn out to be high-level playoff contributors. Denver's most recent example was Reggie Jackson, who wasn't in the rotation during the 2023 NBA Finals run. There's a school of thought that teams in this situation should simply prioritize the best guy available to maximize the chances of ending up with someone playable.
That said, one skillset the Nuggets have circled since training camp as an area they'd like to eventually improve is ball-handling, according to multiple league sources — as Adelman hinted at in Chicago. The value of Gordon is that he can function as a point guard in a power forward's body. He brings the ball up. Initiates offense from the elbows. Creates shots for himself off the dribble. Jones has been a crucial find for Denver, but he won't help in those areas.
Defense also remains a woeful task for the Nuggets collectively, though they haven't had their full complement of top defenders healthy at the same time since early November. Just when Christian Braun returned last week, Peyton Watson replaced him next to Gordon on the bench with his own hamstring injury. Another over-screen defender could make sense as a priority for the Nuggets' backcourt.
Whichever direction they decide to go with that 15th roster spot, the Nuggets will probably be best off if the acquisition is an insurance policy that they don't need to overuse.
But their season has been ravaged by injuries enough that not buying insurance, at this point, could be irresponsible.
"I really trust Jon (Wallace) and Ben (Tenzer)," Adelman said, referring to the Nuggets' lead executives. "They've put a lot of information in my head. I gave them my opinion. And I think when we all come back together, and if we do want to add somebody to the team, (the player) is gonna make sense. But I'll say this. Whoever that person is, if it does happen, you could have gone a million different ways with this whole thing just because of the opponents we may face down the road, like I said, who bring so much attention to your deficiencies. Playing OKC is very different from playing Minnesota. And they both demand something new that you wish you had in those moments.
"So it's gonna be interesting for all the teams out West. As everybody knows, that conference is deep and it's dangerous. I'm just hoping to get us healthy enough to figure out who the hell we are before we get to that tournament."
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The post How should Nuggets fill open roster spots for stretch run? David Adelman weighs in. appeared first on Denver Post
