Coming into the season Nuggets fans had enormous hopes for Ty Lawson. He averaged career highs across the board in his first (kind of) full year as a starter. Then in the playoffs against the Lakers he took his game to the next level, averaging 19 points and six assists per game. After receiving a $48 million extension just prior to the 2012-13 season, it seemed the groundwork had been laid for Lawson to finally emerge as the team’s clear-cut best player. But 11 games into the season, it’s become apparent that Lawson still has other things on his mind. For the last several years George Karl has often clamored about how he’s needed Ty Lawson to become more of a leader. Heading into training camp, this was a narrative both the media and Lawson were embracing. Lawson was confident in his abilities (as well as his team’s) and gave no indication that he’d be anything other than a borderline All Star. Then, the season started.

Through 11 games Lawson is averaging a career-low .373 shooting percentage from the field, .261 percent from behind the 3-point line and .535 percent from the free-throw stripe. His 3.3 turnovers per game are a career high by almost an entire turnover. His rebounds and points are down from last year as well. In fact, the only measurable improvements Lawson has made to his game have come in the assists and steals categories, where he’s improved only slightly.

Looking at the stats sheet is telling. It’s clear Lawson is not himself at this point in time. But watching him play is when you start to actually understand why his stats are so deflated.

Lawson does not have the confidence of a leader right now. He doesn’t even appear to have the confidence of a solid role player. He is timid and apprehensive. He’s not looking to score nor make an overall impact on the game. His assists continue to pour in at a respectable rate only because he’s averaging a whopping 37 minutes per game; but they’re mostly routine passes. Overall, Lawson is sluggish, passive and overcome with trepidation. He’s over-analyzing the act of playing basketball and as a result, has temporarily lost his confidence. Or, was it the other way around?

Ty Lawson has never seemed like a natural-born leader to me. Does this mean he’s incapable of displaying leadership or possessing similar types of skills? Of course not. I fully trust that he’s more than capable and willing to display leadership. But to ask Lawson to be the leader of this team, at 25, while he’s still trying to figure out who he is as a player, just doesn’t seem like a realistic proposition. How can he help others and demand more from his teammates when he’s still developing himself?

Lawson seems like he’s folded under the pressure bestowed upon him not only by his head coach, but the media, fans and most importantly, himself. He’s playing a confused brand of basketball; and not with the type of unrelenting, full-force, Speedy Gonzales-like blurriness we’ve come to know and love. The great thing, of course, is that it’s only a matter of time before Lawson has an epiphany (or a series of them), de-attaches himself from the expectations and just plays ball. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that by the end of this month Lawson will already have shown glimpses of his former self. By the the time All-Star break rolls around, Lawson should very well be on his way to having yet another career year.

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After a lengthy delay, coming in at number three in our #NuggetsRank series is starting small forward Danilo Gallinari. Despite possessing perhaps the best combination of skill and athleticism on the Nuggets’ entire roster, Gallo trailed behind the top two in our #NuggetsRank voting and ends up as the popular pick for third-best player on the team.

That’s not an indictment of Gallo’s potential as much as it is a byproduct of lowered expectations following two years of stop-and-go progress in Denver. He’s the one player who’s really defined the post-Carmelo Nuggets up to this point: unconventional and dangerous under the right circumstances, but unreliable and still a work in progress in just about every facet of the game.

Four years into Gallo’s career, it’s fair to say we’ve learned more about his limitations than his ability to become the next Dirk Nowitzki. Gallo is mobile and supremely skilled for a player his size, but he’s not particularly explosive in any area and lacks the mindset of a traditional NBA scorer. Gallo’s game right now is more about kick-out jumpers and transition rather than actually handling the ball and creating.

Rounding out his offense to the point he’s a consistent scoring threat is where Gallo can make a significant leap as a player. The frustrating thing is he’s already been through several stages in his identity and hasn’t settled on one. In New York, he was a three-point specialist slowly learning to balance his game with inside play. In Denver, he’s been a foul-drawing machine with a broken jump-shot. The truth obviously lands him somewhere in the middle, but fans seem genuinely torn between appreciating Gallo’s unselfish game and expecting something more.

Gallo signed a reasonable four-year extension last season, the first of several long-term commitments the Nuggets made to players brought in entirely by Ujiri. If the hope is to hit the jackpot by assembling a core of budding young talent entering their primes, the gamble on Gallo still looks as good as any Denver has made since.

He’s currently sporting one of the five worst True Shooting percentages among NBA starters, so it’s tough to remember that Gallo is still a young player who was really starting to establish himself with the Nuggets last season. He was by far Denver’s most important player in terms of adjusted plus/minus, with all Nuggets lineups being significantly better on offense (+2.2) and defense (-6) with Gallinari in the fold. Here at Roundball Mining Company, much of our offseason banter focused on Gallo’s expanding role and his opportunity to have the breakout year many thought was coming last season.

I will refrain from making any snap judgments of Gallo’s early season struggles, but it is becoming clear he will struggle to guard the 4 and 5. He’s clearly at his best in a bigger lineup out on the perimeter where Gallo’s a constant mismatch with his size and offensive skills. Playing next to Harrington and Kenneth Faried in the front court has him stuck in the low post and struggling to see the ball on offense with Lawson, Miller, and now Iguodala all fighting for touches.

I’ve been encouraged with Gallo’s willingness to look for his shot this season and I still think he’s ready to put up a solid year. The major missing ingredient is the free throws. Gallo is averaging nearly two fewer shots at the rim than last season, despite an increased number of overall attempts. That clearly indicates the problem is deeper than simply not getting calls. Getting his shot attempts distributed evenly over more games will give us a much better picture of Gallo’s progress on the offensive end, where he has at least seemed willing to take on a bigger role.

Since being traded for Carmelo Anthony, Gallo seems to have inherited the title of default scapegoat when things go bad. It does seem like waiting for him to break out has become an annual rite of passage, but he remains a motivated 24 year-old slowed by injury just as much as anything else. He is no longer the great white hope with the promise of youth and boundless potential on his side, but Gallo should do plenty this season to justify our ranking of third-best. After two years and a shiny new $44 million invested last season, I’m just not sure that’s enough anymore.

It is important to keep in mind that the votes were tabulated during the off-season when the last time we heard or saw anything of McGee he had posted two fantastic playoff performances against the Lakers, signed a nice four year, $44 million contract and was spending time with one of the most physically gifted and fundamentally sound big men of all time, Hakeem Olajuwon.

It sure seemed like McGee was on his way up.

Fast forward to today and McGee is struggling in the preseason averaging less than eight points and well under four rebounds in 17.8 minutes in Denver’s five contests so far.  McGee has not hit his stride as a shot blocker, tallying only two so far, is shooting 43.9% from the floor and has yet to record an assist.  To make things worse, McGee has certainly been outplayed by Kosta Koufos and Timofey Mozgov.

Certainly it is unfair to rush to judgment over five preseason games and a paltry 89 minutes of floor time.  With McGee’s previous struggles and reputation any slippage in progress will be viewed with greater consternation than with other players on the roster.

With the Nuggets final two preseason games on national television starting Thursday night against the Los Angeles Clippers Nuggets fans will be able to catch a glimpse of McGee’s current standing.  Were stellar performances in the playoffs merely a fluke?  Did his big contract go to his head?  Is he just starting slow?  Is he simply working on the skills that he learned this summer resulting in some growing pains on the road to mastering the footwork and tactics necessary to be a consistent post scorer?

Anyone who claims to know exactly what the Nuggets will get from JaVale McGgee this season is treading dangerous ground.  McGee could certainly prove his #NuggetsRank position of number five to be accurate as he ends up moving into the starting lineup, displaying an improved post game and patrolling the paint on defense.  Of course, McGee is just as likely to struggle to live up to his new contract and be the highest paid third string center in the league.  Few players who have been in the league for four full seasons have such a wide range of possible outcomes for their fifth campaign.

At this point in his career McGee should be benefiting from the more stable environment that Denver supplies.  While he will most likely not be as consistent as his other teammates who man the pivot, his explosiveness and potential should shine through often enough to show his ranking here.

Landing at the No. 6 spot in our #NuggetsRank series is point guard Andre Miller, consummate professional, tireless workhorse, and by many accounts George Karl’s favorite player on the team. Last season Miller, along with Al Harrington, assumed a role of veteran leadership to help guide Denver’s young roster to a .576 record and sixth seed in the Western Conference. Playing all 66 games in the lockout-shortened season, he continued to lead the league in fewest missed games among players with 10+ seasons with an amazingly low six DNPs in 13 years in the NBA.

As everybody not living under a rock knows by now, Karl has fully exploited having the luxury of two starting caliber point guards on his squad, frequently deploying both at once in small ball lineups aimed at maximizing offensive efficiency by having a multitude of playmakers on the floor. In addition to Karl, Harrington and Miller received a hefty amount of criticism from fans dubious of this approach, as they played big minutes in closing stretches of games, sometimes to a net positive winning result, but often with the negative side effect of struggles on the defensive end.

There is some evidence lending credibility to the critique that Miller was overplayed. Last season, the Nuggets were the definition of average in games in which Miller played 30 minutes or more, going 11-11 (.500), while in contrast performing at a much higher level in games where he played fewer than 30 minutes, going 27-17 (.614). (Subtracting the games that Lawson missed, these records change to 9-9 and 27-16, respectively – not a significant difference, percentage-wise).

It is also true that Dre’s performance is slipping at this point in his career. His PER has steadily declined each year since the 2008-09 season, taking its biggest drop from 17.8 to 14.8 last season with Denver. Granted, the fact that he played five fewer minutes per game than the previous season and came off the bench accelerated the slippage, but the trajectory is clear: Miller’s game is on the wane.

Despite all this, at least for now Andre Miller rightly deserves his rank as the best Nuggets player outside the five who debuted the skyline alternates. Lawson may be the high-horsepower engine that drives Denver’s offense, but Miller has been a steady hand to right the course when the ship has gone astray.

A fair rebuttal to the critique above is that it’s really not Miller’s fault if Karl overplays him. He doesn’t dictate the rotations, he just does his job when called upon. But beyond that, there were a good number of games last season when the team as a whole was just not playing very well and he assumed the initiative to take control and start making some plays to get the Nuggets back into the game. On a roster of so many developing, inexperienced players, his knowledge, knack and feel for the game is a valuable asset.

When it comes to creating his own offense, Miller may be a mediocre shooter, but he is arguably the best post player Denver has, and one of the best post-up guards in the league. His veteran craftiness probably exceeds his actual skill set, but he knows how to execute down low, and put himself in a great position to draw fouls and get to the free throw line, or dish off to cutters or perimeter shooters.

And of course passing is where he excels the most. One of the league’s better distributors, his 36.5 assist rate was Denver’s highest, and despite Lawson averaging over seven minutes more per game, Miller slightly exceeded him in assists. More than any other Nugget, he has demonstrated the ability to make the players around him better. (JaVale McGee’s improvement after being traded to the Nuggets is at least in part a testament to this).

Dre’s defense remains a liability, especially in the two PG lineups. Given the declining trajectory he’s on, and the addition of his former Philadelphia 76ers teammate Andre Iguodala – a great passer in his own right, and by far the superior defender – it will be interesting to see whether George Karl continues this season to give him big minutes off the bench. Especially in fourth quarter situations, Karl will have to come to a reckoning between two philosophies: 1) His belief that the best way to win in the clutch is making stops and letting defense create the offense; and 2) His desire to field his veteran playmaker, who he trusts to make the right basketball decisions. Most likely, he won’t be able to have his cake and eat it, too.

But for now, this is a favorable “problem” for a coach to have, and the Nuggets are fortunate to have a player of Miller’s quality at a backup position.

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No. 7 on Roundball Mining Company’s #NuggetsRank series is none other than Wilson Chandler. After coming to Denver in the winter of 2011, Chandler has spent much of his Nuggets career either sidelined due to injury or overseas. While many Nuggets fans love the versatility Chandler brings to the table, some feel his role on the team has been slipping ever since he arrived in Denver. But whatever side of the argument you fall on, there’s no denying that Chandler is one of the more talented players on the entire roster.

The fascinating thing about Wilson Chandler is, interestingly enough, the fact that there’s still so much about him we don’t understand. He’s a lot like the ocean. He’s visible. We can grasp the basics of who he is. But we still haven’t seen deepest aspects of his game — how he plays under pressure, through adversity and in the spotlight. He’s never really had the chance to do that in Denver. Most of the time he’s injured and when he’s not he’s stuck behind Danilo Gallinari, being short changed on minutes. This will be the third year Chandler dons a Nuggets uniform, yet he’s played less than 30 games over that period of time.

Chandler’s best stretch as a pro came in 2010 while still with the Knicks. In 51 games prior to the All-Star break he averaged roughly 16 points, six rebounds, two assists, 1.5 blocks and .7 steals per game. During that time he saw an average of 35 minutes per game — or, starter minutes. From October to December Chandler scored at least 20 points on more than 15 different occasions and in December alone he averaged 19 points per game. In fact, through the first three months of 2010-11 season while still with the Knicks, Chandler actually outperformed Gallinari when given about the same amount of court time.

The point is: Like any player in the NBA, Chandler is at his best when he’s getting a steady dose of heavy minutes. Those minutes, however, have evaded him while in Denver. This isn’t his fault, nor the fault of the coaches. Chandler simply hasn’t been able to stay healthy long enough to establish himself as a critical cog in the rotation. If he ever does regain his health Denver will be a much more dangerous team, especially off the bench. Chandler’s defense, versatility and ability to score are integral parts of the Nuggets overall identity.

In the meantime, Chandler and his fans will do what they’ve done all along since his arrival in Denver: wait. Let’s just hope that this time, that wait pays off.

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Coming in at No. 8 on Roundball Mining Company’s #NuggetsRank list is sophomore sensation, Jordan Hamilton. To many readers this may come as as surprise and even an injustice; after all, Hamilton has yet to log an extensive stretch of significant minutes at the NBA level in his brief career. But in the eyes of our writers who watched him showcase his skill-set at Summer League, there was just no way Hamilton was going to end up being ranked any lower — and here’s why…

The thing about Jordan Hamilton — when you’re juxtaposing him alongside his teammates — is that he has a pure, innate talent for scoring the basketball, which is hard to say about anybody else. There’s a lot of players on the Nuggets roster who can score. In fact, the entire roster is loaded with guys who can net 15-20 points any given night. But not many of those are players, if any, are pure scorers. Jordan Hamilton, we feel, is that type of deadly offensive threat that this Nuggets team may very well be lacking.

You could make a case that right now, Jordan Hamilton is the best shooter on the entire Nuggets roster. Whether this is actually true is up for debate. But the fact is, you can make the case. Nuggets fans already saw Hamilton light it up from downtown in only the first half of the very first preseason game of his career. At Summer League in Las Vegas he shot .38 percent from 3-point range, taking no less than five 3-point attempts per game. During his entire rookie year Hamilton shot .362 percent from beyond the arc.

This isn’t anything to write home about, really. After all, Ty Lawson has a career 3-point average of .388 percent and Gallinari, while seeing his long-distance shooting percentage dip every year since coming in the league, still has a respectable .368 career percentage from deep.

The difference: Jordan Hamilton makes tough 3-point shots and he likes it. He hunts after it. It’s what he’s good at; not what he’s forced to do in order to beat the shot clock or execute a play. Jordan Hamilton is the type of guy who, much like former Nugget, J.R. Smith, is a threat to go off every night that he steps on the floor. As decent as Andre Iguodala, Ty Lawson and Danilo Gallinari are at making the three, none have incorporated it into their arsenal over the last few years the way Jordan Hamilton looks to be already doing this year. With those guys, it was always just a way to score; with Hamilton, it’s a way to kill you.

In addition to hitting the three with accuracy, Hamilton has a nice mid-range game and can get to the basket when he puts his mind to it. He’s also an excellent rebounder for his size and has shown an enticing ability to distribute on more than one occasion.

Where Hamilton needs to improve is with his decision making and defense. Often times, again like J.R. Smith, Hamilton doesn’t know when to stop — when to finish off a nice hot streak or instead hoist up one too many ill-advised shots. This maturation should come in due time, however this is something that has followed Hamilton throughout his career up to this point, which is somewhat of a cause for concern. If Hamilton can mitigate these “rookie” mistakes by playing rugged defense, his court time and standing with George Karl should be more than secure.

This year’s Nuggets squad has many different and intriguing storylines: How will Faried develop? Will Lawson emerge as a true leader? Will McGee finally reach his potential that went untapped in Washington? These are all valid and fascinating narratives. But Jordan Hamilton is perhaps the most interesting of them all when you consider how little we really know about him and at the same time, how truly talented he is.

Is Hamilton the J.R. Smith Nuggets fans always wanted J.R. Smith to actually be? If the answer to that question is “yes,” then Nuggets fans may finally be able to close the book on one of the most beloved players in recent Nuggets history (J.R. Smith), while simultaneously opening an even better book altogether in Jordan Hamilton.

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He cannot make three pointers (26% last season), he cannot make free throws (69.2% last season), he is not adept at setting up his teammates (placing between such spectacular set up men as Quentin Richardson and Jamario Moon in assist rate) nor does he rebound (Andre Miller posted a better rebound rate 7.0 to 6.8 despite being seven inches shorter).

The one thing Brewer does do well is steal the ball ranking seventh in the NBA last season in steals per minute (displayed here as steals per 48 minutes).  Of course as Nuggets fans have learned from Allen Iverson, steals are great, but are not necessarily a barometer of good defense.

Of course, Individual statistics only display part of the story.  Surely we can find some team stats which demonstrate Brewer’s positive impact.  Well, guess again.  One would expect the Nuggets offense to be slightly worse with Brewer on the court seeing as how he is not a particularly good scorer, but certainly their defense is better with Brewer on the court, than without him.  Brewer is a defensive specialist, right?

Well, Denver’s offense is worse with Brewer on the court compiling an offensive efficiency of 111.5 with Brewer on the pine and 109.7, which is still fantastic, with Brewer on the court.  Shockingly the Nuggets defense is a porous 106.8 with Brewer on the court and that is no different than the 106.8 defensive efficiency they produce without him.

If we transition to adjusted plus/minus, Brewer looks a little better receiving an adjusted one year plus/minus rating of 1.51, which basically means Brewer has a positive net effect when on the floor when considering the caliber of players he is playing with and against.  Brewer did receive the fourth best adjusted plus/minus of all Nuggets players.  Of course, the efficacy of adjusted plus/minus takes a big hit thanks to Al Harrington’s positioning on the list.

Again, how is it that Corey Brewer can possible rank as highly as ninth?

Brewer does a couple of things very well.  First of all, his steals are a big boost for a team that relies so heavily on transition offense.  Equally as important, Brewer is able to deflect and intercept passes without taking numerous unnecessary risks.  Brewer is not a lock down defender by any means, but he plays hard on defense all the time and he is rarely out of position.

Offensively, Brewer is a blur in transition and is one of the only Nuggets who know how to move without the ball on offense.  He is adept at sneaking along the baseline and popping out at the rim from behind the defense for a quick layup.

Finally, Brewer is a fantastic teammate.  Always smiling, and always positive.  When analyzing players, it is easy to forget what happens behind the scenes.  It was great to see Brewer interact with the Dallas Mavericks when he was given his championship ring on opening night last season.  Despite only being with the Mavericks for three months, there was a genuine excitement from the Mavs to see him receive his ring.

In conclusion, either we are sophisticated basketball minds for recognizing Corey Brewer’s value despite the requisite statistical evidence, or we are being suckered in by intangibles and overrating a player who is below average in almost every way.

Brewer certainly has many flaws as a player, but as long as his body holds up, he will always be welcome on someone’s roster and right now Denver is fortunate that he is on theirs.

Anthony Randolph tops the trio of enigmatic seven-footers on Denver’s roster at no. 10 in our #NuggetsRank series. It’s going to surprise a lot of Nuggets fans that he ranks ahead of incumbent centers  Kosta Koufos and Timofey Mozgov despite being the least likely to receive playing time among all three.

I’ll admit, something about it doesn’t seem right. Perhaps it’s a sad reminder that draft hype can carry an NBA career for a while. Randolph and fellow 2008 draftee Kosta Koufos both signed long-term extensions with the Nuggets despite neither having much success as rotation players.

After three teams and four years, the one thing we can say definitively about Randolph is that he knows how to disappoint. While Randolph is supposedly headed to a wide-open system best suited to bringing out his talents, the same things were said upon his arrival in New York and Minnesota. He teased and disappointed then, so why should things be any different with another change of scenery to Denver?

With Anthony Randolph there are no guarantees. The Nuggets knew that going in and risked very little to sign him. I was surprised he chose a bargain three-year deal with Denver after apparently fielding offers from Dallas and Atlanta. At the time, he looked like a solid addition to the Nuggets’ depth but faced an uphill battle for playing time in a crowded frontcourt.

Needless to say, that all changed just a few weeks later with Al Harrington being swapped in the blockbuster Dwight Howard trade. Suddenly the Nuggets had a clear need for a longer four to compliment Kenneth Faried and their more traditional centers. Randolph’s acquisition started to make a lot more sense as you started seeing playing opportunities open up for him with the Nuggets.

Part of the Anthony Randolph experience is getting caught up in all the hype. He really could be a fantastic player with the right plan of attack. The Nuggets are getting him at an age where he can still become a piece in a developing young core. Fans of Golden State, Minnesota and New York have all heard this before, but with Randolph now signed to a cheap deal in Denver it’s just too hard to avoid the temptation. Is he all hype?  I’d argue there’s still time to figure that out. The bottom line is there are just too many reasons to get excited about his possible fit with this Nuggets team.

First, he’s coming to a coaching staff with a solid record of getting young players to produce in the Nuggets’ system. Randolph has an existing relationship with assistant coach Melvin Hunt and specifically mentioned the coaching staff when asked about choosing the Nuggets.

Although he missed opportunities to play in Minnesota and New York, Randolph was overshadowed by great power forwards in both situations. With only Kenneth Faried and JaVale McGee loosely entrenched in the future frontcourt, there is no Kevin Love or Amare Stoudemire hanging over Randolph’s prospects in Denver. At 23, he’s in a unique situation in that this could be his last shot before reputation catches up and earns him the label of career benchwarmer.

Statistically, Randolph is a complicated player to figure out. As John Hollinger noted in his player previews, Randolph produces efficiently and looks the part, but his teams tends to be better without him on the floor. He is not a very creative player on offense and offers no consistency outside of being a monster finisher at the rim. It’s clear he isn’t the playmaking threat his draft buzz suggested he might be and if we know anything about Randolph in Denver, it’s that he’ll probably play the four or five exclusively.

If the Nuggets can focus his game instead of trying to showcase his versatility, Randolph might become a lot more useful the court. Offensively, he rushes everything and makes poor decisions with the ball. Most frustrating is his natural instinct to turn and put the ball on the floor after catching it. As a result Randolph is never squared up to the basket when shooting, often resulting in lots of head fakes followed by clumsy dribbling and a turnover.

If he stopped shooting off the dribble so much, Randolph might develop a serviceable midrange game. As it stands now, he can’t create anything with his passing and is an unreliable driving threat. Teams know they can force Randolph to put it on the floor and he’ll struggle to make the right play.

In Denver, Randolph won’t play if he doesn’t get a lot better at moving the ball quickly. I think he can grasp the Nuggets concept of not holding the ball and letting the guards do the work, but he’ll have to do more to crack the rotation. Becoming either a shooting or passing threat from the perimeter is essential to setting himself apart from the other bigs on this roster.

How he does it is less important than just being able to earn the coaches’ trust. Randolph is a supreme athletic talent now starting from scratch in the mile high city. Is it foolish to keep buying his story of hope and redemption and after four years of empty promises?

Yes, it probably is. One of the side effects of being a cynical NBA fan is obsessing over the hype that surrounds young prospects like Randolph. As a fan, you know it’s wrong to rank him above less spectacular players but you can’t resist.

It’s all part of the Anthony Randolph experience. I am not saying the Nuggets need Randolph to develop in order to succeed – they clearly don’t. It will, however, be incredibly disappointing if Randolph doesn’t work himself into a better place than where he is now.

You need to take a risk on players with the highest potential ceilings in professional sports. Anthony Randolph still looks like a worthwhile shot at that prized jackpot for a very reasonable price. Eventually youth loses its luster and NBA players are who they are at a certain point in their careers. Fortunately for Randolph, there’s a still a year or two in Denver to try and figure out who that is.

He now enters the final year of his contract as one of the biggest unknowns on the team.

Mozgov began last year’s lockout-shortened season as the de facto starting center, but never looked comfortable in that role before injuries and inconsistency starting affecting his playing time. He notably bounced back as an impact player and eventual starter in the Lakers series, but prior to that Mozgov was out of the rotation completely. The Nuggets left him on the bench for their playoff push after he struggled to return from an ankle injury.

Where Mozgov stands heading into this season is anyone’s guess. His defense has proven to be useful against the more physical teams in the league, but he’s been foul prone and inconsistent. He looks coordinated and aware in the overseas game, but his offense is marred by a high turnover rate and low field goal percentage at the rim.

Mozgov has shown reasonable development in his first two NBA seasons, raising his rebound rate and true shooting percentage each year. On the other hand his turnover problem has gone from bad to worse. There’s still reason to hope Mozgov puts it together this year, but he’s now 26 and still trying to establish himself as a rotation player.

He may not have youth or the promise of boundless potential on his side anymore, but Mozgov still shows flashes of an ideal package of size and skill otherwise missing on Denver’s roster. The Nuggets wouldn’t have brought him back from the dead in the playoffs if he didn’t offer something unique

In theory, Mozgov should be the mobile big who can physically match up with true centers in Denver’s uptempo style. In practice, he gives you solid D in exchange for little to no offense with plenty of turnovers. He turned the ball over on 19.8% of his possessions last season, an absurd amount for a low usage backup center and worse than his rookie mark of 18.3%.

Even with a mostly inept offensive game, Mozgov has shown enough in other areas to avoid being shut out of the long-term plans entirely. It’s not out of the question for the Nuggets to extend his contract and keep him as a compliment to JaVale McGee in a scenario the Nuggets will be betting on by giving him minutes next season.

Mozgov had an active summer, first qualifying for the Olympics in Venezuela and of course being Russia’s second leading scorer throughout their Bronze medal run in London. It’s hard to say with certainty that the Nuggets can learn anything concrete from the Olympics, but it is evidence Mozgov can be an effective two-way center in a FIBA setting.

Nuggets fans may not have to wait much longer to find out whether or not Mozgov’s European success will ever translate to the NBA. At this stage in his development, there’s no more time keep waiting around for an answer.

Mozgov will walk a fine line between trade chip and promising young player throughout the upcoming season. On opening night he could conceivably be the starting center or out of rotation altogether.

It’s clear Timofey Mozgov has untapped potential as a player who gives the Nuggets frontcourt a different look, but much harder to see where he fits into the long-term plan. While he’s certainly good enough to garner continued development somewhere in the league, his window for doing it in Denver is rapidly coming to a close.

Some Denver Nuggets fans may find it surprising that the No. 12 player in Roundball Mining Company’s #NuggetsRank series is Kosta Koufos. After all, he may have started the season coming off the bench, but he performed admirably as a starter after Timofey Mozgov went down with an ankle injury in early February last season. In fact, the Nuggets won 16 of the 24 games Koufos started (a .667 winning percentage, good for nearly 55 wins in an 82 game season) as opposed to breaking even at 12-12 in the 24 games he played as a reserve. By comparison, Denver won 20 of 35 games which Mozgov started (.571, or 47 wins in an 82 game season).

This raises the question: Why is Koufos ranked so low as to indicate he might be best kept out of the regular rotation? ESPN’s David Thorpe would surely take issue with this. He recently wrote an article for Insider predicting that the young center is up for a breakout season. Thorpe believes that Koufos is more likely than Mozgov to earn over 20 minutes per game backing up JaVale McGee, and considers him a future starter who could have a breakthrough in 2012-13 which mirors that of Marcin Gortat.

As our ranking reflects, it’s safe to say that none of us here at RMC appear to be quite as bullish as Thorpe on Koufos. But it should be pointed out that in our voting, the cluster of players above the bottom three had very little separation, and if Koufos makes some tangible progress this season he should easily ascend to a #NuggetsRank several notches higher next year.

In order to reach the next tier, however, he will need to find his way to addressing at least some of his limitations. Thorpe correctly pointed out his highly efficient true shooting percentage (.608, scond on the team only to Kenneth Faried at .618), as well as his offensive and total rebound rates, which are both near the top in the NBA. But although these numbers don’t lie, neither do they tell the whole story.

This may well sound like a vague critique, but to me the best reason for ranking Koufos in the bottom five is that he doesn’t make himself an impactful presense on the court. This manifests itself in a variety of ways. Most obviously, on the physical front he’s clearly outmatched in the size and strengh department by his counterpart Mozgov.

At no time was this clearer than in the playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers. Koufos probably gets a disproportionately bad rap for these performances, and a Pau Gasol/Andrew Bynum frontcourt creates very specific matchup issues. That said, Koufos simply wasn’t able to bring the physicality necessary to make much of any impact whatsoever. Granted, not every team can deploy such a formidable lineup, but even so he will need to bulk up at least a little more to be more effective in getting good position, denying good position to his defensive assignments, boxing out and holding onto the ball when he gets it down low.

Koufos does indeed have an impressive TS%, but it loses its luster a bit when we take a closer look. The numbers at MySynergySports.com reveal that there are five types of plays which comprise the vast majority of Koufos’ shots: cuts (31.6 percent of his plays), offensive rebounds (25 percent), as the pick and roll roll man (13.7 percent), post-up (12.1 percent) and in transition (9 percent). If we divide these into two categories, shots that are the result of opportunity (offensive rebounds and transition plays), and the others which are the product of actual offensive plays, we can see that Koufos excels at scoring opportunistically, but is more pedestrian in the regular flow of the offense.

Shooting in transition and off of offensive boards, Koufos made 51 of 72 attempts for an incredibly efficient .708 field goal percentage. In post-ups, cuts and as the roll man he made 63 of 177 attempts, a .538 FG%, and in essence, these roughly three out of five shots are the ones which require execution on offense. .538 may not look so bad, but it’s well below the league average of a .627 percentage for at-rim field goals. Additionally, his usage rate of 14.0 is second lowest on the team, higher only than Julyan Stone at 11.7. Given this, and the fact that he actually did struggle more offensively as a starter, with his FG% dropping from .636 as a bench player to .574, it seems unlikely that if he were to get more minutes and more touches that his shooting numbers would hold.

Now to be clear, the fact that his TS% gets a boost from a big share of high percentage shots is a good thing for the Nuggets as it increases their overall offensive efficiency. And I certainly do not mean to disparage the high value of offensive rebounds and fast break opportunities. One of Koufos’ greatest assets for this team is his ability to run the floor and move well without the ball, and it’s an aspect of his game which meshes perfectly with Denver’s style.

But in terms of these rankings, that’s part of the point. In discussing how to evaluate the Nuggets players, it was suggested (I believe by Charlie) that we should consider not only how well each player has played for the Nuggets, but how well he would fare if he played for any team in the league. Koufos is improving, but it’s pretty clear that he’s also reaping the benefits of playing in a system that amplifies his strengths.

In order to truly elevate his game to the next level, Koufos must cultivate a more reliable and diverse offensive cache which is based not only on hustle, but on executing in the half court. He does seem to be the more highly skilled player between he and Mozgov, but (and again, this may seem somewhat subjective) he needs to find a way to impact the game more. He almost seems to be somewhat of an Bizarro Corey Brewer. Rather than playing beyond his abilities, he seems not to push them quite to their limits. Which is not to suggest that he doesn’t play hard; he does. But if he can’t find a way to make his presence felt and respected more on the court, it’s doubtful he’ll become a starter in the NBA, and more likely that he’ll settle into a Chris Andersen-esque career 20 minute guy niche. Developing a more reliable offensive skill set could be one tangible step in the right direction.

In the meantime, the success the Nuggets had with Koufos as a starter last season will surely have earned him the chance to get some significant playing time this season. If he’s truly capable of a breakout year, he’ll get his chance to prove it.