by Not necessarily Russell Westbrook substitute Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on the Denver Nuggets. They don’t even technically play the same position. One of them is making almost $23 million this season. The other earns the minimum. But when the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Nuggets 102-87 on their home court Thursday, it was hard to think of anything other than “the Nuggets look like a team that replaced Kentavious Caldwell-Pope with Russell Westbrook.”
Almost all of Denver’s problems from last season persisted until the opening loss. Many were made worse. Denver attempted a league-low 31.2 3-pointers per game last season. They shot 7 of 39 from distance on Thursday. They ranked 29th in free throw attempts with 19.9 per game. They only attempted 14 against the Thunder.
Westbrook wasn’t the only attacker on that front, but his presence was a startling reminder of the regression the Nuggets — who are just two seasons removed from an NBA championship — took when they let Caldwell-Pope walk. Caldwell-Pope shot over 40% on 3-pointers a season ago. Westbrook is perhaps the worst high-volume shooter in NBA history, and he finished the game with just six points as he shot 2 of 10 from the floor and 1 of 6 from deep in the opening game. Caldwell-Pope’s placement on the floor helped give drivers an advantage near the rim. The Thunder didn’t bother guarding Westbrook while he was on the perimeter. They invested those extra resources into removing the paint without the need for a foul. Caldwell-Pope’s perimeter defense would have been very useful against reigning MVP runner-up Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who scored 28 points for Oklahoma City in the win.
This was all somewhat predictable. Westbrook is on his sixth team in seven years largely because of these deficiencies, but being introduced to a roster that already shared some of these issues only exacerbated them. Even at the beginning of the Nikola Jokic era, backup minutes had been a disaster for Denver. In fact, the Nuggets lost Westbrook’s 21 minutes for a total of 24 points.
The first number is just as important as the second. No Denver reserve played as many minutes as Westbrook. Not defensive ace Peyton Watson, who perhaps could have harassed Gilgeous-Alexander a little more if given the chance. Neither did Julian Strawther, who made 22 of his 48 3-point attempts in Summer League and the preseason combined. At least both will get rotation minutes this year. Nuggets coach Michael Malone is notoriously slow to trust young players and only used them irregularly a year ago.
Letting Caldwell-Pope go was largely a financial decision and a justifiable one given the second frontcourt and subsequent extensions for Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon. It was also apparently a message from Denver’s front office to Malone: Use the young guys because you won’t have the same caliber of veterans available. It’s hard to imagine Thursday being exactly what they imagined.
It’s a game where you should almost never panic. This is especially true when it comes to your opponent. The Thunder were just the youngest No. 1 team in NBA history. They have a chance at a historically dominant defense after replacing Josh Giddey with Alex Caruso and signing free-agent center Isaiah Hartenstein (who didn’t play on Thursday).
Shooting Variance is a harsh mistress. The Nuggets won’t miss as many free appearances as they did every night against the Thunder. There are still ways to make this work. Westbrook, despite all his flaws, still has roles on the NBA roster. But his fit on this roster remains questionable at best, and the loss of one of the few role players in the NBA who could do most of the things Denver currently lacks has only made that more apparent.
Westbrook didn’t face a ready-made champion like the Nuggets were before the departures of Caldwell-Pope, Bruce Brown and Jeff Green. He didn’t even end up in a situation similar to the Clippers team he signed with in 2023. This team was at least ready to shoot and willing to maximize him as a transition threat and secondary ball-handler.
This game, while still immensely talented with the 2023 champions’ core four, has just as many flaws as it did a season ago when it was eliminated in the second round by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Their biggest offseason move was adding a player with some of the same flaws and a handful of new flaws.
The result was more or less what we expected. The Nuggets were a poor shooting team last year and were a worse shooting team on Thursday. Last season they had problems with the bench lineups on the field and had problems again against the Thunder when the man who was supposed to fix them had as many turnovers as he made field goals.
There’s still plenty of time to address all of this, but it will require a more proactive solution than replacing a star role player with a declining Hall of Famer who may not have even made sense with Denver at his best.
