{"id":113821,"date":"2024-12-24T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T11:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=113821"},"modified":"2024-12-24T01:58:02","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T06:58:02","slug":"nuggets-michael-malone-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/24\/nuggets-michael-malone-trade-rumors\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets’ Michael Malone Pours Cold Water on Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the NBA teams presently mired in trade rumors on <\/span>the daily<\/span>, Denver Nuggets head coach\u00a0<\/span>Michael Malone<\/span><\/a>\u00a0wants nothing to do with them. His squad is 26 games into the season and has played an up-and-down schedule to date. On top of that, Malone’s team is also a hot topic of conversation regarding the trade market\u2014a conversation that includes one of his star players.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nuggets’ Michael Malone Pours Cold Water on Trade Rumors<\/h2>\n

Nuggets Head Coach Michael Malone Isn’t Interested in Trade Rumors<\/h3>\n

The trade speculation that has emerged to overshadow the Nuggets organization might be somewhat surprising, given their overall success in the past two seasons. It just feels strange to think of a\u00a0<\/span>Nikola Jokic<\/span><\/a>-led team on the brink of making significant roster changes via trade. Of course, the Nuggets are no stranger to roster change in other ways. Two key championship pieces have walk<\/span>ed in free agency in each of the last two offseason. Those two players are, of course,\u00a0<\/span>Kentavious Caldwell-Pope<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Bruce Brown<\/span><\/a>. That said, with\u00a0<\/span>Michael Porter Jr<\/span><\/a>.’s name popping up in trade rumors lately and the conversation surrounding the Nuggets needing to make a big trade\u2014again, it just feels weird that they’re even in this position to begin with.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the noise grows louder and more unavoidable, Malone appears to be over it. He dismissed all the rumblings<\/a> before his Nuggets blew out the\u00a0<\/span>Phoenix Suns<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on Monday night, 117-90.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, a lot of it is noise. I don\u2019t know where it comes from. You see different things that are out there, and you never want that stuff getting out there. I\u2019ve talked to Calvin [Booth, Nuggets GM], and Calvin has a good pulse on all that stuff. Whenever that stuff is happening, he\u2019s in touch with the guys and their agents to let them know what is real and what is not real,” Malone said. \u201cAs of right now, as we are 26 games into the season, I think there\u2019s nothing to that. That\u2019s where you worry about guys worrying about the wrong things.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Denver Remains A Championship Contender, If…<\/h3>\n

Malone alluding to his players staying in the right mindset can be easier said than done. However, it is the right motivation for a coach to pass on to his team. Porter Jr. is the highlighted player in this conversation. However, he is not what ails the Nuggets\u2014far from it, in fact.<\/p>\n

Denver suffers from depth issues most of all. When Jokic takes a break on the bench, the Nuggets struggle mightily.\u00a0<\/span>Jamal Murray<\/span><\/a>, who didn’t dress against Phoenix, has come on hot of late, scoring 20-plus points in each of his last four games played. He has generally struggled this season, one reason Denver has struggled as a team. Despite the team’s overall inconsistencies, they’re not far off from returning to championship contention. With Jokic dominating night after night, contention might be even closer.\u00a0<\/span>The three-time MVP is rounding into form again.<\/span><\/a> There’s no question that Jokic’s play of late has been a significant propeller of the Nuggets improvement over recent weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Denver does need to address a flaw in their roster, it comes from the bench, not their 18 points per game forward. Of course, one could argue shipping Porter Jr. out would bring back pieces the Nuggets need to improve their depth. Or, if not depth, another offensive scorer Malone can rely on when Jokic hits the bench. Regardless, if Denver has any further chances of contending, they must add secondary scoring and second-unit strength. I’m not sure\u00a0<\/span>giving up Porter Jr<\/span><\/a>. is the way to go about it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of all the NBA teams presently mired in trade rumors on the daily, Denver Nuggets head coach\u00a0Michael Malone\u00a0wants nothing to do with them. His squad is 26 games into the season and has played an up-and-down schedule to date. On top of that, Malone’s team is also a hot topic of conversation regarding the trade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":113822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1608,62,4721],"tags":[4533,109,1105,1230,1223,72],"class_list":["post-113821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nuggets","category-basketball","category-nba","category-trade-rumors","tag-bruce-brown","tag-jamal-murray","tag-kentavious-caldwell-pope","tag-michael-malone","tag-michael-porter-jr","tag-nikola-jokic"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113821"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113828,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113821\/revisions\/113828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}