Denver Nuggets Win by Moving Ty Lawson
Ty Lawson, fresh off of another arrest, has been traded from the Denver Nuggets to the Houston Rockets. It’s a move a lot of people saw coming, but it’s still a huge win for the Nuggets.
The thing is, the only clear part of this before the trade was that the Nuggets had to get rid of Lawson. He’d been playing his best basketball, but he was also arrested for drunk driving twice in roughly six months. There was just no way the team could tolerate something like that.
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The fear was that they’d just have to cut him and move on, or that he wouldn’t have any trade value. Some people predicted that his value was shot because teams knew the Nuggets had to do something with him. Why pay a heavy price for a player who may end up on the open market anyway?
The Nuggets are the real winners, though, as they sent Lawson to the Rockets for a first-round pick. Granted, the Rockets were a playoff team last year, so that pick may not end up being all that high, but the West is also incredibly competitive and the Rockets are by no means the best team in it. The pick should still be very helpful, allowing the Nuggets to build up with young talent.
It’s the type of move the team wanted to make anyway. They were already drafting and using free agency to overhaul things to some degree. This move just gives that recreation a bit more of a push.
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The downside, of course, is that Lawson was playing very well. In that sense, a good Rockets team just got that much better, and the Nuggets will see a drop-off next season. This is not the type of move that pushes the team toward the top instantly.
For the Denver Nuggets, though, it’s not about winning next year. It’s about getting the pieces in place to be competitive for years. They have to catch teams like Golden State and San Antonio, and that’s not something that can be done in a single off-season. They have to take the slow approach, break things down, and build them back up. It’s frustrating, but it’s the best way to do it.
This isn’t to say the Nuggets won’t be competitive next year just because Lawson is gone. However, when the team does struggle, fans need to remember the stockpiled draft picks and keep their eyes on the future, which just got a bit brighter.