How Much Will The Denver Nuggets Rely On JaVale McGee?

Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

Anybody who has watched sports on TBS or TNT, be it the NBA or the MLB playoffs, is familiar with Bleacher Report‘s Team Stream. They offer much of your team’s news in one place, linking to outlets from all over the web.

You can generally pick up the various threads and narratives for teams based on what shows up in the Team Stream. As an example, recent Denver Broncos streams have been full of adulation, praise, and historic stats about Peyton Manning and that prolific offense. Each team’s storylines are generally pretty cohesive. They usually make sense.

Unless Denver Nuggets center JaVale McGee is involved. The following is the actual Denver Nuggets Team Stream that showed up in my email inbox on September 17th.

Look at those McGee headlines. Talk about being all over the map. To recap: in a single day, we heard about McGee’s jumper, how he needs to improve, why he is entering a make-or-break season, and whether or not he’s smart. In a single day. On September 17th, in the dead of the NBA off-season.

McGee fascinates people because of his crazy athleticism and his seemingly bizarre personality. I love watching him play and I love cheering for him. The email that is screen-shotted above just makes me laugh. But enjoying the show and actually relying on McGee are two things that should be kept separate if possible.

Do you really want to rely on JaVale McGee? The Nuggets need him to play well, and on any night he does play well they have a huge advantage over the other team. But they cannot afford to be dependent on him like they are on Ty Lawson or Danilo Gallinari. At least not yet, and probably not ever.