Five Mistakes The Denver Nuggets Made This Season

Apr 2, 2014; Denver, CO, USA; Denver Nuggets guard Aaron Brooks (0) gets ready to shoot the ball during the second half against the New Orleans Pelicans at Pepsi Center. The Nuggets won 137-107. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

Not Getting Aaron Brooks Earlier

Nate Robinson suffered a season ending ACL injury on January 29, 2014. Nuggets were 22-22 and 2.5 back of a playoff spot at the time.  On February 8, Ty Lawson suffered a rib injury. At that point the Nuggets went 1-8 including losing their last 5 in a row. They were already a dismal 25-33 when Lawson returned. In summary, the Nuggets went 3-15 from January 29 to March 3, leaving them with a record of 25-34 and far out of reach of making any type of playoff push.

It took the Nuggets nearly two weeks after the Lawson injury to pull off the Aaron Brooks trade when Brooks seemed expandable in Houston because of the overload of playmakers.

As Brian Patterson of The House of Houston wrote:

“In essence, the Rockets were dealing with a unique situation of being overstocked with too many guards — Aaron Brooks was the odd man out with James Harden, Patrick Beverley and Jeremy Lin commanding most of the minutes on the floor at that position.”

Although Aaron Brooks said he was hesitant to leave Houston, he was lost in that Houston rotation since his return from playing in China and Sacramento. Brooks is only 29 and has a lot of gas left in that tank. He wanted a shot at playing meaningful minutes. There were a lot of meaningful minutes to be had on that Nuggets’ roster since the Robinson injury. This even increased when Ty Lawson went out of commission, but the Nuggets didn’t pull the trigger right away.  By the time Brooks arrived, they had lost enough games that virtually eliminated them from playoff contention.