

Denver Post sports writer Christopher Dempsey posts his Nuggets Mailbag on Thursdays.



Pose a Nuggets- or NBA-related question for the Nuggets Mailbag.



Are you tired of the Nuggets competing for a spot in the playoffs with no chance of ever getting to the NBA championship? What can be done to change Denver’s culture? After 20 seasons as a season-ticket holder, I have given up.



— Alex Cline, Denver



Alex – Twenty seasons! So you go back to the year the Nuggets upset Seattle in the first round of the playoffs, nearly beat Utah in the conference semifinals … and then never realized their full potential after that.



The Nuggets have tried a number of ways to get it done, whether it be overpaying for a talent (Kenyon Martin), trading for a star player (Allen Iverson), trading one star for another (Iverson for Chauncey Billups), drafting a future star (Carmelo Anthony) or, currently, putting together a deep roster of above-average players with no clear star on it. None of those has netted a title, and only the 2008-09 team reached the Western Conference finals.



This configuration did win 57 games two years ago, but injuries to key players (Danilo Gallinari, Kenneth Faried) helped derail what looked to be a team primed for a deep playoff run. I think this current regime is on the right track. They’ve not just sat back and done nothing, jumping in on Kevin Love among other players in free agency, but the real future of this team lies in what we see this season.



They did not compete for a playoff spot last season, so first and foremost they’ll need to find their way back. I think they will. Then, whenever it is they get eliminated, we’ll know more of what they need to advance further in the following season.



There’s value in that. For most of the teams in the NBA, there’s no skipping steps in order to put themselves in position to compete for a title. The Nuggets are in that boat. But I do believe this: This current regime, from coach Brian Shaw and his staff on up to the new front office, knows what putting together a title-contending team entails. And in my opinion, I think this team is going to be pretty good. I’m talking playoffs as a fifth or sixth seed, and then going in as a team nobody wants to face.



I’m a Colorado native, 39 years old. I’ve watched plenty of bad Nuggets basketball and good Nuggets basketball from McNichols Arena to the Pepsi Center. And I completely understand some of the apathy out there. But we are where we are, and improvement is the name of the game.



The Nuggets won 36 games last season. They need to re-establish themselves as a top Western Conference team and then go from there. I have patience enough to see this roster through — which only amounts to this season because a number of player contracts will expire or be one year from expiring. If this team stays healthy and misses the playoffs, trust me, there will be a gut-job of the roster come this time next year. I just don’t think it’s going to be necessary.



Anthony Randolph displayed that he had a decent game. Is there some other reason he never got traction and is now being hot-potatoed from team to team?



— Bill, Kersey



Bill – In the end, he just wasn’t consistent enough to warrant bringing back at a price tag of around $2 million. Randolph was the ultimate personification of a player who could do a number of different things well, but nothing great. Couple that with a tendency to get down on himself and let that affect his game, and the Nuggets were willing to part ways with him in order to clear room to acquire Gary Harris and Jusuf Nurkic on draft night.



Randolph is a player with a lot of tools; it will be interesting to see if he lands an NBA job next season. He was traded to the Bulls, who turned around and traded him to Orlando. The Magic then waived him. So Randolph now begins the uphill battle of getting himself back on an NBA roster somewhere with the promise of blossoming into the talent he can be.



The Nuggets drafted two European centers. Granted, they’re not immediate roster players, but is JaVale McGee on his way out of town if he doesn’t establish himself as a legitimate NBA center this year?



— Dustin, Florida



I’d say yes, Dustin, this is a very pivotal year for JaVale McGee. He’s got to stay healthy and play well to live up to the contract he inked after playing well a couple of years ago. If not, sure, there’s a possibility he could be dealt. McGee has two years and nearly $24 million left on his deal. His last season is $12 million, which isn’t impossible to deal, particularly because it would be an expiring deal. But we’ll see.



Reports are he’s looking good and on-target to hit the ground running at training camp in the fall. Jusuf Nurkic will take time to get up to speed. Nikola Jokic will not be on the roster in the fall. Timofey Mozgov is the player to watch, coming off of his best season as a professional. There are plenty of questions at center. McGee can ease a lot of concerns by arriving in shape, ready to play, with a work-hard, winning mind-set.



Chris – I am looking forward to this season for the Nuggets and think they will bounce back and get into the postseason. That is not saying much since half the league gets into the playoffs anyway. But I was curious what you are most looking forward to about the 2014-15 season.



— Jeff, Aurora



Jeff – I’d say it is saying a lot in the Western Conference, where 50 wins might only get you as high as seventh in the conference. It’s ultra-competitive, and I’m with you: I’m very much looking forward to the season with the return of Danilo Gallinari among others, giving the team a healthy look for the first time since the 2011-12 season.



I’m also curious to see just how much Kenneth Faried improves. And Ty Lawson. It’s not a popular opinion on the talk-show circuit, but I look for this team to regain much of what it was when it finished third in the West two years ago. If that is, in fact, the case, also think about this: San Antonio continues to be a juggernaut now, but its window is closing. Oklahoma City is staring down the proposition of maybe losing Kevin Durant to free agency in 2016 and hasn’t yet put enough solid role players on the team to get back to the NBA Finals. The Clippers will have major money decisions to make starting with center DeAndre Jordan, whose contract expires after the upcoming season.



The landscape of the West will change, and maybe change drastically. The Nuggets simply need to be in position to take advantage of it all with a team ready to take a contending step. I’m also very much looking forward to seeing coach Brian Shaw in his second season as head coach. He learned a lot last season, was placed in a number of different and challenging circumstances, and I believe he will come out aces because of it.



What do you think the Nuggets’ record would have been if George Karl had remained coach? While they may not have been as successful as last year, I contend they would have at least made the playoffs.



— Jerry Johnson, Cedar Rapids, Iowa



Jerry – Not even George Karl, as great a coach as he is, would have been able to make up the 13 additional wins the Nuggets would have needed to tie Dallas for the eighth seed in the playoffs. Not with a team that lost nearly 300 games to injuries. You can’t win without the most impactful players playing the vast majority of the season and that just wasn’t the case for the Nuggets last season.



Can Ty Lawson, Danilo Gallinari and Kenneth Faried be “The Big Three” for Denver?



— Okan, Turkey



Okan – We’re definitely going to find out. When Gallinari was injured two seasons ago, he left the team as its second-leading scorer. We’ll see if he can factor in the Nuggets’ top three scorers this season.



Ty Lawson, according to multiple people, is taking this offseason as seriously as any he ever has.



“Manimal” has already stated his goal of being a player of all-star caliber next season.



For the Nuggets to make any significant noise next season, those three will have to lead the charge.



Wasn’t the worst moment of the past season how Coach Shaw handled the Andre Miller-Coach Shaw meltdown? Right after the meltdown, the Nuggets ran out of healthy point guards and went on the very losing streak that knocked them out of the playoffs. Why leave that out of your best and worst moments analysis of the season?



— Andrew M., Santa Rosa, Calif.



Andrew – I actually think the situation was handled the best way it could have been. It was an unfortunate circumstance, but those do happen. And, ultimately, the Nuggets did get him traded and brought in Aaron Brooks, who played really well for them down the stretch. You see the Nuggets learned the point-guard lesson from that saga when they signed Erick Green right after this year’s summer league, thereby giving them three point guards on the roster.



How does that work that the 16th and 19th picks were reportedly drafted by the Nuggets but they were both wearing Bulls hats on draft night?



— Mark, Denver



Mark – It was a big fake-out, wasn’t it? In these cases, what happens is the two teams come to an agreement in principle, but the trade cannot be finalized until after the draft ends. So, each team agrees to pick the player or players the other team wants. The Nuggets, therefore, picked Doug McDermott at the direction of the Bulls. Chicago, then, selected Gary Harris and Jusuf Nurkic at the direction of the Nuggets.



Because the trade hadn’t become official at the time of the picks, those players donned the hats of the team that originally had the picks in those spots. So Dougie McBuckets had on a Nuggets hat even though he was actually never even drafted by the Nuggets. And the same for Harris and Nurkic.



It’s a misleading thing, to be sure, and something that NBA teams through the years have wondered why it can’t be changed. But with lawyers and everything else involved in approving trades, the NBA isn’t willing to rush things just so a player is wearing the hat of the team he’s headed to when he’s drafted.



Christopher Dempsey covers the Nuggets and NBA for The Denver Post. Pose a Nuggets- or NBA-related question for the Nuggets Mailbag.