Is this the end of the traditional shootaround?

Maybe.

Nuggets coach Brian Shaw and the decision-makers in the team’s front office are experimenting with abolishing the traditional shootaround as we know it. It would be replaced by players getting to the arena an hour earlier than usual — around 3 p.m. for a 7 p.m. game — and going through opponent preparation then.

The Nuggets did not have a shootaround Saturday before their game against the Memphis Grizzlies at the Pepsi Center.

“I’m going to experiment with it, I think, for the rest of the season and see how it works,” Shaw said. “Even if it doesn’t translate into wins and losses, just if our energy and our focus and everything is better.”

There are a couple of reasons for the change. The first is because of sleep studies the Nuggets have seen that show additional uninterrupted rest has a positive impact on the players’ attention and energy.

The second reason? “When you have a young team, you know, guys like to go out as well,” Shaw said. “Am I torturing them by making them get up in the morning when they can be sleeping? And whatever it is they did the night before, maybe they have more time to recover as well.”

It worked in Chicago, a game played after the Nuggets arrived in the Windy City on New Year’s Eve night. The Nuggets pushed their shootaround back and had a first half of the game that was one of their best this season. That was not lost on Shaw, though he admits he has too small a sample size to make a final judgment as to whether it works or not.

“It’s just something that I’m experimenting with now to try to get us to a point where we can come out and be a little bit more sharp,” he said. “Our attention span isn’t always the greatest.

“When we do stuff in the morning, sometimes it’s in one ear and out by the time we come back that night. So the closer we can do everything going into the game, hopefully it will be better for us.”