Denver Nuggets Must Get Creative to Trade Ty Lawson by Opening Night
If the Denver Nuggets are actually going to trade rumor-riddled franchise point guard Ty Lawson before the 2015-16 season tips off, they'll need to get creative.
Not creative in the sense they need to figure out how to make a deal work financially or creative in a way that entails them selecting the right package from a pool of competing offers. They're well past that point.
The Nuggets need to get creative by finding a taker for Lawson, period.
Bleacher Report's Howard Beck said the word around NBA Summer League circles is that Denver wants to offload Lawson before opening night—information that's less of a shock than it is a completely expected development.
Selecting fellow point guard Emmanuel Mudiay at No. 7 in this year's draft all but showed the Nuggets' hand: Lawson, in their eyes, does not have a future in Denver. And just in case Mudiay's arrival wasn't enough evidence, the Nuggets re-signed veteran floor general Jameer Nelson to a three-year deal for good measure, per ESPN.com's Marc Stein.
Each of those moves is merely an extension of the predraft rumblings that dominated the rumor mill ahead of June's prospect pageant. Sources told Grantland's Zach Lowe that Lawson was available heading into this past February's trade deadline, and CBS Sports' Ken Berger heard the Nuggets were working the phones, trying to find him a new home before the draft.
Though nothing ever materialized, Lawson's departure has, for some time, felt inevitable.
Now, it's less of a sure thing, but for all the wrong reasons.
Lawson was arrested in Los Angeles in the wee hours of Tuesday morning for driving under the influence. TMZ first broke the news, and Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly confirmed the arrest in a team statement, per Berger:
This is just the latest in a series of, to put it kindly, unfortunate events.
Lawson was arrested for DUI in January, making this his second offense in less than six months. He wasn't receptive to former head coach Brian Shaw's offensive constructs, either—though, admittedly, that holds true for pretty much the entire 2014-15 Nuggets squad. It was only Lawson, however, who missed the team's first practice following the All-Star break, according to the Denver Post's Jesse Paul and Christopher Dempsey.
In April, Lawson responded to an Instagram commenter imploring him to join the Dallas Mavericks. Of all the things he could have written, he went with: "I wish."
On draft night, footage surfaced of Lawson smoking hookah and reacting to the Nuggets' selection of Mudiay. His retort, once commissioner Adam Silver announced Mudiay's name, per the Washington Post's Des Bieler: "I told you. I'm going to Sacramento, bro."
The Nuggets were none too thrilled with Lawson's video hijinks. As Connelly told reporters, according to the Denver Post's Benjamin Hochman: "There's oftentimes poor judgement used by all of our players. ... It doesn't excite me."
Even less exciting is the impact all these off-court shenanigans are having on Lawson's trade value.
Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated goes as far as saying the Nuggets don't stand a chance of moving him, while Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski paints a similarly bleak picture:
Accounting for all the unknowns, most notably just how cold the market for Lawson was before, makes it nearly impossible to forecast Denver's next move, as well as whether there's even a team willing to acquire the embattled point guard.
The way CBS Sports' Matt Moore sees it, the Nuggets have just a couple of options: Waive him and eat nearly $26 million in salary, or "trade him for a second-rounder and cap trash."
Neither of those is especially appealing, even if the Nuggets are supremely motivated to ship Lawson out of town.
Someone like him would usually command a hefty return in any deal. He's undersized at 5'11", but what he lacks in stature and defensive commitment, he makes up for with offensive dynamism.
Few floor generals weave in and out of the paint as easily as Lawson. He tied for second in drives per game among all qualified players last season, and it's his forays into the lane that fuel the Nuggets offense.
Only Chris Paul (47.4 percent), Russell Westbrook (47.0) and John Wall (46.3) assisted on a greater percentage of their team's made baskets when on the floor; Lawson ranked fourth, lending a helping hand on 43.0 percent of Denver's buckets.
Lawson's 19.3 assist opportunities per game were also tops among all point guards to appear in 25 or more contests with any one team, while his extrapolated stat-padding put him in exclusive company.
Three players maintained averages of at least 21 points and 13.5 assists per 100 possessions through 2014-15: Paul, Wall and Lawson.
Even though the Nuggets finished in the bottom 10 of offensive efficiency, this is the kind of statistical distinction that should have outside parties chomping at the bit for a piece of Lawson. And his contract is equally inviting. He's slated to earn $25.6 million through 2016-17, a bargain on paper when weighing it against next summer's ballooning salary cap.
Instead, though, the Nuggets are now left to scrape the bottom of the trade-proposal barrel. And that's assuming teams even want him at a steep discount.
Would the Philadelphia 76ers, a team in desperate need of a point guard, even be willing to send the Oklahoma City Thunder's 2016 top-15 protected pick to Denver in exchange for Lawson?
Might the Houston Rockets, an organization in need of another playmaker and known for gambling on talent, attach Donatas Motiejunas and Nick Johnson to the non-guaranteed deals of Kostas Papanikolaou and Pablo Prigioni?
Better yet, are the Nuggets keen on accepting offers along those lines?
If they actually want to move Lawson, they'll have no choice. This isn't last summer. It's not even last February. The Nuggets cannot ask for multiple first-round picks—as they have in the past, per Lowe—and do so with sincerity or with the hope that they won't be laughed off the phone.
Point guard remains the NBA's deepest position, which inherently drives down the price tag for most offensive pilots. And Lawson's situation is more complicated, thanks to his fast-fading off-court reputation and the fact that Denver is shopping him immediately after free agency and the draft, when most teams have already reshuffled their decks to desired degrees.
Attaching Lawson's contract to a pot-sweetener is another option, but that opens up an entirely different can of worms.
Does Danilo Gallinari suffice? Are there any teams outside Philadelphia able to meet the financial constraints that come with acquiring $24 million worth of contracts in one shot?
Are the Nuggets really at the point where they would consider dangling a first-rounder just to pawn off Lawson? They'll receive a first-round pick from the Memphis Grizzlies (via the Cleveland Cavaliers) by 2019, but is that an asset they can justify throwing away?
This is the slippery slope the Nuggets find themselves traversing. Lawson has officially exhausted what little leverage they had in the first place.
And, no matter how creative they are in negotiations, there's no way of getting it back before opening night.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited. Draft-pick commitments from RealGM. Salary information via Basketball Insiders.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danfavale.
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