Back to Denver we go

Get-us-over NBA trades rarely come as obvious as the one which sent Aaron Gordon to the Nuggets in 2021. Denver ached for a multi-positional defender and a power forward who could score without needing the ball, a Millsap for the modern age, and the Nuggets found one who could dunk.

Gordon was the big piece, the final slot to fill in, and if the trade partners had been anyone but Orlando-to-Denver we’d recall the deal along the lines of the Marc or even Pau Gasol acquisitions, or the time the Knicks turned Walt Bellamy into Dave DeBusschere. Remember how smart Red Auerbach was trading for Dennis Johnson before DJ even won a title in Boston? Let alone a game?

But Gordon went from Orlando to Denver, from a team pundits don’t watch to a team pundits pretend they watch, or are prevented from watching.

Gordon is a lottery-level two-way talent who is not the go-to scorer he often fancied himself in Orlando. Stick a player like that in a position where he doesn’t have time to fancy anything, and he’s off.