With all the attention placed on Kevin Durant earlier this week, it might be easier to forget that there’s another D.C. native headed back to town this week to show off his NBA dominance.
Of course, Denver Nuggets point guard Ty Lawson knows that the only way he’ll end up an NBA All-Star will be if the coaches decide he’s worthy. He’s the brightest star on a team that hasn’t missed a beat since Carmelo Anthony left for New York last season and is redefining the notion of how a contending team is built, through a deep roster of solid contributors, not a top-heavy roster of superstars and also-rans.
“I think we’re just a bunch of players,” Lawson said on Thursday. “We don’t have a superstar, but we have a bunch of great players that can start anywhere, with people on the bench that can start. We don’t need that superstar or three superstars to come together and then just a bunch of, I’m not going to say fill-ins, but that’s basically how it is in some ways because they don’t have enough money to play their players. We take that, and we run with it.”
Slimmed down and grown up, taking charge once Chauncey Billups departed with Anthony, Lawson (16.1 ppg, 6.7 apg) is having his best season in his third year out of North Carolina. Having kept his game sharp with a fearless stint in Lithuania this fall, he’s jumped right in and loves the compressed NBA schedule.
“I knew there was going to be a lot of game, which I’m a fan of a lot of games,” he said. “Practice isn’t really my forte, but I’m definitely a fan of it, playing back to back games. It’s fun going to a different city every night and playing a game.”
The Nuggets (10-5) handed the Philadelphia 76ers their first home loss of a season on Wednesday, a 108-104 win in overtime at Wells Fargo Center, which Lawson said was crazy and more like Rucker Park in New York City with the way the fans hoot and holler. Denver got 28 points off the bench in that game from Andre Miller, one of five other players besides Lawson to average at least 10.5 points per game. That number could grow to seven if the Nuggets get back Wilson Chandler when the Chinese season ends. Lawson was less sure about a return for Kenyon Martin and J.R. Smith, but there’s only so many spots available, which is a contrast to what the roster looked like when the lockout ended. At that point, Nene and Arron Afflalo were both free agents, but each made a smart decision to return while Denver also picked up Rudy Fernandez and the perennially underrated Corey Brewer.
In fact, one could argue that Denver should be the model for what the Wizards aspire to become in the future, not the Oklahoma City Thunder. The dynamic is interesting enough to the NBA that the Nuggets will be followed around by cameras this season in the same way that the Boston Celtics were last year in the third installment of The Association.
“Our confidence is flying high right now,” Lawson said. “We’re playing together. We’re having fun. The melodrama, everybody puts a big deal on the Melo-drama. Like, to me, I don’t think it really was because he never – it would’ve been drama if he was like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be here, I don’t like it.’ He’s a very personable guy, a fun-loving guy, one of the best teammates I’ve ever had so we never got that perception that he wanted to leave. It wasn’t too bad, but after that we didn’t know who was going to be here, who was going to be with us, but now we have the whole season, and it’s going to be big for us. We’re going to be good.”
So the Nuggets are just fine. The question is whether Lawson gets the attention that he deserves. He’d prefer it comes in the context of the team itself.
“I’m not going to say ‘My team,’” he said. “It’s not anybody’s team. It’s all of our team together. We really don’t have a team where it’s one face of the team right now.”
