Russell Westbrook’s Denver debut marred by same old problems as Nuggets look shaky in season-opening loss

Russell Westbrook didn’t necessarily replace Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on the Denver Nuggets. They don’t even technically play the same position. One of them is making almost $23 million this season. The other is earning the minimum. But as the Oklahoma City Thunder throttled the Nuggets 102-87 on their home court Thursday, it was hard to think anything besides “the Nuggets look like a team that replaced Kentavious Caldwell-Pope with Russell Westbrook.”

Almost all of Denver’s problems from last season persisted into their opening night defeat. Many were exacerbated. Denver attempted a league-low 31.2 3-pointers per game last season. They shot 7-of-39 from deep on Thursday. They ranked 29th in free throw attempts at 19.9 per game. They attempted just 14 against the Thunder.

Westbrook was hardly the only offender on these fronts, but his presence was a startling reminder of just what a step back the Nuggets — who are only two seasons removed from an NBA championship — took when they let Caldwell-Pope walk. Caldwell-Pope shot over 40% on 3-pointers a season ago. Westbrook is perhaps the worst high-volume shooter in NBA history, and he finished with only six points as he went 2-of-10 from the floor and 1-for-6 from deep in the opener. Having Caldwell-Pope space the floor helped create advantages for drivers near the rim. The Thunder didn’t bother guarding Westbrook as he hung around the perimeter. They devoted those extra resources to walling off the paint without needing to foul. Caldwell-Pope’s perimeter defense would have been pretty useful against reigning MVP runner-up Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who scored 28 for Oklahoma City in the victory.

This was all somewhat predictable. Westbrook is on his sixth team in seven years largely because of these defects, but introducing him to a roster that already shared some of these issues only served to magnify all of them. Bench minutes had already been a disaster for Denver dating back to the beginning of the Nikola Jokic era. Sure enough, the Nuggets lost Westbrook’s 21 minutes by 24 total points.

The first number is as important as the second. No Denver reserve played as many minutes as Westbrook did. Not defensive ace Peyton Watson, who might have been able to bother Gilgeous-Alexander a bit more if given the chance. Not Julian Strawther either, who made 22 of his 48 3-point attempts in Summer League and the preseason combined. At least they’re both getting rotation minutes this year. Nuggets coach Michael Malone is notoriously slow to trust youngsters and used them inconsistently a year ago.

Letting Caldwell-Pope walk was largely a financial decision, and a defensible one in light of the second apron and the extensions they gave to Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon afterward. It was seemingly also a message from Denver’s front office to Malone: use the young guys, because you’re not going to have the same caliber of veteran at your disposal. It’s hard to imagine Thursday is exactly what they had in mind.

It’s one game, which is almost never worth panicking over. That’s especially true in light of their opponent. The Thunder were just the youngest No. 1 seed in NBA history. They have a chance to have a historically dominant defense after replacing Josh Giddey with Alex Caruso and signing free-agent center Isaiah Hartenstein (who did not play Thursday). 

Shooting variance is a harsh mistress. The Nuggets aren’t going to miss as many open looks as they did against the Thunder every night. There are still ways to make this work. Westbrook, for all of his foibles, still has functions on an NBA roster. But his fit on this roster remains iffy at best, and the loss of one of the few role players in the NBA who could do most of the things Denver is currently lacking only made that more apparent. 

Westbrook did not walk onto a readymade champion, like the Nuggets were before the departures of Caldwell-Pope, Bruce Brown and Jeff Green. He didn’t even walk into a situation similar to the Clippers team he signed with in 2023. That team was at least flush with shooting and prepared to maximize him as a transition menace and secondary ball-handler.

This one, though still immensely talented with the core four from that 2023 champion, is as flawed as it was a season ago when it was knocked out of the second round by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Their biggest offseason move was to add a player with some of the same flaws and a handful of new ones.

The result was more or less what we should have expected. The Nuggets were a bad shooting team last year and a worse shooting team on Thursday. They struggled with bench lineups on the floor last season and struggled again against the Thunder when the man charged with fixing them had as many turnovers as made field goals. 

There’s still plenty of time to address all of this, but it’s going to require a more proactive solution than replacing a star role player with declining Hall of Famer who may not have even made sense with Denver at his best.