A Denver Nuggets forward has been unfairly dissed by the league at large, according to one NBA pundit.
Denver has enjoyed an impressive offseason, building out its roster through trades and clever signings. The Nuggets traded the pricey contract of former starting small forward Michael Porter Jr. to the Brooklyn Nets for the cheaper Cameron Johnson, a better two-way player. Denver also signed veteran swingman Tim Hardaway Jr. and former Nuggets champion sixth man guard Bruce Brown to veteran's minimum deals, while trading for reserve center Jonas Valanciunas.
Those pieces, alongside returning starters Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, and Christian Braun, could prove formidable foes for even the Western Conference's best teams.
But what could really put Denver over the top in the West would be the Braun-like growth of some of the team's young draftees still on their rookie-scale contracts.
One such player with unheralded upside, Dan Favale of Bleacher Report posits, is backup wing Julian Strawther.
All told, Strawther appeared in 65 games for Denver during his second pro season, averaging a career-best 9.0 points while slashing .432/.349/.882, plus 2.2 rebounds, 1.3 assists and 0.6 steals per. But he did not have a major role in the team's initial playoff lineups.
Strawther did enjoy something of a folk hero moment during Denver's epic seven-game slugfest against the deeper Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round of this spring's playoffs.
The 6-foot-7 Gonzaga product was not even a consistent part of Denver head coach David Adelman's playoff rotation, suiting up in just nine of the Nuggets' 14 games. But he was pressed into service with Porter and starting power forward Aaron Gordon both rendered relatively ineffective by injuries, and responded in a big way during a surprise Game 6 victory.
Strawther got red-hot from distance, going 3-of-4 on triple tries and finishing with 15 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the floor and 4-of-4 shooting from the foul line overall, in just 19:31 of action.
Watching Julian Strawther go off in a Playoff game was a great experience pic.twitter.com/Ozh80OwxSW
— Nuggets World 🌎 (@NuggetsWorldd) July 8, 2025
He fell back down to earth in Denver's 125-93 blowout loss (which was a relatively close game in the first half), scoring just six points on 3-of-8 shooting in 17:34.
"Two seasons into his career, Strawther has yet to top 35 percent shooting from deep. That's not ideal," Favale writes. "Yet, last year's 34.9 percent clip represented a 5.2 point improvement from his rookie year and continued to come on volume Denver's rotation sorely needs."
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Ultimately, Strawther's off-ball cutting and growing efficiency from distance make him an intriguing option for the team's best passers, Favale posits.
"Strawther's movement is important, and it opens up more than his long-range game," Favale explains. "He can catch defenses sleeping with baseline cuts—though, he could stand to do more cutting overall—and is comfortable attacking the paint and getting to his floater, which he just drilled at a solid-but-has-room-for-improvement 45.2 percent clip."
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