Nuggets ship Lawson to West contender following arrest
When the Nuggets drafted point guard Emmanuel Mudiay in late June, Ty Lawson’s days in Denver appeared to be numbered. When Lawson was arrested in Los Angeles last week and charged with DUI for the second time in seven months, that number seemed to be rather small.
On Sunday, Yahoo Sports!/FOX Sports 1 NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski reported that number hit zero. On Monday, the teams made it official.
Lawson’s days in Denver are indeed over, as the team reached agreement with the Rockets to trade the troubled 27-year-old to Houston, the teams announced.
Rockets general manager Daryl Morey noted there are always risks with players, whether it's concerns like Lawson's or with injuries or other issues.
"When you're trying to be the best team out of 30 you've got to risk all over the place," he said.
Morey vowed that the team will help him stay on track after he leaves the 30-day treatment program he entered after the arrest.
"Through our conversations with him we feel confident that he's getting the help he needs," Morey said.
Denver will receive from Houston Joey Dorsey, Nick Johnson, Kostas Papanikolaou, Pablo Prigioni, a protected 2016 first round pick and cash considerations. In addition to Lawson, the Rockets will get a 2017 second-round pick. The Nuggets also have point guard Jameer Nelson, whom they acquired in a trade late last season.
Lawson has averaged 14.2 points, 6.6 assists and 2.9 rebounds in his six-season career, all with Denver, but he has averaged 16.4 points, 8.0 assists and 3.2 rebounds since becoming the Nuggets’ primary starter in the 2011-12 season. Last season, Lawson was third in the NBA with 9.6 assists per game.
But Lawson has had a rough 2015, beginning with his Jan. 23 arrest in Denver that resulted in a DUI charge. While that case is still making its way through the courts, Lawson last week entered the voluntary substance abuse program following last week’s arrest.
Sandwiched between those arrests was the drafting of Mudiay and the re-signing of Nelson, so the writing was clearly on the wall for Lawson.
Morey believes Lawson's threat as a scorer will help take some pressure off superstar James Harden, who finished second in MVP voting in 2015.
"He's one of the best playmakers in the league," Morey said of Lawson. "We struggled against teams that would really load up on James and we feel like that will be a lot more difficult for teams to do that now."
Lawson is friendly with Harden, Corey Brewer and Trevor Ariza and indicated to the Nuggets that Houston was a place he would like to play.
None of the four players the Rockets gave up were key members of last year's squad that reached the Western Conference finals before being eliminated by Golden State. Papanikolaou averaged 4.2 points in 43 games in the regular season last year, but played just 21 minutes in the postseason, and Johnson, another rookie, averaged only 1.3 points in the playoffs.
The 38-year-old Prigioni backed up Jason Terry late in the season after Beverley suffered a season-ending injury, but his contribution was minimal and he averaged only 3.1 points in the playoffs. Denver waived him just after the trade was announced.
Dorsey appeared in 69 games in the regular season and helped fill in when Dwight Howard was out by starting 17 games. But he fell out of favor with the team late in the season and played just 13 minutes in the playoffs as the Rockets gave rookie Clint Capela his spot in the rotation.
Lawson was a first-round pick by the Timberwolves in 2009 before being traded to the Nuggets that day. He averaged 14.2 points and 6.6 assists in his six-year career with Denver. The 27-year-old started a career-high 75 games last season and averaged 15.2 points and a career-best 9.6 assists.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
