Nuggets GM Tim Connelly 'not a fan' of tanking

Denver Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly says losing begets more losing, which is why he's against the tanking approach to rebuilding.

"I know losing oftentimes teaches losing," Connelly told Chris Dempsey of the Denver Post on Tuesday when discussing the executive's reticence toward building through losses and ping pong balls. "I'm not a big fan of that approach."

After a tremendously disappointing 30-win campaign, Connelly opted to stand pat with his roster in an effort to maintain competitiveness. He used his team's cap room to sign 28-year-old Wilson Chandler and 27-year-old Danilo Gallinari to contract extensions.

As Connelly explained, those two will serve as pieces to build around for the future.

"Furthermore, I think when you have good, young players who are about to hit their prime, like Gallinari and Chandler, and they're telling you they want to be here, and they want to be here probably at a sub-market (contract) number, it seems to me not to be the most sensible approach, to throw it in and be awful," Connelly explained.

However, had Connelly subscribed to a different approach toward team building, the Nuggets' offseason might have played out differently. Chandler and Gallinari would've made for attractive trade pieces had the Nuggets held any interest in dealing them for draft picks.

Perhaps Connelly felt his team had reached a saturation point with owning surplus draft selections. The Nuggets are owed four conditional first-round picks in 2016 as a result of trades involving Ty Lawson, Timofey Mozgov, and Arron Afflalo.

Without the picks, however, the Nuggets will be hard-pressed to find the superstar player that has long eluded them since Carmelo Anthony left town in 2011. Perhaps seventh pick Emmanuel Mudiay will one day reach that status, but, by then, Gallinari and Wilson will be in their early 30s.

Aligning the timeline of Mudiay's development with the win-now schedule of players like Chandler and Gallinari will be difficult.

As for chasing contention, the Nuggets could struggle in the West this season and face long odds of climbing above .500, let alone challenging for a playoff spot.

But head coach Mike Malone embraces that challenge. Connelly made his directives clear when Malone agreed to the job this summer.

"Tim didn't hire me to lay down and lose games and try to get as many lottery picks as possible," Malone said. "We want to try to be relevant as soon as possible."