Exploring possible trade destinations for Nuggets' Bones Hyland

"We're a championship team."

That's what Nuggets guard Jamal Murray said, as part of a larger answer aboutthe team's prospects after Thursday night's 134-117 win over theGolden State Warriors. Murray was a big part of the win, scoring 33points (9-of-12 from two, 3-of-11 from three), dishing out 8assists and grabbing 5 rebounds in a little over 30 minutes.

"All that stuff, not being happy, has gotta go out the window orelse we’re not going to win," Murray said. "It’s nice to have acoach that knows that and knows what we’re trying toaccomplish.”

There are a couple of ways to decipher the rest of Murray'swords. You can take the "duh" approach and leave it there. Any teamwith title aspirations — and the Nuggets, headlined by MVPfrontrunner Nikola Jokic while boasting the West's best record,certainly fit the bill — needs buy-in. Beyond the Xs and Os androtation decisions, a head coach's primary responsibility is to getbuy-in from its players.

Michael Malone has appeared to get that for the most part. Youcan see that most blatantly with the Nuggets' defensiveperformance. Per Cleaning The Glass, they're up to 16th indefensive rating on the year, excluding garbage time. In early December, I wrote abouthow pourous their then-ranked 27th defense was; Coach Maloneseemingly lamented it every other game.

If you read a little deeper into Murray's reminder forconnectivity, you could interpret it as a message to second-yearguard Bones Hyland.

Hyland didn't appear in Thursday night's game. He only playedfour minutes in Tuesday's win over (what's left of) the New OrleansPelicans. In fact, here is Hyland's minute count over the Nuggets'past 10 games: 8, 15, 18, 8, 11, 0 (inactive), 24, 21, 4, 0(DNP).