Jusuf Nurkic is the Steal of the 2014 Draft
Oct 29, 2014; Denver, CO, USA; Denver Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkic (23) during the game against the Detroit Pistons at Pepsi Center. The Nuggets won 89-79. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports
Denver Nuggets rookie big man Jusuf Nurkic is starting to turn heads, proving he is an early candidate for the steal of the 2014 NBA Draft.
Drafted sixteenth overall in this year’s draft by the Chicago Bulls, Nurkic was acquired by the Nuggets in a draft day-trade in which the Nuggets acquired the rights to the Bosnian youngster and fellow rookie Gary Harris in exchange for the rights to rookie Doug McDermott. At the time, many Nuggets fans — myself included — wondered if the team had made a mistake in taking on Nurkic as a potential project. Ahead of the draft, I even went so far as to wonder whether Nurkic would ultimately end up being the second-coming of another notorious Nugget — Nikoloz Tskitishvili. Here’s what I wrote earlier this year in a pre-draft article about Nurkic:
"“The mere mention of drafting another raw, relatively unknown player from overseas brings to mind one of the most infamous names in Nuggets history: Nikoloz Tskitishvili. Like Nurkic, Tskitishvili was a 19-year old big man labeled as a project with star potential. And like Nurkic, most NBA fans had never heard of Tskitishvili until the weeks leading up to the draft. In 2002, teams began singing Tskitishvili’s praises as the draft approached and then-Nuggets General Manager Kiki Vandeweghe fell in love with the kid, eventually drafting him with the number 5 pick, ahead of guys like Amar’e Stoudemire, Carlos Boozer, Taushaun Prince, and Caron Butler. In three seasons with the Nuggets, Tskitishvili averaged 3.8 points, 1.9 rebounds, and shot 30 percent from the field while appearing in 143 total games. Those stats would be acceptable if we were talking about a guy who the team randomly grabbed off the sidewalk in front of the Pepsi Center and asked him to suit up for a couple of seasons, but this is a top 5 pick we’re talking about. Tskitishvili was such a bust, in fact, that the Denver Post went so far as to name him the ‘worst draft pick in Nuggets history, by a mile.'”"
Boy, was I wrong, and nothing makes me happier than to admit I totally whiffed in my assessment of how Nurkic’s skills would translate to the NBA.
In a season that hasn’t contained a lot of bright spots for the Nuggets, Nurkic has quickly emerged as one of the most impressive rookies in this year’s heralded draft class, a fact that should have Nuggets fans giddy with excitement for his future. So far this season, Nurkic has appeared in 22 games, averaging 13.1 minutes per contest. He is averaging a solid 6.1 points, 5 rebounds, and 1 block per game, shooting just under 46% from the field. None of those numbers immediately jump off the page, but when you dig into the kid’s advanced stats, that’s where he starts to separate himself from some of his fellow draft classmates.
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Nurkic is second among all rookies in win shares, an advanced stat that estimates the number of wins contributed by the player. Nurkic’s win shares is 0.7, second only to Milwaukee’s Jabari Parker, the second pick in the draft who managed to post a win shares stat of 1.3 before suffering a season-ending injury. Marcus Smart of the Celtics and Aaron Gordon of the Magic have the next highest win shares at 0.4 (Andrew Wiggins, the ultra-hyped first pick in the draft has a win shares stat of -0.2).
When you look at win shares per 48 minutes, a stat that estimates the number of wins contributed by a player per 48 minutes (with the league average being around .100), Nurkic boasts a .111 stat, the highest of any rookie who has played in more than 15 games this season. For comparison sake, Parker’s win shares per 48 minutes before his injury was .086, Wiggins’s is -0.009, Smart’s is .060, and Doug McDermott’s is -0.033.
Even more exciting is the fact that Nurkic seemingly improves by leaps and bounds each game. Over the last three game stretch, he has averaged 12.3 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.3 blocks, including an 11-point, 10-rebound, 5-block performance against Memphis on Saturday night that finally made a lot of fans and basketbloggers outside of Denver take notice.
There is still a lot of basketball to be played this season, and the history of the NBA is littered with rookies who posted great stretches before their game lost its luster or they got bit by the injury bug. But for now, Denver Nuggets fans should be very, very excited that we have a 20-year rookie who looks like he has the potential to develop into a really special player and could be part of the core this team builds around in the years ahead.