The Denver Nuggets’ Paul Millsap will have a different role for this coming season.
The Denver Nuggets got a big fish in the free agency period a couple summers ago in Paul Millsap. Sadly, the Nuggets were not able to get to see his true skill set last year as he was sidelined for about 44 games with a wrist injury.
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This disrupted the team chemistry and he was not 100% when he came back to action. This coming year though, his role is going to be quite different.
Millsap pulled Jokic aside last year and told him this is Nikola’s team now. This shows he is satisfied being the veteran mentor who does not always get the touches that he was used to when he was the number one option.
Instead, the four time All Star is going to be called upon to be Denver’s defensive quarterback. For a while now, the Denver Nuggets have been terrible on the defensive end of the floor. According to teamrankings.com, the Nuggets allowed an opponent effective field goal percentage of 53.9% and were also ranked 14th in general defense according to nba.com.
When Paul Millsap was on the floor, the team was clearly better defensively. He had a differential of 11.4 in the games when the team won this past season which was 22 games where Denver won when he was in the lineup.
Millsap along with Gary Harris provides the team with a nice defensive one two punch and the duo should at least help them be a middle of the pack defensive squad. Last season, Millsap was still able to average a steal per game and 1.2 blocks per game. He actually averaged more steals on the road than at home (1.2 compared to 0.9.)
With this in mind, Paul Millsap is going to be the defensive back bone of the Nuggets this next season.