Denver Nuggets: Injury could be the beginning of the end for Trey Lyles

It was announced recently that Denver Nuggets power forward Trey Lyles could be out for up for two weeks with a hamstring injury. Could this be the beginning of the end for Lyles in the Mile High City?

There was excitement around the Denver Nuggets right before coming out of the All-Star break, as the team was finally going to be fully healthy (minus Michael Porter Jr.) for the first time all season. Will Barton, Paul Millsap, and Gary Harris are all finally healthy after long absences and Isaiah Thomas returned from his 11 month injury hiatus right before the break.

However, that excitement was quickly bottled back up again, as backup power forward Trey Lyles sustained a hamstring injury 50 minutes into practice on February 20th.

The injury has the potential to keep him out for two weeks, which might be a problem for Lyles. For those who are football fans, we saw last year that Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco got hurt, Lamar Jackson replaced him, and Flacco never got his spot back. For Lyles, this might be the same situation.

Before Flacco got hurt, he was putting up subpar numbers, and thus there wasn’t much reason to put him back into action once Lamar Jackson was leading the Ravens to victory after victory. Lyles could be in the same boat as Flacco.

He is currently averaging 9.2 points and 4.1 rebounds on 42.3% shooting from the field, including 25.3% from three point range. He has an extremely quick trigger on his shots, and it seems that when he comes into the game he disrupts the flow of the game. He isn’t a defensive specialist, and at times can be a liability on that end.

It’s easy to imagine Lyles would have been on a short leash to begin with once the All-Star break ended. He played zero second half minutes in his last game against the Sacramento Kings, and with Isaiah Thomas returning from injury, minutes might have been hard to come by for him even when completely healthy.

With Lyles out, Jarred Vanderbilt might get some extended minutes when the Nuggets need a big man out on the floor. Vanderbilt is a high energy rebounder who might emerge as a valuable part of the rotation if given the chance.

The Nuggets might also choose to give some smaller lineups some more run, which would include Monte Morris and Isaiah Thomas playing alongside each other while Torrey Craig or Juancho Hernangomez play at the power forward position.

If the bench performs better without Lyles, he could be in trouble. At this point in the season the Nuggets need to secure as many wins as they can, and they need a good second group to do that. The bench unit has been a strength for Denver this season, but Lyles has been the one glaring weakness of the group.

Another thing working against Lyles is his fit with All-Star center Nikola Jokic. The Nuggets offense runs through Jokic, and thus not playing well with him hinders the rest of the group on the floor.

For perspective, here are the two-man net ratings for almost every Denver player with Jokic:

Jokic makes most the players around him better, as seen by this chart. However, Lyles is the one outlier, posting a -11.0 net rating during his time on the floor with Jokic. If Isaiah Thomas or Jarred Vanderbilt can post a better rating with Jokic, Denver might opt to take Lyles out of the rotation in favor of guys who can produce with their star player.

Lyles is a promising young player who is most likely just hitting a wall in his third year. A change of scenery might be what he needs, or maybe he just needs to keep shooting to get out of his funk. However, it’s become clear that there are limited ways that he can help the Nuggets win games this year, and if Denver sees an uptick in production on both ends of the floor with Lyles out, it could mean he’s seen his last minutes in a Nuggets uniform.