Denver Nuggets: 3 reasons Zeke Nnaji can be the backup center
By Carter Frye
When you have the reigning MVP on your team, it’s probably not in the Denver Nuggets front office’s best interest to immediately spend valuable cap space on bolstering the position. Especially when other categories on the depth chart require more urgent attention due to injuries and free agency departures.
But, it should be noted that with JaVale McGee signing with the Phoenix Suns, the Nuggets no longer have a true center on the roster besides Nikola Jokic.
There are, in fact, still several serviceable options at the center position still on the market, but why spend valuable cap space when you already have Zeke Nnaji?
Denver has quite a few players who can put in time at the five, but finding a solid backup center should be a goal for the Nuggets over this season; and I think Nnaji can be that guy.
JaMychal Green and Jeff Green were both signed in the last week as forwards who can occasionally be the man in the middle, but both of them work much better as power forwards.
Bol Bol has shown very few flashes of a bright future and it’s unclear if he can be a solid rotational piece, but he still has a lot of potential as a mobile 7’2″ stretch big.
The one other player on the Denver Nuggets roster who has seen significant time at the center position is 2020 draft pick Nnaji, and he has very quietly slipped under the radar as an athletic big man who can run the floor and play both sides of the basketball.
In his rookie season, he saw the floor for an average of 9.5 minutes a game in 42 appearances, averaging 3.2 points on 48.1 percent shooting from the field and 40.7 percent from behind the arc, an encouraging sign of efficiency. With his raw talent, I think he has the potential to take the Nuggets backup center role for himself at some point during the 2021-2022 season, and here are three reasons why: