This certainly isn’t how anyone wanted it to happen, but thanks to all the injuries in the Nuggets’ frontcourt, Zeke Nnaji has made his way back into the rotation. Nnaji hasn’t factored into the Denver rotation in years, but on Friday night, he played 23 minutes off the bench and put up 13 points and 5 rebounds.
Nnaji saved his stat line by getting to the line and making 6-6 free throws, but he looks lost and overmatched out there, especially on the defensive end. It should tell you everything you need to know that David Adelman and his staff chose to start and close the game with DaRon Holmes, a rookie recovering from a torn achilles who played his first meaningful minutes in the NBA on Wednesday night.
Whereas Nnaji has been in the league for five years and is on his second contract. Still, he’s clearly nothing more than an emergency backup option, and that’s where the team is at. With Nikola Jokic, Jonas Valanciunas, and Aaron Gordon all out of the lineup, the Nuggets’ only healthy big men are Nnaji and Holmes.
Both players are more of power forwards, so they’re being forced to play out of position while everyone else scales up and the team tries to play small with wing players like Peyton Watson and Spencer Jones up front.
It’s a pretty grim scene for the Nuggets, and you’d have to imagine that if the team had more than nine healthy players to choose from and anything resembling a playable center, Nnaji would still be riding the pine.
But alas, that’s not the case, and here we are, likely with Zeke in the rotation for at least the next few weeks unless the team makes a trade or adds a free agent. It feels like a disaster, but maybe this is the opportunity everyone needs. Before Zeke’s extension even kicked in, he fell out of favor and felt like a complete waste of salary in human form.
Best outcome would be for Nnaji to revive his trade value
His deal still has three years and roughly $24 million left on it, which has been basically unmovable for over a year now. If the team wants to dump the salary and free up the roster spot, they’ll almost certainly have to pay with another asset in the deal. Unless…
If Nnaji can put some good games together here and show some reasons for a team to be optimistic. He’s still just 24 years old and can stretch the floor with his three-ball at 6’9”. He has some real flaws, but he’s never going to be able to play through them in Denver.
If he has some nice moments, there could be a young, rebuilding team that believes his contract isn’t too crippling and they can afford to give him an extended look to find out if he can develop into an NBA role player.
It’s not a likely outcome, but it is a possibility. If there’s one silver lining to the situation, it’s that maybe Zeke can revive his career and build up his status as a potential trade asset.