For years, the Nuggets have searched for a reliable backup center for Nikola Jokic and some kind of answer to the minutes when he’s not on the floor. They’ve gone through all kinds of options, but they’ve never truly solved that puzzle. It has been an ongoing endeavor, and one that has sunk the team at times.
Finally, this season, it feels like they’ve gotten to a solid point, with Marvin Bagley providing capable center play and even being able to play alongside Jokic at times. He’s answering a lot of questions and solving a lot of problems.
The irony, however, is that in all this time searching, they now face an equally large hole at backup point guard. Jamal Murray has been great this season, but when he’s off the floor, the Nuggets have fallen off a cliff, with a 19-point swing in their net rating.
The funny part is that they’ve never really had a great backup point guard, but they’ve always been able to piece those minutes together with guys like Bruce Brown, Peyton Watson, or more Jokic running the show. But this season, that hasn’t been the case at all, as they’re somehow more reliant than ever on Murray to be running the show.
Nuggets' non-Murray minutes have been disastrous
The Tyus Jones minutes have been a disaster, and the DeMar DeRozan experience has somehow been even worse. At some point, they may be forced to give Ryan Nembhard a try. Because, simply put, they aren’t going to survive a full season like this, and even if they do, Murray is going to have nothing left in the tank come playoff time, and the team will hit a wall, much like they did a season ago.
Worse yet, the Nuggets don’t have clear options for secondary creation as they have in the past with guys like Watson and Brown. DDR is what he is at this point, and looking to him for some shot creation makes sense, but he’s clearly not a point guard and doesn’t play in the mold of Nuggets basketball.
Role players like Spencer Jones, Christian Braun, and even Cam Johnson simply don’t have the juice for that kind of playmaking and aren’t going to be able to carry bench units with Jamal resting. And perhaps the biggest issue is that Aaron Gordon is clearly not the player he used to be, and his days as any semblance of an offensive hub may be behind him.
All this is to say that while Denver may have finally dug out of their backup center hole, they seem to have an even deeper one at backup point guard. In the modern NBA, you’re not going to survive without layers of reliable ball-handling and playmaking, and right now, the Nuggets are severely lacking in that department.
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