The Nuggets may have wiggled their way past the 4-16 Philadelphia 76ers last night, but don’t be mistaken, all is not well in Denver.
Michael Malone, Tim Connelly and the entire organization are about to be faced with some tough questions, and they can’t be left unanswered. And while none of those decisions will be easy, the hardest of them all may be at the point guard position, where the franchise’s fate may be at stake.
Emmanuel Mudiay is killing the Nuggets. He hasn’t just been bad; he’s been one of the worst players in the NBA, and it’s not getting better.
Over the last five games, we’ve seen Mudiay’s minutes drop from 36 to 35 to 29 to 21, and he’s done little to re-earn the trust of Malone or his teammates, as he’s shot 32 percent from the field and has had two straight games without a single assist.
The eye test says it all, as Mudiay consistently looks lost and overmatched on the court, but the analytics say even more. Through 21 games, the Nuggets’ net rating when Mudiay is off the court (4.1) is roughly the equivalent of the Cleveland Cavaliers (4.3), while their net rating with him on the court (-8.8) is more akin to the Brooklyn Nets (-8.4).
Emmanuel Mudiay’s on/off court statistics, per NBA.com
That’s a 12.9-point difference, which is insane …
In fact, of all the players to have played at least 15 games this season and average over 25 minutes a game, Mudiay has the fifth-worst net rating in the league. Of the four players ahead of him, three are 76ers (which shouldn’t really count) and the other is Evan Turner, who most would call this offseason’s worst free-agent signing.
Simply put, with the way Mudiay is performing right now, he’s unplayable.
So, the question becomes: What do the Denver Nuggets do now?
They can keep him in the starting lineup, just as they’ve been doing, and hope he rebounds, but that’s a scary proposition. If he doesn’t, Denver isn’t going to be able to compete with many teams in this league — unfortunately, nobody can play the 76ers every night.
The other option, of course, is to bench him, which I’ve been favor of for awhile now.
Originally, the idea was to give Mudiay a much-needed mental break, and I think that could still do him some good. But now, it has a lot more to do with the play of Jamal Murray.
Murray, unlike Mudiay, has actually been an extreme positive for the Denver Nuggets, as the team’s net rating is 6.9 points better with him on the court.
Jamal Murray’s on/off court statistics, per NBA.com
When Murray was drafted, the Nuggets made it very clear that they envisioned him to be just as much a point guard as he was a shooting guard, and that has proven to be the case.
While he may not be a pass-first point guard, the vision is there, and he shows it off once or twice a game, even in limited minutes. Tack on some crafty ball handling and the ability to score in just about every fashion imaginable, and Murray’s game begins to show a strong resemblance to the likes of Steph Curry and Damian Lillard.
Is that a bit far? Maybe, but if you watched Murray light up the 76ers on Monday night or the Bulls back on November 22 or the Jazz the night after that, you might tend to agree.
Either way, I can say with absolute certainty that the reigning Western Conference Rookie of the Month deserves to be playing more than 22 minutes a game — he only played 23 minutes against the 76ers despite putting up 22 points, three rebounds and two assists.
Last year the Nuggets allowed Mudiay to play 30 minutes a game right out of the gate, and Murray has certainly shown more in his first 20 games than Mudiay did.
At this point, with the way he’s is playing, there’s no reason to believe that Mudiay is any more prepared or “ready” to be starting for an NBA team with playoff aspirations than Murray, so why is he?
The only reasoning that comes to mind is that he was in Denver before Murray, and if that’s the case, the Nuggets are making a mistake.
For the immediate and long term, Denver needs to build around Murray, not Mudiay. If some time away from the spotlight revitalizes Mudiay (as it did last year) and makes the Nuggets’ future at point guard a question again, even better. But right now, it’s not.
Jamal Murray is the man in Denver.
