The Denver Nuggets best young player may not be the young man they drafted with the seventh overall pick, at least this year anyway. Don’t get me wrong Emmanuel Mudiay was the best thing that could of happened to the Nuggets after the Brian Shaw era ended with the team being in a worse spot than they were we Shaw took over. A young man with a great head on his shoulders and bright basketball future landed in the laps of the Nuggets, fans should be as grateful as the team is to have Mudiay.
If the Nuggets have any chance at retuning to the postseason and having any success, Mudiay will be the player they need to lead them. However, another rookie player has caught my eye and continues to improve night in and night out. That young man is Nikola Jokic.
Jokic, who was picked 41st overall in the 2014 draft by the Nuggets came in with little to no expectations in his first year, but has shown he can not only hold his own, he can be a staple of this team’s core in the future.
Nikola is averaging 8.5 points per game and snatching 5.3 rebounds per game. His 5.3 RPG are good for fifth best in the entire league amongst rookies. While Mudiay leads all rookies in assists per game with an average of 5.7, his four turnovers per game have to come down to help improve his nightly performances.
I was very high on Mudiay coming into to the draft; in fact, he was my preseason favorite to win NBA’s rookie of the year award. For what it’s worth, I would like to change my pick to Karl-Anthony Towns — that boy can ball! There are nights, and will continue to be nights, where Mudiay looks like the seventh-overall pick, and there are nights where he looks like a 19-year-old kid playing amongst men. Again, I can live with that because his upside is huge. With Jokic, I see a 20-year-old young man that gets better every time he is on the floor.
He can play with his back to basket, he can pass from the post, he can score in the post, he has great offensive awareness for a big fella and he is hungry to win. The hunger of this young team cannot be ignored. Under the former regime, some players’ — *cough cough Ty Lawson* — heart and hunger to win was a big question. Neither Jokic nor Mudiay lack in that department.
Against the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday night, the Suns began to double team Jokic in the second half. Keep in mind, the kid is 20 years old; he was not only recognizing the double team coming, but he was seeing it and getting rid of the ball before it arrived. This is something that can make a good young big man great early on. Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves; he still has a lot of work to do but the potential is there.
There are still some things Jokic has to improve on; after all, he is still just a rookie. He needs to improve his footwork. He can play with his back to the basket; with better feet under the basket, he can score easier buckets. He can also get better guarding the basket. Both will come with time and reps in the gym, which he is more than willing to put in.
I cannot say it enough, there is a lot to be optimistic about with the Denver Nuggets; it’s just going to take some time. Emmanuel Mudiay, Gary Harris, Nikola Jokic, Joffrey Lauvergne and Jusuf Nurkic are all part of a very, very good start to a rebuild.
