Denver Nuggets: Will The Twin Tower Experiment Work?
By Aaron Mah
As the rest of the NBA continues to lean towards small ball-heavy lineups, the Denver Nuggets alternatively look to exploit the lack of aggregate size by building their own “Eastern Bloc.”
The game of basketball has changed in many ways since Dr. James Naismith invented it back in 1891.
However, one thing has remained constant since the NBA commenced in 1946 — the association, by and large, is a copy cat league.
When the Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish-led Celtics dominated the 1980s, it was en vouge to go big; twin tower alignments were seen as the wave of the future. But, when the Bad Boys Pistons took the throne during the late-80s, many teams try to duplicate their success by employing 3-guard lineups.
Fast forward to present day, and you’ll see an eerily similar phenomenon. Spearheaded by the success of the early 2010s “Hollywood as Hell,” positionless Miami Heat, and further authenticated by the current rendition of the Golden State Warriors, most teams in the NBA have veered towards small-ball lineups — one that features four perimeter players, surrounding one, often undersized, big man.
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Some may complain about the homogeneous nature of the product, or the marginalization of the center position in today’s game, but with rising prominence of the three-point shot, no one can really argue, from an analytics standpoint, about the pure effectiveness of playing small in the contemporary NBA.
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That is, granted of course, if your team does not house a “basketball unicorn” — a big man with the dribbling, shooting, and passing skills of a guard, but the size, rim protection, and rebounding tenacity of a 5.
But, as true to its name, there are only a handful of unicorns around the league, with Karl-Anthony Towns, Kristaps Porzingis and Anthony Davis immediately coming to mind.
The point is: in order to go “big” in today’s league, you would ideally need to house a basketball unicorn; and even so, you may be better off playing said unicorn as the lone big to fully reap the precious rewards of modern floor spacing.
As we head into the 2016-17 NBA season, though, the Denver Nuggets have a completely different philosophy in mind.
The team possesses one of the most tantalizing young cores in the association.
With neophyte guards like Emmanuel Mudiay, Jamal Murray and Gary Harris manning the backourt, and a vetern-laden wing trio of Will Barton, Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler, the Nuggets will have the firepower go vis-a-vis with the very best the league has to offer.
The real strength of the team, however, derives from the interior. The pair of 20-year old centers Denver has on hand gives them the versatility very few teams boast.
Nikola Jokic, although not quite a unicorn, is coming off one of the most efficient rookie seasons for any center since the post-merger NBA. In fact, he had the ninth highest Real Plus Minus in the NBA (No. 1 center by a country mile, and the No. 2 post player behind Draymond Green), the 24th highest Player Efficiency Rating, and the ninth highest plus/minus of any rookie in NBA history.
Yes, the Joker did achieve such astronomical advanced stats in limited minutes, but when compared to his highly-celebrated contemporaries in KAT and Porzingis, he generally rates as the most efficient offensive player of the three.
He is, perhaps, already the best passing center in the league, and has the ideal skillset for the centerpiece of a dribble-handoff heavy, motion offence.
Jusuf Nurkic, on the other hand, is a throwback of sorts; a bruising big man who makes his living in the paint. Of the two, Nurk is the more ferocious offensive rebounder and rim protector — and he also has the snarly attitude of a Bill Laimbeer to back it up.
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The Bosnian Bear, however, is coming off a frustrating, injury-plagued sophomore campaign — one that not only saw him butt heads with head coach Michael Malone, but also humbled him in seeing limited minutes playing behind Jokic.
But, he has reported to camp this year in tip-top shape, allegedly shedding 35 pounds since last season’s end.
And, Malone, who experimented with the Nurkic-Jokic pairing briefly at the tail of last year, has started every preseason game thus far with the “Eastern Bloc” alignment.
Last season, the duo only played a total of 92 minutes together with mixed results. In fact, the Nuggets suffered a Net Rating of -7.1 with the Bloc manning the paint, according to NBA.com.
Offensively, the two share a nice synergy — especially in high-low situations where the Joker is operating from the nail or elbow extended, with Nurk sealing hard in the paint.
Defensively, though, is where they run into some troubles. In particular, Jokic, who is not the fleetest of foot, generally had no clue how to defend out on the perimeter, even against plodding stretch bigs such as Channing Frye.
In addition, Jokic’s interior touch and deft passing to cutters was more often than not neutered by the congesting presence of Nurkic.
The Eastern Bloc has looked a lot better during this preseason, however. With a reinvigorated Nurkic, and a more seasoned Jokic — who experimented with playing at the 4 this summer in the Olympics with the Serbian National Team — the two have looked downright scary at times.
Against both the Raptors and the Lakers, Nurk has been moving bodies with impunity; and not just any bodies, I’m talking big boys like Jonas Valanciunus and Timofey Mozgov.
Jokic has similarly looked much more comfortable defending out on the perimeter, even though Patrick Patterson and Julius Randle, with all due respect, do not necessarily possess the versatile dribble drive game of a Paul Millsap or Draymond Green.
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Going forward, it’ll be interesting to monitor how effective this lineup can become once the real season begins. If the duo can prove they can dominate the paint without comprising their spacing and defensive integrity, we might just be witnessing another landscape-altering pendulum-shift in the NBA.