Denver Nuggets: Can Isaiah Thomas crack the rotation again this season?

The Denver Nuggets have taken Isaiah Thomas out of the rotation because of his recent struggles. Can he get back there and make an impact down the stretch?

The news came out Wednesday from Nick Kosmider of The Athletic that Denver Nuggets head coach Mike Malone had a conversation with point guard Isaiah Thomas that he wouldn’t be in the rotation moving forward. When Thomas returned from his long absence after recovering from the hip injury, he came with a lot of excitement about the possibilities he could bring to the team. After just nine games, Malone had decided that experiment is over.

In the nine games he played, Thomas had been largely ineffective, and it just seemed like he wasn’t going to ever get himself rolling. His slash line of .373/.273/.632 is well below his averages in all three categories, and it’s not particularly close. The team hoped he would help them by providing some instant offense off the bench with the ability to get to the free throw line that the rest of the team just doesn’t have.

The Nuggets are one of the deepest teams in the NBA, and they’ve been able to go 11-deep on a nightly basis, but the addition of Thomas to that rotation would’ve had them playing 12 players every night. That amount of effective players is just unheard of for teams that are competing at the top of the conference. Their rotation was expected to shrink down the stretch, but it was expected for Thomas to be a part of it.

With the decision now made, how will Thomas be able to get back into the rotation at all? His defense is never going to get him on the floor, which puts all the more importance on his play on the other end of the floor. Malone can’t justify a player with the shooting struggles that Thomas was displaying getting minutes. IT needs to prove in practice, late in games during blowout wins or somewhere else that he can still hit shots on a consistent basis.

It’s obvious that Thomas is never going to get back to how he was before his hip injury, but he’s just not there yet. He often looked slower and less agile than he did pre-injury, and that’s what the team signed him to be. Luckily for them, they didn’t give him a ton of money on his contract, so it’s not a waste of money, but it’s still rather disappointing for Thomas and the team.

It seemed like Thomas would fit in perfectly with this squad. The Nuggets focus mostly on the offensive end of the floor, and they needed an instant-offense player like Thomas to come off the bench. For IT to crack the rotation, he may have to hope the team rests some starters down the stretch to get fully healthy before the playoffs, and he’ll have to blow Malone away with his play in those minutes.

Thomas is still on the team, but he’s likely still the third or fourth point guard off the bench. Fourtunately, his experience in the playoffs can be helpful to mentor guys who have never been there before like Jamal Murray and Monte Morris. If the younger guys are willing to listen to the veterans like Thomas and Paul Millsap, it can help Denver be in even better shape when the regular season ends and the games really matter.