Mike Miller is Emmanuel Mudiay's shooting coach, more from the Tim Connelly podcast

Denver Nuggets General manager and Vice President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly joined BSN Denver’s Nate Timmons and Denver Stiffs’ Jeff Morton at the quarter mark of the NBA season to recap the Nuggets 9-14 start, and gave insight into some questions looming over the team.

Some of that insight pertained to Emmanuel Mudiay and if the team has plans to hire a shooting coach to work with the rookie point guard. Connelly said that they had no plans to add anyone to the staff and he has faith in his player development guys. He also remarked that veteran marksman Mike Miller recently has took up the challenge of coaching Mudiay and acting like a de-facto shooting coach, working with the rookie in practice.

“Mo (coach Michael Malone) had a great idea, I think it speaks to both Mo’s creativity and the security. He said, ‘Hey, the best shooter in this building is Mike Miller,’ Mike works guys out during the summer. Recently, Mike’s taken Emmanuel under his wing with the shooting,” Connelly said.  “We’re hopeful that can help him a bit. Certainly there’s no one better to teach him than Mike. His J is so pretty. I think our development guys do a great job with him. We don’t have a shooting coach in particular. All those guys can coach a variety of skills and recently Mike’s stepped in to be a player-coach.”

Mudiay’s shooting struggles this season have been well documented. The rookie is shooting 31.1 percent from the field, the second lowest percentage in the league of players who have attempted more than 100 field goals and just 24.7 percent from 3-point range. More specifically, Mudiay is converting on just 30.8 percent of his catch-and-shoot jumpers and shooting just 26.0 percent on pull ups, per Synergy.

“We have some really excellent development guys: John Beckett, Ognjen Stojakovic, Dee Brown [who] works with him,” Connelly said. “Dee is fantastic, organizationally and really creative. I’ve been really impressed with getting to know Dee.”

Brown knows a thing or two about scoring in the NBA; the former 19th overall pick of the Boston Celtics in 1990 averaged 11.1 points per game during his playing career that spanned from 1990-2002. Brown averaged 15.5 and then 15.6 points per game during the 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons for the Celtics, respectively. In the video below Brown amassed 40 points, seven rebounds, five assists and four steals against Steve Kerr, B.J. Armstrong and the Chicago Bulls in 1995.

Mudiay’s shooting form

Below are two videos. The first is Mudiay going through his shooting routine approximately two hours prior to a game earlier this season with Brown as he does before every game, the second is of course him shooting in game. Notice the difference between the two shots.

The first thing that stood out to me when watching Mudiay shoot pregame and also during practice is how he doesn’t jump and I have a couple theories why.

Mudiay’s shot has a lot of things wrong with it, including his knack to release his shot on the way down, and his habit of kicking his legs out and fading away at the the same time. When you take out the ‘jump’ portion of a jump shot like he does pregame, and scale his jumper down to just a set shot, Mudiay’s jumper looks to have promise. Notice also how pregame he shoots the ball on the way up and at the peak of his shot, not on the way down like we see in games.

What the coaching staff may be trying to do is essentially strip down Mudiay’s shot and get back to the basics. When he’s at a standstill, and isn’t on the move, he’s shown the ability to jump straight up and down. But when he’s pulling up off a dribble or on the move, Mudiay starts to kick out the legs.

Mudiay hasn’t been able to carry over the stripped down version of his shot from practice to games yet, and while it would be nice to have a shooting coach for Mudiay to work with day in and day out, Miller might be the next best thing.

Re-working a shot is also something that’s difficult to do mid-season and development in that department usually comes during the offseason.

Here is another video of Mudiay’s 3-point shooting where he again kicks his legs awkwardly, instead of just going straight up-and-down. But he was a bit closer to the straight up-and-down form that should be his target for a repeatable motion.

Jusuf Nurkic close to returning, Danilo Gallinari playing through pain

Connelly also dished on some injury news regarding the end of December timeframe for Jusuf Nurkic, who’s recovering from surgery on a torn patellar tendon in his right knee, and Danilo Gallinari who’s been hampered, but playing through a deep bone bruise in his right knee.

“I think that’s a fair time frame,” Connelly said in reference to the end of December timeframe for Nurkic. “He will probably get looked at one more time by a surgeon to make sure everything’s progressing like we think it is, and that will happen this week. He’s really knocking on the door.”

On the Gallo front, Connelly applauded the forward for playing through his recent knee ailment.

“You’re always concerned, but what’s been really neat about Gallo is he’s been a warrior through all this,” Connelly said. “A bone bruise is never a good thing, but for Gallo to feel good enough about getting a bone bruise, playing through it and being effective with all the bumps and bruises that come with it. But for Gallo to play through it and be effective, that was the last step in him being fully back.”

Gallinari is currently averaging 35 minutes per game, a career high, and is coming off a string of games where he’s played 39, 38 and 42 minutes. The 42 minutes coming in Denver’s most recent overtime win against Minnesota.

“He’s constantly monitored,” Connelly said. “If we ever think we need to rest him it’s a decision that would be made by our training staff.”

Nuggets veterans playing big roles

Finally, one of the noticeable and hot-button trends surrounding the team these past few weeks has been Jameer Nelson closing games over Mudiay.

Nelson played the entire fourth quarter in Denver’s 106-105 victory in Toronto, substituted for Mudiay and played the last 4:18 in the Nuggets’ 108-105 win in Philadelphia and the last 6:01 of their loss against Orlando. Nelson also closed the Nuggets overtime win Friday night against Minnesota after Mudiay exited after the first half with a right ankle sprain. The rookie will miss Monday’s game versus Houston as that ankle has not healed enough for him to get back on the court.

Connelly gave Malone’s decision to go with Nelson down the stretch a vote of confidence and stressed that their No. 1 priority is to win games.

“Development is certainly crucial to the season, but we want to win,” Connelly said. “It would be impossible for any of us to go into the season placing anything over winning.”

Connelly and the rest of the Denver front office has been consistent with their candor throughout last offseason and the beginning of this season that the stage they are in with their roster should not be classified as a rebuild. They are not going to throw away games for better draft selection, and apparently will rely on their veterans in close games.

“I think that’s what coach Malone and his staff have been excellent at — picking and choosing… develop develop develop develop,” Connelly said. “But if our best chance to win a tight game is [with our veteran players,] it would be a disseverance to the team — not just the veterans, the young guys as well — if we didn’t go for those wins.”