Don’t worry, Emmanuel Mudiay is still the point guard of the Denver Nuggets and the point guard of the future for this team. But he is taking steps to diversify his game, and we are taking note.

Denver Nuggets rookie point guard Emmanuel Mudiay has logged 1,723 minutes in 57 games this season. He has been tasked with learning to master the point guard position after coming to the NBA from high school — with just 12 professional games in China with the Guangdong Southern Tigers (10 regular season contests and two playoff games) last season after suffering an ankle injury.

He has had to learn the NBA point guard job on the fly with Michael Malone, Micah Nori, Dee Brown, Jameer Nelson, D.J. Augustin and former teammates Erick Green and Ian Clark there to help him along the way, to name a few. He’s received shooting instruction from teammate Mike Miller and perhaps Miller can assist in Mudiay’s next phase of playing off the ball, with another playmaker on the court with him.

“The way the NBA is going, a lot of teams are playing multiple ball-handlers and playmakers on the court at the same time,” said Malone. “It has also helped Emmanuel at times because with our starting group, especially with Gallo out, he is the lone ball-handler.

“Sometimes when teams get aggressive, having another playmaker and ball-handler out there alleviates some of the pressure on Emmanuel. I think it’s only going to help him.”

Malone showed early in the season that he was going to play Nelson alongside Mudiay and did so to the tune of 132 minutes with a +/- of +1 (meaning the Nuggets outscored their opponent by one point when the two shared the court together). Now that 132 minutes only accounts for 7.6 percent of Mudiay’s total minutes this season, but Malone also had a ball-handler in Randy Foye to turn to when Nelson went down with injury.

Foye logged 260 minutes with Mudiay this season for a +/- of -28. Since coming to the team in a deadline deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder, D.J. Augustin has logged 99 minutes with Mudiay for a +/- of +42 on the season — by far the best pairing of the three, but also the smallest sample size.

In all, Nelson, Foye and Augustin — veteran presences — combined to play 491 minutes with Mudiay or 28.4 percent of his on-court time. That’s pretty good balance for a kid you gave the keys to, especially when you consider Gary Harris needs minutes and has logged 1,273 minutes alongside Mudiay (-64 on the season) or 73.8 percent of on-court time as Denver’s backcourt pairing.

For his part, Mudiay has been doing an excellent job learning this role. He’s taken a page from Harris’ book and cuts well without the ball, to the rim and his pairing with Augustin allows him the freedom to roam a bit more on the offensive end.

“It definitely helps me out. That makes me [not] the only primary ball-handler out there,” Mudiay told BSN Denver.com. “Teams got to focus on two ball-handlers and when I’m out there I feel like teams force me to get the ball out of my hands and make [my teammates] make plays. But with D.J. out there it’s tough, because [the defense] don’t know what’s really going to happen.”

On this play from March 2nd we see exactly what Mudiay is talking about. Augustin drives down the right side of the lane and Mudiay moves towards the rim, along the baseline, once Los Angeles Lakers guard Marcelo Huertas starts moving to defend Augustin. It’s a brilliant play from Mudiay and a nice feed from Augustin — look at how lost Huertas is on Mudiay’s movement.

 

Mudiay got another easy bucket from the opposite corner from Nikola Jokic out on the perimeter on this play from the Mavericks game back on Feb. 26th. Mudiay gives up the ball to Jokic, sprints to the corner and then catches Deron Williams napping with the timely cut to the rim for the easy finish from Big Honey.

 

How about Will Barton as the primary ball-handler? Take this play from Feb. 29th against the Memphis Grizzlies. Barton bounces a pass down to Kenneth Faried from the elbow towards the corner, Faried dribbles back out towards the elbow after Barton clears out, Faried completes the dribble handoff to Mudiay who promptly uses the space created by Faried to fire up a 3-pointer over Mario Chalmers (who, predictably and correctly, went under a screen for Mudiay).

 

Another benefit to Mudiay playing off-ball is that it allows him to be in, hopefully, more catch-and-shoot situations. The benefit to catch-and-shoot opportunities is that players routinely shoot higher percentages out of them. Take this passage from Ian Levy from an article he penned on Nylon Calculous.com:

Last season, according to the NBA’s SportVU Player Tracking Statistics, teams shot almost five more attempts per game off the catch than they did off the dribble, which is understandable – catch-and-shoot attempts generated a league-wide average effective field-goal percentage of 51.6%, far superior to that of pull-up attempts, 40.4%.

Mudiay’s numbers support that as he’s shooting 33.1 percent on catch-and-shoot opportunities, and those numbers rise to 47 percent when you take into account his eFG% (this statistic adjusts for the fact that a 3-point field goal is worth one more point than a 2-point field goal.)

Off pull-up shots, Mudiay shoots 31.3 percent on the season, with an eFG% of just 34.5 percent. The added problem there is that Mudiay is taking pull-up shots at a frequency of 44.5 percent, compared to just 16.1 percent on catch-and-shoot frequency. So, the more the Nuggets are able to create efficient shot opportunities for Mudiay, the more it’ll help him. It’s just the next evolution of his game.

“He’s shown that when he’s the primary ball-handler that he can run a team, he can be a capable playmaker,” said Malone. “Now playing off the ball, moving without the ball and now being able to attack when you get the ball — I think can also be an advantage for him.

“Let D.J., let Jameer, handle on the first side, now we move the ball and let him attack on the second side. I think [that] makes his life that much more easier. Playing two capable playmaking guards is something that has been effective for us at times.”

2015-16 Emmanuel Mudiay pairings:

Here are the pairings of note for Emmanuel Mudiay this season. I figure since we used Nelson, Augustin, Foye and Harris in the article, that folks may be curious as to how some other numbers look this season.

Mudiay and Nelson 132 minutes / +1 on the season

Mudiay and Augustin 99 minutes / +42 on the season

Mudiay and Foye 260 minutes / -28

Mudiay and Harris 1,273 minutes / -64 on the season

Mudiay and Barton 649 minutes / -79 on the season

Mudiay and Gallo 1,186 minutes / -90 on the season

Mudiay and Faried 1,040 minutes / -24 on the season

Mudiay and Jokic 861 minutes / +25 on the season

Mudiay and Nurkic 98 minutes / -31

These numbers can be found on NBA.com/stats.