Juancho Hernangomez is set for a breakout sophomore season

Juancho Hernangomez put a bow on his run with Spain at EuroBasket 2017 with a modest five-point, five-rebound performance in the tournament’s third-place game against Russia that clinched a bronze medal for his home country — Spain’s sixth-straight medal at the European Championships and their ninth in the last ten years.

It was a tame final act from the 21-year-old who had been Spain’s second-leading scorer for much of the tournament and a jack-of-all-trades for the heavy favorites. The swingman went for 18 points and 12 rebounds in a Spanish rout of Romania. He scored nine points, grabbed five rebounds and held Bojan Bogdanovic to 6-16 shooting a day later against Croatia and finished the tournament averaging 8.4 points and 5.9 rebounds per game.

At EuroBasket, Hernangomez played every role for Spain from lockdown defender to stretch-four, to lane-running small forward and even at times a primary creator, all readying him for a sophomore season in Denver where he’ll be asked to wear just as many hats.

When Danilo Gallinari departed Denver this summer and set sail for Los Angeles, the Nuggets’ lack of a corresponding move to add another wing proved that they are confident that Hernangomez, who only appeared in 62 games last year, would fill some of that void. The 6-foot-9 jumping bean who bounds up and down the floor like a fawn that’s still getting his legs under him will be a key cog in the Nuggets’ rotation this year. Hernangomez will be called upon for heavy minutes behind Wilson Chandler and there are plenty of reasons to believe he’ll respond with a breakout season.

Shooting

One of those reasons is his shot, which is Hernangomez’s best skill right now. He converted on 40.7 percent (46-113) of his threes last season and that stroke carried over to EuroBasket where he shot 7-20 (35.0 percent) mostly from the wings. He teamed up with Ricky Rubio and Sergio Rodriguez for pick-and-pops or from his sweet-spot, the corners, where Hernangomez shot a blistering 50 percent (15-30) last year with Denver.

He possesses one of the quickest releases for a player his size and has no problem getting his shot off against fast-closing defenders.

The Nuggets value shooting a lot — that’s clear by their two most recent drafts where they selected Hernangomez, Jamal Murray, Malik Beasley, and Tyler Lydon — all of whom were regarded as plus-shooters coming out of high school or in Hernangomez’s case, after a three-year run with Estudiantes in Spain. And his ability to stretch the defense will be critical on a Nuggets bench unit that could carry two non-shooters in Kenneth Faried and Mason Plumlee, or even three if Emmanuel Mudiay finds his way to a backup point guard role.

Hernangomez will show up on scouting reports next season and the book is out on him as a threat from deep. He’ll have to develop effective counters and drive by overly-aggressive defenders like he did here, past Romania’s Bogdan Nicolescu.

Versatility

There’s an entertaining CBS Sports Eye on Basketball Podcast where NBA writers Matt Moore and Brad Botkin debate whether superior shooting or versatility is more valuable in today’s NBA. I’d tend to side with versatility, although there’s certainly an argument for both. Hernangomez has both variables going for him; he’s a dead-eye shooter but also extremely versatile.

With Spain, Hernangomez played mostly on the perimeter. They understandably wanted to play through Pau and Marc Gasol on the blocks and elbows, relegating Hernangomz, who played with the starters in bunches, to roam the three-point arc. At times, he slid down to the four alongside his brother Willy Hernangomez with Spain’s bench unit, but only for a few minutes here and there.

Spain’s reliance on the Gasol brothers and reluctance to go small may have been their ultimate downfall. They had trouble defending a premier playmaking four in Dario Saric in EuroBasket’s group phase and couldn’t stop or score on a more athletic but less talented Slovenian squad that shot above 50 percent from the field and three-point range in a 20-point semi-final win. Spain shot under 40 percent and went just 7-27 from three in their loss to the eventual gold medalists. The one matchup where Spain featured Hernangomez at the four was against Romania when Pau Gasol sat. It was his best game at EuroBasket albeit against poor competition.

Hernangomez was comfortable playing on the perimeter with Spain as a wing, a position he occupied last season for Denver and one he’ll likely play lots of next season with Denver sitting five-deep at power forward. He runs his lane well, is comfortable coming off pin-downs, cutting to space around the hoop and spotting up from the wing in transition.

Hernangomez can play the three on offense and defense (more on that later) but there’s plenty of reason to think the four is where he’ll be most effective in his career. He’s a long and a rangy athlete that can sky for rebounds and is a matchup nightmare for slower bigs that would try and guard him.

He was one of only five players in the NBA last season (Otto Porter, Pau Gasol, Ryan Anderson, Mike Muscala) to shoot 40 percent on threes on at least 100 attempts and also post an offensive rebounding percentage greater than five, (h/t Jonathan Tjarks, The Ringer),  and that springy athleticism was evident at EuroBasket.

Hernangomez was Spain’s best athlete and one of the better athletes in the entire tournament. It showed on the offensive glass where he averaged 2.1 offensive rebounds in under 20 minutes per game and his 12.0 rebounds per 40 minutes nearly led all non-traditional bigs. He’s got a knack for the ball and anticipates its’ bounce off the rim well — a skill all elite rebounders share.

Denver was the league’s second-best rebounding team by a slim margin last season and they’ll likely stay close to the top this year. Faried is still one of the league’s best rebounders, Nikola Jokic makes up for his low vertical by just tipping the ball to himself and Plumlee is a good enough athlete to shoulder check his way to loose balls. Hernangomez crashing in from the wing is an added bonus.

Defense

Hernangomez’s defensive potential could be the crux of his ceiling as a player. He’s a great athlete and a quick-twitch one at that who can do battle with wings who play the three. His length bothered Kevin Durant in a Nov. loss to the Warriors where Hernangomez held the Finals MVP to 18 points. Coming into that matchup Durant had scored 20 points or more in 72 consecutive games, the longest such streak in 50 years and fourth-longest of all-time.

Against Croatia, Hernangomez was matched up against Bogdanovic, a quality NBA three who he harassed throughout their group phase matchup. His length bothered the Indiana Pacers’ wing and he forced contested shot after contested shot.

His aggressive closeout forces Bogdanovich to hesitate and although he gets separation and attempts a makeable mid-range shot, you take that low percentage off-balance jumper as the defender every time as opposed to a three or layup.

Another area where Hernangomez can thrive defensively is as a pick-and-roll defender — both when hedging to stop ball-handlers and switching onto smaller guards. He struggled at times while defending smalls at EuroBasket but held his own enough to where you feel confident deploying a switching defense with him on the floor, especially as a four-man.

Here’s one of his better defensive sequences of the tournament where he closes down Luka Doncic’s airspace and forces him into a difficult shot at the end of a quarter.

He also registered 1.4 blocks per 40 minutes and showed off his skills as a rim protector, memorably against Croatia where his swat at the rim sealed Spain’s victory. Hernangomez has elite timing too, a skill every great defender has.

Hernangomez proved last season with the Nuggets and this summer with Spain that he’s on a path towards being a contributing player on a good NBA team. He’s a giver, not a taker, an important and underrated distinction in today’s game.

This was a big summer for Hernangomez. He was playing important minutes around other NBA quality players like Rubio, the Gasol’s and against other seasoned international competition. And he did so while playing a similar role as the fourth or fifth option to the one he’ll play with Denver this season. Outside of Murray, who could pick up where he left off at the end of last year and assume Denver’s starting point guard duties, Hernangomez could be in for the biggest jump in playing time on the Nuggets’ roster.

He’s Denver’s next best option on the wing after Chandler that can provide some sort of defensive presence against longer small forwards. Two-way signee Torrey Craig, who’s a defensive-first player, has turned some heads in pre-training camp workouts this summer but that backup small forward spot should be Hernangomez’s to start.

If he makes a leap, Hernangomez could be just what the doctor ordered for Denver at the three; a two-way versatile combo forward who can excel with any combination of players around him. If not, the Nuggets could be an injury away from disaster at an already thin position.