Nikola Jokic, Randy Foye could be key to unlocking Denver Nuggets lopsided lineups

Through the first seven games of the 2015-16 NBA season it’s become clear that the Denver Nuggets have lineup problems. Not all of this, of course, is coach Michael Malone’s fault. Some players aren’t as productive as they should be while others are making a strong case for more playing time. Add the Nuggets’ deep bench to the equation and you’ve got the makings of a genuine maelstrom for substantial segments of any given game. While time and health will likely iron out many of these creases, there are still several minor adjustments that could pay dividends for the time being.

The main culprit of the starting unit’s productivity problem is overlap. With only five players on the floor at any given time in a professionally sanctioned NBA basketball game, the room for superfluidity is already slim. One player with a pronounced deficiency is more than enough. But duplicate that twice on two separate occasions and you have the makings of malfunction.

Thus is the case regarding Kenneth Faried and J.J. Hickson, as well as Danilo Gallinari and Emmanuel Mudiay. Faried is essentially an undersized but athletic power forward with a limited inside game, no outside game to speak of, complete with a lack of defensive prowess and free-throw accuracy, who relies almost solely on his rebounding acumen as his primary contribution to his team. Hickson, meanwhile, is (copy and paste previous sentence here).

Gallinari, on the other hand, is a much more versatile player. He’s tall for his position and can rebound and dish out assists at a respectable rate. He’s also capable of hitting long-range shots but is much better off driving into traffic and finding others. At this point in the season he’s not shooting very well at all, however, which is limiting the Nuggets’ spacing and causing quite a clutter near the paint. Mudiay, however, is (copy and paste previous sentences here).

While Gary Harris adds an additional and much-needed dimension to the Nuggets’ current starting unit, the fact is Denver has essentially two sets of players whose weaknesses overlap in occasionally insurmountable ways. Faried and Hickson are the exact same player. Though their tenacity on the glass is certainly an asset, neither has an effective post-up game, neither defends well inside or out and neither converts at a high rate once at the line. This in turn creates an offense where there is no inside presence to threaten the opposition, which makes the outside conversion rate all the more mandatory, yet Gallinari and Mudiay are each respectively shooting 40 and 33 percent from the field while Harris often shies away from shooting altogether, creating a futile offense with no inside threat nor outside marksmanship that is essentially acting as a blood clot.

In order for the Nuggets to regain circulation in their starting lineup they must eliminate overlap and diversify. Though Hickson — who owns an impressive plus-15 plus-minus on the season — and Faried are both off to remarkable starts, Malone needs to chose between one. In place of the casualty Malone should then insert Nikola Jokic, who’s also played remarkably well this season and has the size and skill down low to contrast whatever undersized power forward Malone elects to stick with. Additionally, while Harris has played equally as well as anyone to start the season, he’s also very limited offensively and is still too inexperienced and hesitant to provide the firepower from deep that the Nuggets so desperately need. Though I don’t believe he should be robbed of playing time, especially to close out games, I think it may be time to start Randy Foye in his place in order to open up the offense from beyond the arc.

According to Basketball-Reference.com the Nuggets are simply a more productive team with Jokic and Foye in the lineup than without them. Of the team’s most lethal lineups in point-differential per 100 possessions (with at least nine minutes of combined court time on the season, aka, the top seven most used lineups) Jokic and Foye appear in three of the top four and in none of the three worst and coincidentally the three most used. To put this disparity into perspective, of those three most used and simultaneously least productive lineups the Nuggets are getting outscored by a combined 6.3 points per 100 possessions on the season while the three of the four most productive lineups with Jokic and Foye are outscoring their opponents by a combined 51 points per 100 possessions on the season! Furthermore, of the Nuggets’ four major lineups that have logged at least 29 minutes combined this season (there’s quite a drop off after this, with No. 5 having only 11 combined minutes together), by far the most productive is the one with Jokic and Foye, which averages 14.4 points per 100 possessions more than their opponent. The next best lineup, to again put this into perspective, averages negative 1.4 points per 100 possessions when compared to its adversary.

In addition to five-man lineups, Jokic and Foye are equally as impressive in more consolidated combinations. For example, of the Nuggets’ nine most effective three-man combinations in points per 100 possessions Jokic and Foye appear in six, while Jokic alone appears in all the top three. Only once do either of these players appear in the bottom 11 remaining least productive three-man combinations. And as for two-man combinations, it’s essentially the same trend. Jokic and Foye make five of the top seven most productive units with Jokic also appearing in three of the top five and both the top two.

Between a combination of first-person game study and stats the picture becomes quite lucid: Jokic unquestionably deserves more playing time and should likely start while Foye should just as well be considered for an uptick in playing time as well as a starting role. As detailed above, the Nuggets’ starting unit desperately needs this:

And this:

Which will in turn lead to easy baskets like this:

And as a result the Nuggets’ offense will function much more smoothly. This isn’t to say Harris doesn’t deserve to close out games or that Hickson doesn’t deserve a spot in the rotation. They both do. And these choices should ultimately be made at Malone’s discretion. What can’t be denied, however, is that the Nuggets’ current series of rotations is lopsided in exactly the wrong direction and is therefore ineffective. Adding Jokic as an inside threat, not only on offense but on defense as well, will go a long way in pacifying the Nuggets’ paint problems while in turn allowing more time and space for Foye, Gallinari, Mudiay, Harris, Will Barton, Jameer Nelson and anybody else on the Nuggets’ roster to spot up for an open 3-pointer.

Blood flow: resumed.