Nuggets look-backs: Monte Morris

Heading into the NBA’s restart on June 30, the DNVR Nuggets crew is looking back on the Denver Nuggets’ season, where each player left off, a target stat that every player should shoot for, and one half-court heave or bold prediction for everyone on the Nuggets’ roster.

Where Monte Morris left off

Monte Morris turned in a superb “sophomore” campaign back the 2018-19 season but fell through the cracks during NBA accolades season. Not technically a rookie, but in essence, playing in his first real NBA season, the former two-way player flew under the radar nationally while his stock soared in Denver. Morris could do no wrong in the 82 regular-season games he appeared in, and the six he started, but the wheels fell off the hype train when the postseason began.

Across 65 regular-season games and eight starts in 2019-20, Morris again played the part of a reliable backup point guard, although we saw some slight regression. Morris’ shooting splits dipped as he struggled to buoy up a sinking second-unit, he appeared in 3 fewer minutes per game and wasn’t featured in as wide a variety of lineups as Michael Malone sorted through a roster chock-full of rotation caliber talent.

Morris struggled in his five October appearances — his TS% dipping to 37% — but with each month as the season progressed, his minutes increased while his shooting improved. Malone moved away from his de facto hockey shift rotations, staggering the minutes of his stars and eventually extracting more talent out of his second-unit standouts. Morris benefitted greatly. In 10 February games, including two starts, Morris averaged 11.4 points per game with a .609 TS% — the only month of the season he averaged double-digits in scoring.

The real surprise of Morris’ season was the rise of his potential predecessor, PJ Dozier, AKA PJ Composure. Morris will enter Unrestricted Free Agency following the 2020-2021 season, and he could very well be the target of teams in need of a new starting point guard, let alone a reliable backup ball handler.

Will Morris earn a fortune in free agency? No, but the Nuggets might find he’s not worth that new price to fill what is, frankly, a limited role when it’s all said and done. There’s a chance Morris becomes more of an asset in negotiations than on the court with Composure waiting in the wings. But I digress. First things first — in more pressing matters, Morris is tasked with demonstrating his utility in the postseason. We know that Morris is a quality guard across 82 games, but is he ‘a 16 game player’?

Morris was last reported as in Orlando and undergoing the mandated 36-48 hour quarantine period by our own Harrison Wind. Should he complete quarantine and pass physical testing from the team, he’ll be ready to join the squad — a welcome sight I’m sure for a team that started five bigs in consecutive games.

Target Stats> 0 3pt%

Morris shot 41% from deep in the 2018-19 season but went 0-13 in the postseason. It would be an overstatement to say a role player’s postseason contributions are limited to just hitting open shots, but not entirely untruthful. Morris’ mpg dropped from 24 in the regular season to only 16 in the playoffs — an environment in which his role changes, as primary playmakers Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokić see more time on the court.

Morris’ most significant opportunity to swing a game may indeed come in the form of an open three. A career 39.8% shooter from deep, I think it’s fair to say he needs to be much closer to that number this postseason. Can he shoot north of 35%? Can he make the defense pay as the attention inevitably drifts to Denver’s top-end talent? He’s got a low bar to clear.

Halfcourt Heave

After a series of successful appearances in the scrimmages and some of the seeding games, the momentum behind PJ Dozier as the new backup will peak, and Morris will find himself with plenty to prove. He’ll remind us just how reliable we once perceived him to be with a buzzer-beater at the end of three different first quarters in the first two-rounds, proving me right in the most specific heave yet.

Should that highly unlikely series of events fail to manifest, I’ll fall back on a much safer prediction: Monte Morris will hit at least one three-pointer.