No. 7 overall pick Emmanuel Mudiay (rest) will not play tonight when the Denver Nuggets take on the Phoenix Suns in their one and only preseason home game at Pepsi Center.
The rookie doesn’t have an injury or anything specifically ailing him about halfway through Denver’s preseason schedule, but views the off night as an opportunity to rest and get ready for the 82-game regular season.
“Of course [rest] is going to help. They keep telling me it’s a long season,” Mudiay said after shoot around today. “I’m not used to someone telling me don’t play today, it’s a new adjustment for me. I’m going to take advantage of it, get treatment on my body, do what I gotta do so I can come back better and stronger.”
Mudiay wishes he could be out on the floor, in front of Nuggets fans for the first and only time all preseason, but knows from a basketball standpoint, it’s just that, a meaningless exhibition.
“I think it will probably be better when it counts than now when it doesn’t count, that’s how I’m approaching it,” Mudiay said. “At the same time, [the fans are] still going to be able to see me play.”
The decision to rest Mudiay was not his and the 19-year-old would be playing tonight if he had his say, unfortunately that’s not how it works in today’s NBA.
Last season when the Golden State Warriors played in Denver, coach Steve Kerr rested Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Igoudala and Andrew Bogut for rest, just as Spurs coach Greg Popovic does at times throughout the regular season. Beginning last season, the Warriors started wearing player tracking mechanisms developed by the company Catapult, which measures player’s starts and stops, the body’s bending and twisting, and direction of movements. It also collects more than 1,000 data points per second, showing the staff in real time how much players are exerting or more importantly, if player’s are over exerting themselves and risking injury. You can read more about the Catapult technology here.
During training camp in Colorado Springs, Nuggets players were seen wearing monitoring vests that looked similar to the Catapult technology the Warriors and 12 NBA teams used last season. The technology costs $30,000 for the entire season (15 devices) and Catapult said they anticipate 16-20 teams using their product this season.
“It just tracks their workload,” Malone said. “The thing I take out of it, most importantly, is if a guy is exceeding his workload, we want to curtail it because we don’t want him getting to the point where he gets hurt. The reports that they give me every day is our guys are all exceeding the workloads, which doesn’t surprise me. I’m old school, I don’t need a computer to tell me that. I know when a guy is working or not, but the fact that it can be backed up, more power to it.”
More information is never a bad thing in the modern-day NBA and teams are becoming smarter when it comes to pacing their guys and keeping them as healthy as possible throughout an entire season. It’s almost as if the staff is protecting players from themselves in instances like this, which is undoubtedly a positive development.
Also out tonight for the Nuggets are Danilo Gallinari, who is recovering from a right ankle sprain, Randy Foye, who is still nursing a sore left hamstring which he suffered at the team’s scrimmage at South High School last week and Darrell Arthur who is nearly over a bone bruise in his right knee. Reserve center Oleksiy Pecherov will not play for a second consecutive game as well.
With a slew of regulars resting tonight, the door is open for Erick Green, Nick Johnson and the guys at the end of the bench to play consistent minutes and attempt to lock down the one remaining roster spot Denver has open. Opening night rosters which are capped at 15 players must be set by Oct. 26.
“Nick Johnson got a great opportunity at Golden State the other night, playing the first half rotation minutes. Erick Green, who is coming back from a knee injury will get a chance to play extended minutes tonight, I’m excited to see that,” Malone said. “Maybe a chance to see Mike Miller, who’s only played in the one game against Chicago – and you’re right, [there’s] going to be some tough decisions that will have to have to be made, but I’ll get with Tim [Connelly] and Arturas [Karnisovas] and we will do what we feel is in the best interest of the organization.”
If you missed our preview of tonight’s game against Phoenix, you can read it here.
