This article was written by guest columnist, Miroslav Cuk, our Serbian correspondent. 

One of the biggest questions surrounding the Denver Nuggets heading into this season is what the pecking order will look like with regards to the available field goals. Young players stepping into larger roles, the addition of a few new faces, and the absence of Jamal Murray for the first two-thirds of the season will likely create a shakeup in the team’s minutes distribution and offensive power structure.  Which players will see an increase in usage? And which players might step down into a lesser role?

Let’s build a rough estimate using some basic assumptions.

Starting simplifications

There will be the same amount of minutes up for grabs this season as there was last season. Below, let’s look at the number of minutes that were played in the first 2/3 of last season by players who will not be with the Nuggets over the first 2/3 of this upcoming season. 

• Jamal Murray             1204 min
• Paul Millsap                621 min
• Gary Harris                 581 min
• Isaiah Hartenstein     243 min
• RJ Hampton               220 min

That is a total of 2869 available minutes.

The two players who were added after the all star break will play as follows:

• Aaron Gordon – 26 minutes per game (mpg)
  The same amount of minutes as last season.
• Austin Rivers – 18 mpg
  I only expect 2/3 of the minutes that he played last season since it is reasonable to expect that the Nuggets will suffer fewer injuries to their backcourt. When everyone in the backcourt is healthy other than Murray, Rivers will likely be the 4th or 5th guard in the rotation, depending on which position you categorize PJ Dozier.
• Bones Hyland – 0 mpg
  I don’t expect either Bones to crack the rotation this early in his career.

Minutes Calculation

2869 total available minutes for games before the all-star game equals 80 available minutes per game. When we take away 26 mpg for Gordon and 18 mpg for Rivers, we come to 36 mpg that are up for grabs. 

Jeff Green
The only player that wasn’t on the roster last season that I expect to play significant minutes in the first half of the season is Jeff Green. I’d wager that he will play a bit less than Paul Millsap (pre all-star) last season. Perhaps 20 mpg instead of 24. 

JaMychal Green
I expect JaMychel Green to go from 18 minutes per game to 22 minutes per game this season now that he is in his second season with the team. 

That leaves us with just 16 minutes per game up for grabs.

Monte Morris
Monte played about 27 minutes per game (pre all-star) last season and I expect him to up that to 33 mpg.

Michael Porter Jr.
MPJ played a bit less than 29 minutes per game (pre all star) and that should rise to about 32 minutes per game this season.

PJ Dozier and Facu Campazzo
Both should both get some more run this season. Dozier from 19 minutes per game up to 22 minutes per game. Facu from 16 to 20.

That brings us to zero remaining minutes per game.

Rotation projection

Morris 33 mpg

Barton 30 mpg

Porter 32 mpg

Gordon 26 mpg

Jokić 36 mpg

Campazzo 20 mpg

Rivers 18 mpg

Dozier 22 mpg

Jeff Green 20 mpg

JaMychal Green 22 mpg

This brings us to 259 total minutes per game, which is more than 240 available, but remember that players miss games (just for the reference, top 10 guys in minutes per game combined for 267 mpg last season, pre all star break).

Points per game to be replaced

Players either no longer on the roster or unavailable for the beginning of this upcoming season made the following points totals last season (pre all-star break):

• Jamal 740 (24 games)
• Millsap 271 (26 games)
• Harris 184 (26 games)
• Hartenstein 98 (26 games)
• Hampton 60 (24 games)

Total of 1353 points brings us to an average of 37.5 ppg if you would calculate it to 36 games played pre all-star. But, since these guys played 25.2 games on average, I will cut that influence proportionally to 26 points (the fact that these guys missed games inflated the total averages throughout the roster).

The New Guy

The only new player Jeff Green averaged last season 11 ppg on 27 mpg. If we reduce that to 20 mpg, I’m gonna go ahead and predict the average around 8 points per game. That leaves us with around 18 points per game for grabs.

The Bench mob

Players I expect to remain pretty similar in points per minutes played are Facu, Rivers, Dozier, JM Green. When we re-calculate their points per game based on this assumption we get:

• Campazzo        7 ppg (1.5 more than the last season pre all-star)
• Rivers              6 ppg (3 less than last season post all-star)
• Dozier              8.5 ppg (1 more than the last season pre all-star)
• JaMychal        10 ppg (1 more than the last season pre all-star)

These more or less even each other out and we still have 18 more points per game to be spread between projected starters Morris, Barton, Porter, Gordon and Jokić.

The Starters

Monte Morris
A minutes increase for Monte from 27 mpg to 33 mpg should indicate ppg increase from 10.5 to 13. This feels too low. I’m gonna predict the increase to 15 points per game, which leaves 13.5 ppg increase for the remaining starters.

Will Barton
Will Barton should also get a points per played minute uptick. Considering I’ve left him at the same 30 mpg (mostly because of injury prowess), I’ll increase his points average from 11.5 to 14, which would be on par with his 7 season average on the Nuggets. That leaves 11 ppg increase for the frontcourt starters.

Aaron Gordon
Aaron Gordon is the big mystery here. He should be much more integrated into the Nuggets offense after being in Denver for a full training camp. His average of 10 ppg should surely rise to 12 ppg. That leaves the enormous 9 points per game for the two projected best scorers on the team.

Michael Porter Jr.
MPJ will not only get a projected minutes increase from 28.6 mpg to 36 mpg, but also a big increase in role. It’s almost unfathomable to think that his efficiency would increase from last season where he was one of the most efficient scorers in the game but Porter is young and talented. You never know. I expect Porter to rise from almost 15 ppg (pre all-star) to a whopping 24 ppg. Yes, I know it’s ludicrous. But we are talking about a clear second option with a very distant third. 

Nikola Jokic
This would leave Joker at the same 27 points per game as last season. How is that possible considering there is no Jamal, and the fact that he scored about 29 points per 36 minutes last season without Jamal in the lineup? Well, this time around those minutes without Jamal will be much more often with the rest of the starters, so he won’t have to be such a point making force like with the bench guys last season.

Final prediction

Monte           15 ppg
Barton          14 ppg
Porter           24 ppg
Gordon        12 ppg
Jokić             27 ppg
Facu              6 ppg
Rivers           6 ppg
Dozier           8 ppg
Jeff Green    8 ppg
JaMychal     9 ppg

See you at the all-star break, so you can destroy my faux math! I realise my model was too bullish on the starters, and that the bench guys will probably have better numbers than I projected, but I had fun doing it.

Miroslav Ćuk,

Nuggets Srbija & Serbian correspondent for the DNVR.