How JV Will Help Denver, G-League Change, And Joker's Basketball Starts
A Valanciunas deep dive
We’re back! Jonas Valanciunas’ little mini-drama in July messed up my whole calendar for content. Still, we’re back with a look at how JV can help (or hurt) Denver, some small news you might have missed, and Joker is back to destroying people’s souls as he warms up for Eurobasket.
JONAS VALANCINUAS: THE REINFORCING STRUCTURE
Trying to put Valanciunas into familiar molds as a backup center for Nuggets fans is a little tricky.
He’s not Mason Plumlee, with how Mase — in his prime — was a vertical threat in pick and roll. Most people don’t remember how good of a passer Mase still is, and that’s probably the part that stands out the most for what JV can bring.
He’s also not DeAndre Jordan. He’s four years younger with fewer miles on him. He’s able to cover more ground and rebound at a much higher rate. DJ wasn’t a passer hardly at all and had no offensive game outside of screens and dunks.1
It’s also not quite accurate to say he’s a Jokic replicate, to the degree that anyone can be. I’m not just talking about skillset, I mean the way he plays.
Valanciunas rarely operates out of the pinch post at the top of the key, surveying and delivering or driving. But he is a post-up big, for sure.
That Vucevic comp is pretty on-point. He’s a traditional post-up big with size and physicality. The Nurkic comparison also makes sense, which might be alarming, but Valanciunas is a better passer and doesn’t constantly demand the ball.
One of the things that stands out most is how Valanciunas absolutely freaks out teams in the post.
You’ll consistently see teams sending doubles at Valanciunas in the post, not even on switches, just straight matchups, and he’s a willing passer that punishes it.
It’s in these types of sets that you can replicate some of what Jokic does with the starters. Operating in a post-up solar system is something the starters are familiar with.
One of the downsides is that Valanciunas’ pick-and-roll finish game has fallen off a cliff. He shot 10-of-21 last season rolling out of pick and roll. If that wasn’t a product of the Kings being Kangz, it’s a concern.2
Stylistically, Jamal Murray should be more comfortable with JV, given his experience with Jokic in pick and roll and the style of player they are. Valanciunas moves similarly and will pop occasionally, similar to Joker. But JV has to make the shots for those to be effective.
However, I do want to point out that JV is, maybe not shockingly but at least a little surprisingly, effective as a passer out of pick and roll as well.
Basically, the better the Nuggets’ bench is offensively, the more value JV adds. The worse it is, the more he may struggle.
Defensively, the numbers are ugly but also pretty simple.
JV is a drop big at this point in his career. He’s more maneuverable than Jordan, so he’ll be able to contest more shots that DJ had to literally just not even try against.
You can still attack him downhill on floaters. You can punish him with smallball fives, who can play five out and make him make rotations to the corners. He’s slow.
But he’s also huge.
Denver was 21st in opponent second-chance points per game last season, via NBA.com. And while a lot of that was in the Joker minutes caused by bad weakside rotations with Joker at the level, Valanciunas should help reinforce rim protection and defensive rebounding.
Valanciunas very well may have a pretty bad defensive on/off if the Nuggets’ starters benefit with not only the Cam Johnson-MPJ swap but the better bench weapons in stagger minutes.
But the more important factor is what net in what minutes.
IN PRAISE OF DJ
I will deeply miss covering DeAndre Jordan3, who is a straight-up hilarious human with really good perspective on the game and life, and I am hopeful he gets to continue his career before doing whatever he chooses to after.
It’s also really important to reassert this: DJ was not the problem last year for Denver.
The Nuggets had a -3.3 net rating last year with Jordan on the floor. That’s honestly perfectly fine. That’s a totally fine number for a top-heavy contending roster’s backup center.
The on/off splits are particularly bad to use. It’s not Jordan’s fault that he backs up the most impactful player in today’s NBA. Jokic being awesome is not a DJ fault. What matters is when he was on the court, and their defensive rating was fine (114.6 below in moderate-leverage possessions, 112.1 overall, which is especially good).
You’ll notice that last line. In 556 minutes without either one, when Denver went to smallball options, whether it was Saric, Nnaji, or the precious AG-at-the-five minutes, the Nuggets were annihilated.
I bring this up to say that adding Valanciunas is a win because every minute the Nuggets got away with Jordan felt like theft, but they weren’t, really. Valanciunas doesn’t “solve” the bench minutes. But with a better roster, he might be part of a combination that reinforces the floor.
Let me put it this way: if the Nuggets scrapped all Gordon at the five and Nnaji minutes, and just played Jokic and JV exclusively at center for the entire season4, and JV had the same on-court net rating as DJ, the Nuggets would probably win 55 games.
That’s the bar. Just don’t get killed. And that is easily doable. There’s also a good chance that the JV minutes are neutral, or a slight positive. In which case, Denver probably wins 60 games or more.
The point is that Valanciunas should bring a different style to the bench while slightly raising the floor.
GOLD REFURBISH
The Nuggets announced that Ryan Bowen will take over as head coach of the Grand Rapids Gold this season, with Chad Iske taking over as general manager, Nihal Kolur as Assistant GM, and Matt Tynes as Director of G-League Operations.
Bowen has been an assistant with the Nuggets for nearly 15 years, with a brief stint in Philadelphia. He’s been an absolute fixture, and his promotion is a sign of what Josh Kroenke hinted at at Tenzer and Wallace’s introductory press conference, that Denver is leaning into institutional knowledge and community.
A slightly interesting subplot here is that both Bowen and Iske are holdovers from George Karl’s Nuggets tenure. While both have long-established Denver ties in multiple capacities, just the fact that they both joined the staff under Karl is interesting. Iske was once considered for multiple head coaching positions.
The two bring a level of real NBA experience to the Gold. Tenzer was Gold GM last season.
Andre Miller, who coached the team the last two seasons, had no coaching experience beforehand and no real connection to Malone’s staff. There’s a better chance of instilling principles across organizations with a stronger connection to Adelman and better lines of communication.
Denver needs to focus more on Gold integration. Jalen Pickett and Hunter Tyson spent time in 2023-24 in GR. Pickett again spent time in November and December… and then that’s it.
How about this: Zeke Nnaji never spent a second in the G-League. Not a minute. How is that possible? How, with how often he would rise and fall out of the rotation, with how much work was needed for him to get used to different positions, with how many times he was coming back from injuries, did Nnaji never see time there?
There’s real value to be found in the G-League, even as NIL and overseas money, along with vapid new rules put in place five years ago, continue to undermine its mission.
Denver needs to create a transition path back and forth to Grand Rapids. It needs to be a pipeline that sends talent down and returns more complete, finished players with more minutes, even in a lesser environment. Hopefully, this new regime marks the beginning of a genuine shift, rather than just window dressing and allocating roles to familiar names.
NO MORE HORSING AROUND
After another hilarious summer of videos of Nikola Jokic crying over horse race wins, taking his shirt off every chance he gets at the club, racing trains, and generally having a great time, it’s back to work for the Big Fella.
Jokic and Serbia beat Greece in a friendly warm-up for Eurobasket this week.
One thing I’m always amused by in his time with Serbia is that Jokic is never treated as the centerpiece of the team. He doesn’t touch the ball on every possession.
The system isn’t built around him. I remember when he was coming off the bench five years ago even when he was already in MVP conversations.
You notice a lot in these clips of him just finding ways to score. Slips, cuts, a ton of offensive rebounds (which is how he dominated on the glass).
Jokic has not exactly made it a secret that he prefers European style of basketball because it’s more of a team sport. It just also strikes me as categorically insane how little he really gets the ball to create with Team Serbia, and how much he still dominates the box score and game anyway.
Serbia’s Eurobasket run begins August 27th against Estonia, the Round of 16 begins on August 7th, and should Team Serbia reach the Finals, Jokic will play until September 14th.
Denver training camp starts September 26th.
So… yeah. Gonna be another year assuming Jokic has an unstoppable fusion engine when it comes to his endurance. We’ll talk about that in another edition of the Dig later this week.
He was, however, elite at screens and dunks.
Note: JV was excellent as a roll man the year before with Washington, shooting 63% on much higher volume when rolling.
Assuming he is not brought back at any point.
Which is unrealistic since both Jokic and JV will miss games.