The Denver Nuggets are one of the more banged-up teams in the NBA thus far this season. While they haven’t had to deal with as many players being put into the league’s health and safety protocols as some teams, they are without two key players; Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr.
Without those two players, there has been a ton of pressure on reigning MVP Nikola Jokic to carry the team. He has been up for the task, actually putting up better numbers this season than he did when he won the award last season.
Jokic is in the midst of the best shooting season in his career, making 58.8 percent of his shots, 37.9 percent of his 3-point attempts and 74.8 percent of his foul shots. His effective field goal percentage sits at 63.6 percent thus far this season, up from 60.2 percent last season.
That has led him to average 26.6 points per game, which is just ahead of the career-high 26.4 he averaged last season. He has also upped his rebounding numbers, pulling down a career-high 13.6 per game to go along with 7.5 assists. Jokic is also swiping 1.3 steals per game to round out an impressive stat line.
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The on/off numbers that Jokic has this season have surpassed video game absurdity. As Zach Lowe pointed out in a recent piece on ESPN, it is not too much of an over-exaggeration to say the Denver Nuggets are the best team ever with Jokic on the court and the worst team ever when he is on the bench.
With Jokic on the court, the Nuggets are blowing opponents out with a net rating of 12.6. Their net rating without him is -16.2 for an absurd difference of 28.2. The results have been even more disastrous when Will Barton isn’t on the court along with Jokic.
Barton re-signed with the Nuggets this past offseason and is having an excellent season. He is averaging a career-high 16 points per game to go along with five rebounds and 4.2 assists. His on/off numbers aren’t close to Jokic, but when both of them are off the court, the Nuggets don’t look like they belong on an NBA court.
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According to Zach Lowe, in 198 minutes without Jokic and Barton, the Nuggets are -78. That is essentially the equivalent of losing games by nearly 19 points. To put into perspective how poor that is, the team with the worst average point differential thus far this season is the Orlando Magic at -10.5.
One of Nikola Jokic or Will Barton has to be on the court at all times for the Nuggets to remain competitive. Coach Malone needs to stagger their minutes because Denver is losing games in the time that they are off the court, even if it is only for a few-minute spurt.
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Jokic and Barton are currently doing all of the heavy lifting for the Denver Nuggets. Their teammates need to step up to help keep the team afloat if they want to have any chance of remaining in the playoff race until Murray can hopefully return and help bolster their production.
