Why Aaron Gordon could be the key to a better Denver Nuggets bench

During the Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic era, one of the team’s consistent problems has been the consistently poor performance of its bench compared to the rest of the NBA.

I (and many others) have chronicled Denver’s constant bench woes since at least 2019 (over five years ago!) and 2022, and unfortunately for the Nuggets, the current 2024-25 season continues that trend – with a special asterisk named Aaron Gordon talking about it We’ll talk to him shortly as he may be the key to improving the performance of the team’s second unit.

Based on point differential per 100 possessions – roughly how much per game, adjusted for tempo, a team either outscores or is outscored by opponents – the Nuggets’ bench has been down (that is) in five of the last six seasons. , lost their bench minutes) and in the bottom third of the NBA in each of the last four games, according to NBA.com.

Looking at the peak period of three-time MVP and one-time Finals MVP Nikola Jokic, it wasn’t until the 2020-21 season that the Nuggets managed to achieve a net positive performance off the bench.

To be clear, when the term “bench performance” is used here in reference to the Nuggets, what we are actually referring to are those precarious minutes that fans (and probably the Denver coaching staff) have come to fear: when Joker is not on the field.

In fact, one of the defining characteristics of the Nuggets in the era of Jokic is that he has led the NBA four seasons in a row in the difference between all players on the court and off the court with at least 1,000 minutes, according to Cleaning the Glass.

This season, for example, Jokic leads the league with a staggering plus-27.1 points per 100 possessions when playing on the court vs. away, with Chris Paul a distant second (plus-17.5). and the third from Victor Wembanyama (plus). 16.2.

Simply put, the Nuggets’ drop-off when Jokic moved to the bench was nothing short of enormous.

In most cases that is the case. But as previously mentioned, there is one exceptional outlier in this overall trend, namely Denver’s lineups where Aaron Gordon is on the field but Nikola Jokic is not on the field.

And in fact, in reviewing the Nuggets lineups where Jokic is not on the court, Gordon says, “Nuggets players score per 100 possessions in those scenarios.

Gordon returned to action on January 12 after a nine-game injury layoff and has since come off the bench to get back on his feet. And it seems no coincidence that the Nuggets’ bench net rating has risen to plus-6.0 over the last five games (Gordon has played four games and rested one game), good for third-best in the league in this period of time.

Additionally, lineups were even more effective with the frontcourt combination of Gordon and DeAndre Jordan, who by all indications has firmly secured his role as Denver’s backup center, outscoring opponents by 17.8 points per 100 possessions.

It may have been a fortunate silver lining in Gordon’s injury that caused this pairing to mesh better, or perhaps more adept problem-solving by head coach Michael Malone and his staff (or a mix of both), but it appears to be the key to the greater success of the Nuggets bench.

A big caveat here, as shown in the table above, is that these lineups have not been tested over a larger period of time to show, given the significantly smaller sample sizes compared to those that have taken the floor more frequently this season that they work so well on a consistent and reliable basis.

The looming reality also is that Aaron Gordon, Denver’s fourth-highest paid player, received a four-year contract extension worth $133 million last October – not to mention the fact that he will be a crucial, integral part of the Nuggets’ championship 2023 was running, is a starter and not a replacement player, and with him fully healthy again, all expectations are that he will be in the starting lineup alongside Russell Westbrook (who has exceeded expectations himself as a starter). will return. probably return to the bench.

But even assuming that return to the status quo is in sight, it seems imperative that Malone and the Nuggets coaching staff find creative rotation solutions to move Gordon to the Denver bench when Jokic isn’t on the court newfound but potentially fragile success on the bench.

And if the Nuggets can increase Jordan’s minutes share even slightly by making his time on the court more viable through a Gordon pairing, that should have the added benefit of allowing them to reduce Nikola Jokic’s minutes and workload, which will be beneficial for their postseason run Success could be crucial.