Post#24 » by The Rebel » Sun Nov 22, 2020 3:03 pm
Reading this thread reminds me how little people actually watch the Nuggets. The idea of Grant and Craig is a lot better then the reality of both guys. together those 2 in the lineup with Murray/ Harris/ Jokic put up a -36.8 in the playoffs if that tells you anything. IN the last 3 years Jokic has had a negative rating when paired up with 4 teammates, Mudiay, Trey Lyles, and of course Craig and Grant last year. Last year Craig put up a -4.1 with Jokic and Grant put up a -1.6 rating.
Craig put up 5/3/1 on 55.3% TS%, so he was basically an average 10th guy on offense, but the eye opening stats are on defense, where he has become very overrated. Craig is 10th in defensive win shares on the team last year, was a negative in dbpm, and a -0.1 in vorp. with a -5.7 net rating and a -1.99 in Real plus minus. He also gave up 45.6% shooting. All this while coming off the bench most nights. To top it off Craig will be 30 next year and is already showing signs of slowing down physically, his game dropped off last year and it was pretty obvious to those paying attention.
Grant put up 12/4/1 on 59.1% TS%. His advanced stats are a little better but not $20 million per year better, and not someone that we should be crying over. He was 3rd on the roster for defensive win shares, although a -0.6 on DBPM, and 0.7 on Vorp, with a net rating of -2.1 and a -2.09 in real plus minus. He did well in defensive shooting percentage, where he gave up 43.3%.
The funniest part of all these threads is how many act like those 2 are the huge losses and Plumlee is no big deal, when reality is that Plumlee in the regular season is one of the best backup bigs in the league. He is terrible in the playoffs, but it is not like Grant and Craig were all that great in the playoffs either.
Our bench was one of the worst in the league after the trade deadline where we moved Juancho and Beasley. It cost us several games, and if someone was to go look at our game logs it is pretty obvious why. Craig and Grant were the only 2 players on the roster who were net negatives in the lineup.
Millsap was bad on offense in the playoffs, but he was a considerably better defender than Grant or Craig were in those same series, and Millsap has developed a 3 point shot shooting 46% on spot up 3s during the regular season.
While the 2 things Grant is best at is what we need out of starting PF in perimeter defense and 3 point shooting, bringing back Millsap and bringing in Green (who is not a great player but very close to equal to grant) make it so it is not a big loss. Craig we withdrew the qualifying offer on so that we could save a roster spot, if that tells you how the front office feels about him.
Speaking of roster spots, we also are likely cutting Bates-Diop, who after being traded to Denver was bad, he couldn't crack a rotation of one of the worst benches in the league, and struggles badly in the minutes he did have.
Fact is we have MPJ/ Bol/ and Cancar who all should be competing for backup forward minutes, all 3 are basically 2nd year players and all 3 have shown reason to think they are upgrades on guys who they will be replacing.
