The Nuggets were probably giddy at a chance to draft Emmanuel Mudiay with the seventh pick in the draft when it was predicted that he would go in the top five of the draft. However, they knew that Mudiay still had a ton of work to do on his game in order to become what they drafted him to become. His jumper still needs work, but he has shown enough flashes of having one that the staff can live with the ugly field goal percentage for now. He turns the ball over a lot, but he has shown improvement in that area over the course of the season. All the staff should want to see in Mudiay is improvement. Improvement is the name of the game and I think he has shown enough to earn 32+ minutes per game for the rest of the season.
Ever since Jameer Nelson injured his wrist, Mudiay has seen increased minutes. During that six game span, he has averaged 13.5 points per game on 39.5% shooting and 35% from deep and 6.1 assists per game and 3.3 turnovers per game. All of these numbers are above his season averages and are better than any of his full monthly splits. This recent stretch of games, is probably his best five plus game stretch of the season. He is also more aggressive and by doing so is getting to the line more often and seems to not escape from contact as much as he did earlier in the season. He still needs to be more consistent at the line, some nights he forces you to remember that he is a guard at the line, other times he might as well be Andre Drummond.
Mudiay looks to be coming into his own that last couple of games. He is more controlled when driving to the hoop. He rarely jumps without a purpose, which lead to a lot of his turnovers previously. Him being more aggressive is something the coaches have to like. Some people, including myself, were worried that he would turn into Rondo and just refuse to go to the basket. Fortunately, that does not seem to be the case. He has shown that he has a smooth stroke from the line and from mid range, so I don't think it will take much to make him a serviceable free throw shooter.
He needs to remain in the starting lineup even when Jameer Nelson comes back because getting minutes is the only thing that will help him develop his game. Putting him on the bench only serves to limit his minutes and therefore his learning time. Although Nelson might have more experience and better basketball IQ, Mudiay is still better than him on the defensive end of the floor. This is an underrated aspect by many fans because it doesn't show up in the box scores, but I think when he reaches his prime he will be considered one of the best defensive point guards in the league. His performances can be shaky at this point in his career because he lacks some basketball IQ that comes with experience, but when it comes to straight up man to man defense he is much better than Nelson.
The goal of any team should be to win games and I know Mike Malone would rather not lose games since he has to put that on his resume, but he should know that he wont get fired this offseason. Starting Jameer Nelson might give the team their best chance to win, but Mudiay is the future. With the team only three games out of eight place in the West, Nelson starting might even be enough to push the team over the top into the playoffs, but Malone still shouldn't do it. Mudiay's development is too important to the future of the team to have it wasted on a chance to get embarrassingly swept by the Warriors.
Mudiay will have a tough matchup tonight against the Celtics tonight. First he will have to try to create some offense against Marcus Smart who is one of the better defensive point guards in the leagues. Then they also have Isaiah Thomas coming off of the bench who presents a very tough defensive matchup for Mudiay. He will be tested both offensively and defensively throughout the game.
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