Dude is clearly back to his pre-broken leg form now. One of the top 5 centers in the league in my opinion.
His efforts in 2022 equate to 17.4/12.5/3.4, on 50%FG, 32% from 3, and a PER of around 23.4. Yeah, those are basically top-5 center numbers.
Nurk, Ant, Hart, Winslow, and Watford have all been consistently good since the trades. You take one away and I am not sure you win any of them. And yes Nurk is right there at the top of that list.
He’s definitely winning me back. He wasn’t there mentally for such a long time. He looks like pre-injury Nurk all of a sudden. Heavy ISO ball is gone - and he looks like he’s genuinely enjoying Billupsball.
Props to Nurk for putting up more significant numbers. Unfortunately, they are not very efficient numbers. He ranks #42 in eFG% where the top 8 in that category all play Center. He is the 16th ranked Center on that list. eFG% can be picked apart, and likely someone will, but he still doesn't convert at a very high rate no matter how it is spun. If he would just finish stronger at the rim, instead of being so finesse oriented.
I know, but will we want too? With Dames extension and Ant getting paid with hopes of bringing in another star front court player? There are teams that would like a center that can board, pass and play some D. In both conferences there are big centers on some of the contenders and some w/o. He's bet on himself and you know who his agent is, he's going to get wooed.
When Nurkic is engaged and happy, he is a different type of player. Borderline unstoppable. Nurk seems engaged and happy now.
Very engaged and happy. My concern is, players seem to get very engaged in contract years. We've seen it over and over again. What happens after he gets more money, and then Dame/Ant are taking 35-40 shots a game and he is back to getting 6-8 shots?
This is gonna be tangential, but one of the things we are gonna learn is if dame lowers his usage coming back, being a more up tempo team. He's still gonna take the most shots in the team, but will it reduce? That's one of the things I'm intrigued by with him coming back.
between his agent rich paul, his prime, his fit in chauncey billups system on both ends of the floor, his fit with other players, a really good two way center is not getting less than 4/70, no way at all they already made it clear about the intention to re-sign nurk
