The Nuggets are built like no other team in the league. They have two young seven foot Centers that are highly skilled on both sides of the ball. Many have cried out for them to start together and Michale Malone has finally heard that call and gone to that starting duo. So far though the success of that lineup is in question. In both games so far, Malone has felt it necessary to go away from that front court duo early in the first. At times they look great together and other times things just don’t seem to flow very well.

In fact, the team has been better when the Centers play separately than when they play together. And the worst lineups they’ve had so far haven’t included either Center. This begs the question, is starting them together really best for both players and the team?

Many will still say yes, they need their minutes and the only way they’ll get them is if they play together. It’s true there are only 48 minutes at the center position in a game so for both of them to get 25+ minutes they will have to have some time on the court together, but does that mean they need to start together? No, it makes a lot of sense to actually start the game with one or the other and bring the other in to replace him, or if the starter is having a great start, maybe bring the backup in and keep them both on the court together. That way you can keep the hot hand on the court and bring in another big presence that teams have to pay attention to on both sides of the ball.

The key to balancing the minutes of our centers though, is to try and keep one of them on the court at all times, they are too effective on both ends of the floor to play significant minutes without one of them out there patrolling the paint and getting easy buckets for themselves or their teammates. This has been the biggest problem with the Jurkic lineup so far, Malone goes small when they come out and stays small for far too long. He spoke all preseason about imposing our will on the other team, because we have a size and skill advantage on just about every other team.

So far he has not backed up those words with actions. He continues to try and match other teams when they go small and it just doesn't work. Defensively it hasn’t been bad, but not have our interior presence on offense tends to make the offense stall and force the remaining players to settle for jump shots.

Malone is right that we do have a size and skill advantage over just about every other team but it isn’t just with Jokic and Nurkic. We have an incredibly versatile frontcourt where most players can defend multiple positions to moderate success and impose their will on offense as well. We can effectively play a game in which our smallest front court player is Faried and we know he plays much larger than he actually is. My thoughts are that at the power forward position we can play Faried and Arthur, nearly all if not all the time and both of those players are pretty good at staying in front of perimeter players, Faried has his lapses, but he’s quick enough to keep his man in front of him in most cases and if either of them get beat, they’ll have either Jokic or Nurkic patrolling the lane to help. Some matchups may not be great for those guys, but when that happens you can switch Chandler or Gallo on their man and hide the Power Forward on the less effective offensive player.

This leads me to believe that we shouldn’t see small ball lineups very much, and we should almost never see lineups where we don’t have Jokic or Nurkic in the lineup. I propose this rotation.

Starters: Mudiay, Harris, Gallo, Arthur, Jokic

Mudiay functions much better when he has the space to get to the rim and kick out if he needs to. He and Jokic have also shown promise in the pick and roll and Arthur proved last year that he is a decent pick and pop option. This lineup allows us to have 4 shooters around Mudiay and allows our best players to have the ball in their hands as much as possible as Arthur and Harris are both low Usage players. This allows Mudiay and Jokic to run the offense and Gallo to act as the third playmaker and spot up shooter. Arthur and Harris both move well off the ball and fit with great facilitators like Mudiay and Jokic. The offense should hum with these players provided Mudiay plays with confidence and control like he did in the second half last night. On defense this is a big, fast lineup with length and versatility. This lineup has the potential to control the game on both sides of the ball and build a lead for this young Nuggets team.

Bench: Jameer (Murray if he earns it), Barton, Chandler, Faried, Nurkic

This unit doesn’t have the spacing of our starting unit on offense, but has the potential to be an elite pick and roll unit. It effectively has three guys who can handle the ball and three guys who can roll to the basket, with Chandler having some ability in both cases. Jameer isn’t great at running an offense anymore, but he is still pretty good in the pick and roll, especially with Nurkic. If Murray replaces him, this is a simple enough offensive set to ease him into the responsibleities of being an NBA point guard. Nurkic is a terror on the blocks and can act as a bail out option if nothing else is working. Faried is a great roll man and great at cleaning up the misses of his teammates. Barton can and has taken over the offense when Jameer or Mudiay struggle and often functions as another bail out option. Chandler is a solid all around player that can spot up for three or slash to the basket, he’s also been very effective as the roll man, and has a good enough handle to run the pick and roll on a limited basis. Jameer, Murray, Barton, and Chandler can all shoot well enough to allow for decent spacing and Nurkic can work from the high post very effectively so it doesn’t completely kill the spacing. On defense, PG is an obvious weakness, but Nurkic and Faried (at times) are effective help defenders and can mitigate this weakness. I see this bench being able to potentially build on the lead and force the opposing team to go back to their starters early. And they could then hold their own against those starters.

Obviously we can mix and match these lineups, but I think this rotation makes the best use of everyone involved. Malone’s biggest problem at this point is that we’ve got 9 guys who could potentially start on this team. This allows him to ride the guys that are playing well while, hopefully he doesn’t do this too much and wear those guys out to the point that they are less effective late in the game.

I know exactly what complaints I’m gonna hear about these rotations. Many will say Arthur shouldn’t start and shouldn’t even play, but he is a very good defender and proved last year to be an effective stretch four shooting 38% on pretty good volume, if he can keep that up he deserves minutes, and makes sense with the rest of these starters. The other complaint will be Nurkic coming off the bench and really with the way he’s played he deserves to start, but his fit with the starters just doesn’t make as much since as Jokic’s (Who’s also shown that he deserves to start). Jokic is better in the flow of the offense than Nurkic and does a better job at making his teammates better, both of these things make sense with the starters at the 1, 2, and 3. Nurkic is incredible in the pick and roll and posting up, both of which make more sense in a lineup with Jameer who tends to stop the ball unless he’s running the pick and roll. It also puts two elite rebounders in the game to clean up the ill-advised early shot clock Jameer/Chandler 3s that are bound to happen.

The problem of having too many players that deserve starter minutes is a good problem, its a problem that the Spurs have had for many years and I think this rotation makes the most effective use of our talent. So to answer the question in my title, my answer is Jokic, but it’s certainly a challenging question.