Much has been made of Malone's rotations through the first 10 games of the season. I've been as vocal as any in questioning how Malone is using the players, yet I am pretty firmly convinced that Malone should be focusing on three major things. First, a true center (read: not just Faried) needs to be in the game except in very specific situations in short stints. Second, Jokic should be starting, and Nurkic should come off the bench. Third, if Malone insists on Nurkic starting, we should be playing four out as much as humanly possible. Now those three things necessarily push Faried out of the lineup, and that's unfortunate. I'm a big fan of Faried, and even given the above, I think he's a starter in this league. Faried is too good a player to be getting 20 minutes off the bench, and for the team and for him, I think it's time we get serious about trading him.

That all may seem rather presumptuous based on a 10 game sample, so here's how I got here. First, it's not a 10 game sample. Sure, we've added some new players, but we are largely the same team that we were last year, and we have an 82 game (kind of) sample to go on for what works with this roster. The most shocking stat in this piece is probably this one: no 5 player lineup played more than 22 games together last year. With non-overlapping injuries to multiple players including long stints out for Nelson, Faried, Mudiay, and Gallo as well as the mid-season trade of Randy Foye for DJ Augustin, the Nuggets never had the opportunity to play a consistent lineup. However, of the lineups that we did play, two stood out as being particularly effective.

Now the games played and minutes might seem low, but again, keep in mind that our top used lineup played 290 minutes over 21 games. Also keep in mind that our net rating for the season was -3.9, and these were the top two lineups that saw over 60 minutes. It's these lineups (and watching how successful they were on the court) that provided the structure for the rules I outlined above. In the following sections, I will break down how our early season performance has reinforced these principles.

What you will be seeing are weighted averages of the net ratings of combined lineups from NBA.com. I chose to use net ratings because they are already scaled by number of possessions. The averages are weighted by the number of minutes that a lineup was on the floor so that a 1 minute lineup that did really well or really poorly has only a small effect on a 30 minute lineup. I have not used the 2 man (etc.) lineup tools provided by NBA.com because for most of the analyses I want mutually exclusive groups. For example, I will be pairing Jokic and Nurkic with Mudiay and Nelson. Pairings with Muiday are fine to include Nelson, but the opposite is not true for reasons I will expand on later, making the various lineup tools unusable for this purpose.

What's in a center?

Faried should not be playing center for this team. He's been good as a small ball center in the past and may be again in the future, but it has been a complete failure so far. Faried has been a part of 23 different small lineups, and only 8 have a positive rating. Only 4 of those positive lineups have played more than 5 minutes. It has not been pretty...

Our overall net rating is -5.9.

To Jurkic or not to Jurkic...

It's no secret that I've been extremely critical of the the Jurkic lineup as well. This is in large part due to the fact that I do not think that Jokic can succeed as a power forward. I think the fact that Jokic went to Malone and asked to be benched rather than continue playing power forward is as good a testament to that idea as is possible.

This picture is similarly played out in the box score +/- that I've been tracking. Jokic's inability to cover the floor defensively, combined with the spacing issues this lineup has caused has made this a non-starter with our roster. With Murray, Harris, and Gallo on the perimeter, that picture might change, but we are a ways from that lineup being available.

Malone has taken Jokic's request to heart, and over the last two games, Jokic and Nurkic have not shared the floor with one another at all. As he is wont to do, I think this is an overreaction by Malone. I absolutely don't think that Jurkic should start, but I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water either. Both Jokic and Nurkic are promising young players that should feature prominently going forward. That means they both need 27+ minutes on the floor, and with them both playing center, they will have to share some minutes. I think that would be better utilized mid-quarter when bench guys start to come on the floor. Here is why. Mudiay, Barton, Gallo, Jokic and Nurkic played 44 minutes together over the first 3 games and were a -1.3 net rating. That's a big enough sample to tell me that subbing Nurk and Barton to overlap with the end of Jokic's minutes in the 1st and 3rd would be a good way to keep the minutes of both of our centers high.

Wherefore art thou, Jokic?

You might be wondering why Jokic should be starting over Nurkic. It has nothing to do with either as players per se, but with how they mesh with our point guards. Much has been made of the relative successes and struggles of both Mudiay and Nelson. I think a large part of that is a result of the center each point guard is playing with. As I mentioned above, I have split Jokic's and Nurkic's lineups into ones that contain Mudiay (and may also have Nelson as a shooting guard) and those where Mudiay is off the floor. The results are striking.

There is a lot to dive into what may be going on, but I think the simple answer is that Mudiay needs the ball to be successful, and he needs space. With Nurk on the floor they are fighting for both. Jokic is not as ball dominant, and is a much more willing and active screener, opening up a lot more offensive possibilities for Muiday. Jameer on the other hand is much more comfortable dumping to Nurk in the post and also seems to have a better chemistry with Nurk in the pick and roll. The longer we continue with Nurk as the starter the longer we will struggle. I find it hard to believe that Malone doesn't already know this. He needs to be talking to both players about accepting roles where the team will have success, but also where they should have a lot more success individually. Nurk may not want to come off the bench, but his numbers are likely going to be a lot better if he does.

Out, damned 4! Out, I say!

Many have observed that we play extremely well with the combination of Gallo, Chandler, and either of our centers. This is absolutely true. However, I do not think it is anything particularly special about Chandler. I've seen the same effect with Juancho as well. This all goes back to the Mudiay, Harris, Gallo, Arthur, and Jokic lineup. We are a much better team when we can space out around Jokic or Nurkic allowing space for them to post up or for the pick and roll. The important factor is legitimate three point shooting from our power forward and defense on the other end. The following chart is the differential percentage for Arthur last season and Chandler and Juancho so far (not necessarily in that order). Diff% is the difference between a player's overall FG%, and their FG% on shots when guarded by a specific player. Negative values are good.

If you guessed players x-z in order are Juancho, Chandler, and Arthur give yourself a pat on the back. It's still early and Chandler and Juancho will see a lot more shots (as will their opponents), and those numbers will regress, but they are giving us great effort so far on defense. As for spacing, even though Chandler has never been a great outside shooter (20.7% on threes so far), he has a reputation for being dangerous from there. Juancho is shooting a scorching 55.6% on threes so far. Both are legitimate options to space the floor at the power forward position. When you look at the net ratings for Jokic and Nurkic in 4 out lineups (I removed all lineups with fewer than 3 minutes because there's less to work with here) you can see the effect.

The returns here aren't as positive as we saw above, but the important point is that lineups for both Jokic and Nurkic included Mudiay and Nelson. That bench/starter split hasn't been a concern when we play with a stretch 4. Assuming everyone is healthy, I think these are our best lineups:

Until that happens, we probably need to go with something like this:

I have very little hope that's what we will see against Phoenix, but there is always a chance.