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Denver Nuggets Darrell Arthur Could Help Good Team

By Bryan Gibberman

Oct 21, 2014; Boulder, CO, USA; Portland Trail Blazers forward LaMarcus Aldridge (12) shoots the ball over Denver Nuggets Darrell Arthur (00) during the second half at the Coors Events Center. The Trail Blazers won 93-75. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 21, 2014; Boulder, CO, USA; Portland Trail Blazers forward LaMarcus Aldridge (12) shoots the ball over Denver Nuggets Darrell Arthur (00) during the second half at the Coors Events Center. The Trail Blazers won 93-75. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports /
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Darrell Arthur of the Denver Nuggets could be of great worth to an NBA contender

Despite winning two of three and coming off a road win against the Cleveland Cavaliers there doesn’t seem to be much hope for the Denver Nuggets this season. They’re a team built of mainly complementary players with the potential exclusion of Ty Lawson and don’t have the lynch pins to play off of.

The Nuggets reaching .500 this season is an unlikely proposition and it makes sense they would look to shake up the roster. One potential unheralded name that could help a team in need of big man depth is six-year veteran Darrell Arthur.

Arthur is surprisingly only 26 years old, soon to be 27, and was a former late first round pick to the Memphis Grizzlies out of the University of Kansas. He’s only averaged over 20 minutes per game once in his career (20.1 2010-11 with the Memphis Grizzlies) and has never been consistently extended outside of his comfort zone.

Oct 21, 2014; Boulder, CO, USA; Denver Nuggets forward Darrell Arthur (00) drives to the basket against Portland Trail Blazers forward Dorell Wright (1) during the second half at the Coors Events Center. The Trail Blazers won 93-75. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 21, 2014; Boulder, CO, USA; Denver Nuggets forward Darrell Arthur (00) drives to the basket against Portland Trail Blazers forward Dorell Wright (1) during the second half at the Coors Events Center. The Trail Blazers won 93-75. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports /

Arthur is the type of player that can seamlessly fit in with almost any roster. He knows what his role and doesn’t try to do too much. Almost all of his shots this season are quick, decisive decisions out of a pick and pop or as a spot up shooter.

According to SportVU 79.3% of Arthur’s attempts are of the catch and shoot variety, 89.7% are with zero dribbles and 91.4% are in under two seconds.

In 141 minutes so far this season Arthur has diversified his shot location. In 2013-14 he took a career high 64 threes and 2.7 per 100 possessions. Arthur has already attempted 21 from behind the arc and is shooting 8.4 per 100 possessions. In six of nine games Arthur has let fly two or more threes.

This has been a slow progression for Arthur. According to basketball-reference.com in his rookie and second year the average distance of shot was 8.8 feet, year three went up to 10.7 feet, followed by 11.9 feet, then making a significant jump to 15.9 feet last season and has expanded to 17.9 in 2014.

Doing the math it makes sense too — Arthur shot .527 of his shot attempts between 16 feet and three point range at 40% clip. He put up .156 percent of his shots making .375 from three. The attempt-percentage has evened out this season with 32% of the attempts in the mid range area listed above and 38% from deep.

Arthur assist-percentage is also at a current career-high of 13.5%. The career number comes in at 6%, but this also trended better in 13-14 at 8%. Even if it drops Arthur has flashed ability to be a reasonably decent passer. If a shot isn’t there out of the pick and pop he’s more than capable of making a post entry pass to a big flashing to the middle as he’s done to JaVale McGee on occasion. There’s even been a couple of extremely impressive passes on the move, off the dribble, leading to dunks.

On the other end Arthur isn’t spectacular, but he works hard and is stable. In his first year with Denver the team’s defensive rating was significantly better with him on the court and that pattern has continued this season. There’s no doubt part of that has to do with the players he’s replacing so it’s difficult to figure out how much to read into that.

He is mobile enough to hedge and recover to his man when defending PnR and also has had to deal with a defensive deficient front court member in JaVale McGee this season.

Another area Arthur has posted career best numbers up to this point is rebounding. His defensive rebound percentage sits at 23.9 up from his career average of 13.9. The 13.3 total rebounds Arthur is corralling per 100 possessions is surprising coming off two seasons with below 10.

That’s three key areas of change to Arthur’s game in shot selection plus improved rebounding and passing. With Arthur already proving himself to be an NBA level rotation big it bears to watch if the current trends continue or if it’s just a slight blip that happened to come in an early season stretch.

However that does end up developing it makes sense for it to happen in another uniform besides the Nuggets. He’s in the final year of his contract paying him slightly under $3.5 million. Arthur isn’t apart of their future considering the log jam they have with their bigs going through at least next season.

Arthur has good value to any team needing a 15-20 minute power forward off the bench for depth purposes. Teams I could see making sense to inquire about what the Nuggets would want for Arthur include the Los Angeles Clippers, Portland Trail Blazers, Dallas Mavericks, New Orleans Pelicans and Houston Rockets.

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