The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski dropped the first big #WOJBOMB of NBA trade season Sunday, reporting the Denver Nuggets were sending Jusuf Nurkic and the Memphis Grizzlies’ top-five-protected 2017 first-round pick to the Portland Trail Blazers in exchange for Mason Plumlee and a 2018 second-rounder.
Depending on how Plumlee’s foray into restricted free agency plays out this summer, the trade could wind up being a win-win for both sides.
Heading into Monday, the Nuggets only held a one-game lead over the Blazers for the Western Conference’s No. 8 seed, making this particular deal an eyebrow-raiser on the surface. When in the midst of a competitive playoff race, why help shore up one of your competitors’ weaknesses? Once you take each franchise’s long-term outlook into consideration, though, the motivations become clearer for both.
What’s in it for Portland?
After throwing around money like it was going out of style last offseason, the Blazers couldn’t realistically afford to keep Plumlee around after this year. With more than $130 million in guaranteed contracts already on the books in 2017-18, Portland will be firmly in luxury-tax territory unless it can shed salary in a trade. (Per Basketball Insiders’ Eric Pincus, the NBA’s most recent projections peg the tax threshold to be at $122 million.)
Rather than allow Plumlee to walk for nothing as a free agent in a few months’ time, general manager Neil Olshey managed to turn him into two legitimate assets in Nurkic and Memphis’ first-round pick.
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Portland will miss Plumlee, who star point guard Damian Lillard called “one of my favorite teammates that I’ve played with — not just in the NBA, but in my life, period,” according to CSNNW.com’s Jason Quick. He led all regular Blazers rotation players in field-goal percentage (53.2), ranked second only to Lillard in assists per game (4.0) and trailed just Lillard and CJ McCollum in points (11.1).
“I was very surprised,” Lillard told reporters following the trade Sunday, per The Oregonian‘s Joe Freeman. “I figured if it was going to happen with anybody, it wouldn’t be Mase, just because he meant that much to our team and did so many things for our team on the floor.”
Salary-cap constraints made Plumlee the first casualty of the Blazers’ offseason spending spree, as Nurkic is locked into a cost-controlled rookie contract through 2017-18. For the next season-and-a-half, Portland will have the opportunity to see whether the Bosnian Bear can bolster its lackluster defense.
In the Blazers’ two seasons with Plumlee as their starting center, they ranked 20th and 27th league-wide, respectively, in defensive efficiency. Portland allowed nearly five fewer points per 100 possessions this year with him on the bench versus on the court, continuing a concerning trend that emerged last season, too. There’s plenty of noise in those figures — notably, Plumlee played the lion’s share of his minutes this year alongside Lillard or McCollum, neither of whom will be making an appearance on an All-Defensive squad anytime soon — but they’re hardly encouraging.
However, Plumlee doesn’t deserve all of the blame for Portland’s defensive woes. Among the 76 players who’ve faced at least four shots around the rim per game, the Duke product has held opponents to the 18th-lowest shooting percentage. (Nurkic, meanwhile, ranks 71st in that group.) Due in large part to Plumlee, the Blazers have allowed the third-lowest field-goal percentage at the rim, suggesting Lillard and McCollum bear plenty of responsibility for Portland’s inability to create consistent stops.
Though Nurkic’s defensive metrics are abysmal this season, he held opponents to just 48.4 percent shooting around the rim as a rookie, right in line with Plumlee’s numbers in 2016-17. Without having to battle Nikola Jokic for minutes, the 22-year-old will have every opportunity to reestablish himself as a burly young big man capable of anchoring an above-average defense.
“When his mind is right and the conditioning that he’s in right now and he’s feeling healthy, he’s a physically imposing player who is very, very skilled and is by far our best rim protector out there, and the numbers back it up,” Nuggets head coach Mike Malone told Christopher Dempsey of the Denver Post heading into the year.
If Nurkic stays healthy and doesn’t allow his frustration to adversely affect his play — an admittedly big “if,” based on reports out of Denver — he could develop into a long-term complement to the Lillard-McCollum pairing. Even if he goes bust, Portland still managed to turn two months of Plumlee into a first-round pick in what looks like a tantalizingly deep draft.
Trading Plumlee may be a short-term setback for the Blazers, but after Evan Turner went down with a fractured metacarpal in his right hand, their playoff hopes were already slipping away. Olshey deserves kudos for his proactivity here, even if it lessens Portland’s chance of making a late-season push.
What’s in it for Denver?
On paper, trading Nurkic and a first-round pick for two months of Plumlee and a future second-round pick sounds insane. Considering Denver’s current roster composition, though, it’s far more reasonable than it otherwise might appear.
Last month, ESPN.com’s Marc Stein reported the Nuggets were “working to find a new home” for Nurkic, “having acknowledged that it’s difficult to accommodate both Nurkic and Nikola Jokic in the same frontcourt.” Malone rolled out the so-called “Jurkic” tandem early in the year (to disastrous results), but it didn’t take him long to pivot away from Nurkic in favor of Jokic. Since mid-December, the latter has thrived, emerging as an All-Star-caliber anchor of Denver’s future, while Nurkic largely fell out of rotation and sulked on the bench.
In writing about the Nurkic trade, Adam Mares of Denver Stiffs described him as a “sunk cost” and said moving him to Portland was “addition by subtraction.” The Bosnian Bear hadn’t shied away from voicing his frustration about his shrinking role in recent weeks, telling reporters in late December, “I’m not here to sit on the bench I’m here to play basketball.”
Swapping Nurkic for Plumlee will allow Denver to play the same way all 48 minutes, running offense through its big men frequently. Among qualified centers, Jokic ranks second league-wide in assist percentage, but Plumlee doesn’t trail far behind in fifth place. He likewise ranks fifth among all centers in assists per game, trailing only Al Horford, DeMarcus Cousins, Jokic and Marc Gasol. Having two sweet-passing big men reduces the pressure on Denver’s ball-handlers, as they can play off the ball and cut to the basket more frequently.
It’s an open question whether Plumlee and Jokic can coexist alongside one another, particularly on defense, but this trade gives Denver a two-month head start on figuring out the answer before the former becomes a restricted free agent. Unlike Portland, the Nuggets are swimming in cap space heading into the summer—they should have upward of $28 million even if Danilo Gallinari accepts his $16.1 million player option—which makes matching any offer sheet Plumlee receives far more palatable. If he and Jokic combine as well as oil and water, Denver could always flip him to another center-needy team a year or two down the road.
Much like Nurkic, Memphis’ first-round pick had less value for the Nuggets than it would for other teams. Malik Beasley, the No. 19 pick in this year’s draft, has played a grand total of 80 minutes this season. With Gary Harris, Jamal Murray and Emmanuel Mudiay in the fold, Denver is already stocked with young prospects in its backcourt, while a mixture of veterans (Gallinari, Wilson Chandler and Kenneth Faried) and players still on their rookie contracts (Jokic, Juan Hernangomez and now Plumlee) are dominating frontcourt minutes. The Nuggets could have spent Memphis’ first-rounder on an international draft-and-stash player, but that pick likely wouldn’t have made much of a difference over the next few years.
Who’s the biggest winner?
For now, Denver looks like the short-term winner of the trade, as swapping an out-of-the-rotation Nurkic for a strong backup in Plumlee should only help its playoff push. The deal also may temporarily weaken Portland, giving the Nuggets one fewer competitor to worry about in the race for the West’s No. 8 seed.
Until we see the type of contract offers Plumlee receives as a restricted free agent, though, there’s no way to determine the overall winner of this deal.
If a team devoid of young prospects — say, the Brooklyn Nets — floats a massive offer sheet Plumlee’s way, he’ll quickly become prohibitive for the Nuggets to keep around long term. Conversely, if restricted free agency cools interest around him and he’s forced to sign a below-market deal, Denver could emerge as a mammoth winner.
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The deal is no sure thing for either side, but both teams could wind up coming out ahead based on their respective needs.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com or Basketball-Reference.com and are current through Sunday, Feb. 12.