Nikola Jokic’s historic career has been characterized in part by the Nuggets’ painstaking, ongoing search for his backup — a center capable of holding down the fort when he’s not playing. This summer, that search led them to a trade with the Kings: Dario Saric to Sacramento, Jonas Valanciunas to Denver. As Valanciunas prepares for the most thankless job in the NBA, here’s a look back at the precedent of failure he’s trying to break.
Dec. 15, 2016: Jokic usurps Nurkic
Jusuf Nurkic became Jokic’s first backup center in unceremonious fashion, getting benched by Michael Malone 25 games into his third season.
That decision has aged, uh, pretty gracefully. But at the time, it sparked tension between Nurkic and the Nuggets. Drafted 16th overall on the same night Denver selected Jokic 41st overall in 2014, Nurkic coveted his playing time and didn’t take well to the demotion. While waiting to be traded to a team that would start him, he averaged 13.9 minutes, mostly off the bench, in his last 20 games in Denver.
February 2017 – 2019-20 season: Plumlee’s steady hand
A period of relative stability for the Nuggets’ center depth began when they traded Nurkic and a first-round pick to Portland, hoping to secure a replacement more open to a long-term backup role.
Mason Plumlee was exactly that for three years and change. He and Jokic started together occasionally, with Jokic’s ability to spread the floor making him a suitable four when Denver wanted to play big. But mostly, Plumlee was his steady understudy.
The Nuggets avoided drowning with a minus-1.4 net rating in 3,561 regular-season minutes with Plumlee on the court and Jokic on the bench, according to PBP Stats. In fact, during their watershed 2020 playoff run to the Western Conference Finals, the Plumlee minutes without Jokic (while limited) were more productive than vice versa.
2020-21 season: What could’ve been
As Jokic took the leap to MVP status, the depth chart behind him regressed into an era of uncertainty. Plumlee left for greener pastures in Detroit. The Nuggets drafted Zeke Nnaji to join Bol Bol as a developmental project, then signed Isaiah Hartenstein and JaMychal Green to give themselves options.
Hartenstein was the most traditionally size-appropriate center in a carousel that also included Paul Millsap. But in arguably the biggest failure of Malone’s coaching tenure — at least with the benefit of hindsight — the 7-footer was painfully underutilized. Denver’s net rating exceeded seven with Hartenstein on the court despite his underwhelming individual production, and that was with him playing all of his minutes separate from Jokic. Even so, he averaged only 9.1 minutes per game.
Hartenstein appeared in 30 contests before the Nuggets sent him to Cleveland with two future second-round picks at the trade deadline. They got back JaVale McGee, who was in and out of the lineup for the rest of the season, eventually sitting out six of Denver’s 10 playoff games. Hartenstein went on to sign an $87 million contract with the Thunder three years later and helped Oklahoma City win its first championship.
“You’re playing 10 minutes, and it doesn’t matter what you do in your minutes,” he said this summer in a guest appearance on Paul George’s podcast. “You’re not doing what Jokic is doing.”
2021-22 season: Boogie bridges the gap
The Nuggets went into the season without a bona fide backup big man and planned to play small. Millsap and McGee were both gone, leaving Jeff Green and JaMychal Green as options. Then Michael Porter Jr. underwent back surgery, and Jeff was needed as a starting forward.
It took until January 2022 for Denver to find help in the form of DeMarcus Cousins via a 10-day contract. Before “Boogie” debuted, the team’s net rating without Jokic on the floor was minus-12.5 — a resounding 22.2 points per 100 possessions worse than Jokic’s on-court net rating.
That margin shrank late in the season thanks to Cousins, who eventually earned a full-time roster spot. Without Porter and Jamal Murray, this was still as close to a gap year as the Nuggets have ever been during Jokic’s career. But Cousins also fleetingly established a blueprint for Denver’s bench — being able to build a style of offense around the backup center — that has been on David Adelman’s mind three years later.
2022-23 – 2024-25 seasons: The DJ years
Denver continued to cycle through once-great, past-their-prime big men by acquiring DeAndre Jordan in 2022. He won his first career NBA title with Denver and stuck around for three years, in large part because he was a beloved locker room presence.
But the Nuggets never meant to depend on him as much as they ultimately did in Jokic’s rest minutes. Nnaji’s development stagnated, particularly when he was used as a center, boxing him in as a third-string power forward instead. Thomas Bryant was a trade deadline pickup in 2023, but he played in just 18 games. Dario Saric played in 16 after he was brought in to emulate Jokic’s play style for two years and $10.4 million — an idea that instantly crashed and burned. Aaron Gordon slotted in as a five during the playoffs, but to expect that of him in the regular season was too taxing a proposition.
And so Denver kept on turning to Jordan for assistance, even as his Lob City athleticism faded further into the past. He played 131 regular-season games as a Nugget. Never sharing the court with Jokic, his net rating was minus-6.4 in 1,672 minutes.
2025 – present: Can Big Val break the curse?
On paper, Valanciunas might be Denver’s best hope of returning the non-Jokic minutes to the standard set by Plumlee. It’s been half a decade since he left Denver — and three different front-office regimes.
Valanciunas was acquired the same way as Plumlee and McGee, via a direct swap of centers with another team. He’s played 937 NBA games and started 91% of them. He’s been a double-digit scorer for 12 consecutive seasons. He’s a reliable rebounder, substantial screener and perceptive passer. Adelman wants to use him as both a traditional post-up center and as a Jokician play-maker from the elbows. He’ll also give Denver its first double-big look since Plumlee.
“He’s so consistent down there and strong, and gets his own rebound if he does miss,” Murray said this preseason. “I think he’s going to be a problem for the other team.”
That would be a refreshing change for the Nuggets at a position that has long been a problem for their own team.
‘Man’s search for meaning’
Former Nuggets coach Michael Malone once turned existential when attempting to describe Nikola Jokic’s rest minutes, referring to it as “man’s search for meaning.” Denver is routinely faced with a chasm between its net rating when Jokic is on the court and when he’s off it. The team hopes that trading for Jonas Valanciunas can shrink that gap.
| Regular Season | Jokic on (minutes) | Jokic off (minutes) | Net rating differential |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | 6.5 (2038) | -5.7 (1913) | 12.2 |
| 2017-18 | 6.2 (2433) | -5.7 (1533) | 11.9 |
| 2018-19 | 5.8 (2504) | 1.7 (1442) | 4.1 |
| 2019-20 | 4.5 (2335) | -2.2 (1214) | 6.7 |
| 2020-21 | 7.7 (2488) | -1.2 (1008) | 8.9 |
| 2021-22 | 8.4 (2476) | -7.9 (1485) | 16.3 |
| 2022-23 | 12.5 (2323) | -10.4 (1628) | 22.9 |
| 2023-24 | 11.8 (2737) | -8.6 (1204) | 20.4 |
| 2024-25 | 10.5 (2571) | -9.3 (1400) | 19.8 |
Source: NBA.com