This year’s Denver Nuggets roster was billed as the deepest ever assembled around Nikola Jokic. Through the first part of the regular season, it turns out this claim…undersold the supporting cast.
Denver’s bench players are a plus-5.8 points per 100 possessions so far. We would give you a list of every second-string group to match that net rating if we could. But we can’t. Because it doesn’t exist.
You’re reading this correctly: The Nuggets, statistically speaking, have the NBA’s most effective bench. That is a stark departure from how their top-heavy build last season, and the season before that, and also the season before that, and—well, you get the point.