New Nugget Renaldo Balkman Versus Previous Nugget Eduardo Najera

At the end of July, Renaldo Balkman was brought on to the Nuggets to replace Eduardo Najera as designated defensive, disruption, and hustling specialist. I compared Balkman, Najera, and Bobby Jones, another player known as a good and energetic defender. Jones was the kind of younger player who under the regime of George Karl was probably doomed from the start to never be able to remain on the Nuggets.

Regarding Renaldo Balkman, the replacement for Eduardo Najera, the first problem is that the Nuggets have, as they are doing financially, gone from one extreme to another experience wise. Balkman has about 2,000 minutes of experience in banging, while Najera has over 9,500 minutes.

Let's compare Balkman, Najera's replacement, with Najera himself, and also with who would have been a partial replacement for Najera had he been kept, Bobby Jones, who was traded for Balkman.

On threes, Najera has hit on .3 threes per 36 minutes with a percentage of .332. Balkman has hit on .1 threes per 36 minute for a non-competitive percentage of .154. Jones has made .8 threes with a % of .306. Jones has a three-point shot, Balkman does not, and Najera has one but has never used it much.

Overall shooting shows Najera making 4 field goals per 36 minutes with a percentage of .493. Balkman is essentially identical, 4.1 field goals per 36 minutes with a percentage of .499. Bobby Jones also makes about 4 shots per 36 minutes, with a percentage of .442. So they all score about the same, but Jones misses a few jumpers never attempted by Najera or Balkman.

On getting to the line, Najera has the better "style." Najera has earned 1.9 free throws per 36 minutes, and has made .686 of them. Balkman has earned 1.6 free throws per 36 and has made .497 or half. Jones earns 2.6 free throws per 36, and makes .685 of them. Jones is the best slasher to the rim of the three.

Najera is exactly twice the rebounder Balkman is so far, 7.6 rebounds per 36 minutes versus 3.8. For the first time in many years, it looks like Denver is going to be a relatively poor rebounding team this year. Bobby Jones, who was lost in this trade, has been making 6.2 rebounds per 36 minutes, closer to Najera than Balkman. The Marcus Camby rebound rate is 11.4.

With regard to moving and making decisions with the basketball, Najera, never worked into an offense to any extent, has made 1.6 assists per 36 minutes with 1.3 turnovers per 36. Balkman has made 1.5 assists per 36 minutes with 1.5 turnovers per 36. Jones has made 1.8 assists per 36 minutes, with 1.9 turnovers. George Karl refused to play Jones much largely due to that turnover rate. Najera was and is slightly better than Jones in handling and making decisions with the ball, due to experience I would think. Balkman has about the same relatively dismal assist/turnover ratio as Jones, at a lower level of handling the basketball. So Najera is the best of the three by a small amount, while Balkman and Jones are about even up.

With regard to steals and blocks, Najera has made 1.4 steals and .8 blocks per 36 minutes, while Balkman has made 1.8 steals and 1.3 blocks per 36 minutes. Jones has made 1.1 steals and only .2 blocks per 36. If a player is described as a hustle type player, you hope that it shows up somewhere in what can be measured. And with Balkman it shows up with his block rate, which is far higher than Najera's and is almost infinitely higher than Jones' block rate, since Jones does not block shots very much. The gold standard of blocking is the Marcus Camby blocked shot rate, which is 3.1 per 36. So Balkman is a little more than 4/10 the shot blocker that Camby is, which is actually kind of impressive.

Since both Najera and Balkman are regarded as defensive players, it is interesting to note that Balkman is well ahead of Najera in defending that you can measure, so the Nuggets made a fairly good trade with respect to making up for the loss of Najera. The funny thing is, Jones "hustles" on defense also, but he doesn't get anywhere near the actual steals or blocks that a Najera or a Balkman get, so the Nuggets would have been worse off defensively had they not traded Jones for Balkman. The Nuggets lose some offense, but Jones is too young to be a core offensive player for George Karl, so overall it was a good trade for the Nuggets. Due to Karl, the Nuggets were never going to take advantage of the offensive potential of Bobby Jones that much.

However, if the Nuggets are unable to largely make up for the loss of Camby and become a full scale poor rebounding team, the trade was about a wash.

On made them miss defending, we can speculate that Balkman and Najera are about even in that, with Jones actually not too far behind; Jones is a good defender in terms of forced misses, even though he does not actually block many shots.

On the style front, folks who consider style important like Balkman at least as much as they do Najera, while Jones' style is not all that much liked.

But the bigger picture remains that the Nuggets have no future as a playoff team after the loss of Camby, and though Balkman is a very good defender, he is not a very good rebounder, so the Nuggets rebounding is now most likely going to be a problem; how serious will depend of course on how much Nene plays and how much Carmelo Anthony and Kenyon Anthony full in the huge rebounding gap left with Camby's departure.
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