Nurkic drops weight, improves conditioning

No Nuggets player has been more motivated to improve this summer than Jusuf Nurkic, whose 2015-16 season was marred by an injury that led to sparse playing time. Nurkic, wasting no time in proving his motivation, lost 35 pounds since spring.

Getting back to the form that landed “The Bosnian Beast” on the NBA All-Rookie second-team two seasons ago is his goal. Exceeding that, really. He recently played with the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team in a four-team tournament in Skopje, Macedonia, which essentially was a “friendly” to help those teams for 2017 EuroBasket qualifiers.

Bosnia and Herzegovina finished 1-2, and Nurkic was the beef in the post. He delivered 17 points, 6.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.3 steals per game.

What Nurkic did. When Bosnia and Herzegovina needed a bucket in the post, Nurkic was the man they went to. And he was reliable, shooting 54 percent on post-up plays.

On screen-and-roll plays, he showed excellent hands, catching many passes that weren’t easy to corral. Defensively, Nurkic was active. Against Montenegro and its star, Nikola Vucevic, who plays for the Orlando Magic, the two took turns winning individual battles. Nurkic held his own against a player who could score inside and out. Nurkic, in flashes, showed nimble feet on the perimeter defensively, routinely guarding bigs who could step out and hit the 3-point shot.

How it translates to the Nuggets. Nurkic’s conditioning is vastly improved from last season, and that will help him going forward. He glided up and down the court, he popped out for hard hedges on defense, he ran the court quickly in transition and he was able to make more multiple effort defensive plays.

Nuggets coaches will love to see that in training camp. He didn’t appear to have a dropoff in strength, either.

Nurkic still needs to work on being comfortable on the block in post-up situations and to work at finishing strong around the rim because he still has a tendency to flip shots up quickly rather than drop step and power his way to the bucket. Defensively, he’s still top shelf. Nurkic has been, and will be, hard to shoot over. He’ll block some shots and alter other shots, and if he can bring the footwork and effort that allowed him to knock post-entry passes away for steals, he’ll be that much more valuable to the Nuggets this season.