CHANDLER WILL COME OFF BENCH IN NEW ROLE
Nuggets hope no longer starting will jump-start veteran forward
Sitting alone along a wall in the Nuggets’ locker room before Thursday’s game against New York, Wilson Chandler quietly, yet candidly, assessed his season.
“Pretty bad,” Chandler said. “Just not feeling like myself, that’s all. Maybe my rhythm’s off. I don’t know.”
Chandler’s moment of selfreflection came before one of his best performances of the season, 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting in Denver’s win over Chandler’s former team. It was Chandler’s second consecutive game coming off the bench, a move Nuggets coach Michael Malone hopes leads to a turnaround for Chandler over Denver’s final 34 games.
“He’s comfortable in that role,” Malone said. “Now, he can kind of see how the game is unfolding, come into the game and look for his role to impact it. (It’s about) just kind of communicating with him, putting him in the right role and having a role that he thinks he can embrace and excel in.
“I think now the rest is on him.” Malone said Chandler never expressed frustration about his production in Denver’s starting lineup. But the coach put himself in Chandler’s position. With so much of the Nuggets’ offense running through big man Nikola Jokic, shooting guard Gary Harris and now point guard Jamal Murray, it became difficult to call Chandler’s number. Teammate Will Barton concurred, noting that “when (Chandler) was in that starting lineup, I feel like he sacrificed the most.”
The results? Though Chandler has been praised for his wing defense, 5.3 rebounds per game and improved playmaking, his scoring average (9.3 points per game) is his lowest since his rookie season in 2007-08. He has scored in double figures in only 16 of the 44 games he’s played.
So Malone decided to move Chandler to the bench after a troubling home loss to Phoenix, a meeting in which Malone apologized for his part in Chandler’s struggles and that the coach said Chandler handled like “a pro.”
Malone’s vision is to re-create Chandler’s niche from last season, when he was a “matchup nightmare” while playing both forward positions and averaged 15.7 points, 6.5 rebounds and two assists per game.
During Monday’s comeback win over Portland, Chandler finished with six points, five rebounds, three blocks and two steals. Malone highlighted Chandler’s two free throws that tied the
game at 78 in the first minute of the fourth quarter, after he exploited his size advantage on Pat Connaughton by posting up. Chandler then got rolling early against the Knicks with two 3pointers.
Though Chandler agreed he lacked opportunities to score as a starter, he ultimately put blame on himself. He said he doesn’t feel any lingering effects of a back injury that hampered him in late November and early December. And before a summer in which Chandler has a player contract option to remain with the Nuggets in 2018-19, he didn’t offer any specifics on what’s gone wrong personally thus far or how he can turn things around as Denver continues its push for a playoff berth.
“I have no idea, to be honest,” Chan- dler said.
Malone hopes the past two games are a sign that coming off the bench will help Chandler regain his 2016-17 form. And Barton, whose own role this season has fluctuated immensely, still believes in his teammate.
“We are still counting on him,” Barton said. “No matter what.”
Lydon undergoes knee surgery.
Rookie forward Tyler Lydon had successful arthroscopic surgery on his left knee Friday, the Nuggets announced.
Lydon, a first-round draft pick, suffered the injury during Wednesday’s game with the G League’s Rio Grande Valley Vipers and had surgery at UCHealth in Denver.
Lydon has toggled back and forth between the Nuggets and the G League throughout the season, but he has appeared in just one game for the Nuggets. There is no timetable for his return.