The Denver Nuggets have rallied after a sluggish start to the season. Their most recent win came over the Toronto Raptors at home, improving their record to 4-3. Despite the early-season turnaround, Denver has a narrative circling its team, one that Nuggets veteran Russell Westbrook was quick to spurn.
Nuggets Veteran Rejects Media Narrative Amid Shooting Strife
Nuggets Veteran Russell Westbrook Pushes Back on Team “Storyline”
The Nuggets stagnant start to the season has turned a corner, seemingly. Although they’re playing better basketball, their three-point shooting has become a topic of conversation surrounding their early-season struggles. From the opening jump, Denver as a team has shot poorly from beyond the arc.
Although Michael Porter Jr‘s three-point percentage has improved to 36%, in his first three games, he went just 4 of 20 from three. Jamal Murray, on the other hand, has not seen any uptick. He’s currently shooting below 30% and has missed Denver’s previous two games. Peyton Watson sits at 16.7%, and Westbrook at 20.8%. On the other side of the fence, Nikola Jokic was shooting 60% at one point, but after Denver’s win over Toronto, dropped to 53.1% for the season—still a fantastic number. And Christian Braun, whose usage has skyrocketed this season (averaging 35 minutes per game), is also shooting incredibly well from three, averaging 42.9%.
Despite the positive stats from Jokic, Braun, and now Porter Jr., the Nuggets still struggle overall. However, Westbrook was asked about it in a postgame media session following Monday night’s game. He pushed back on the “storyline” concerning his team’s three-point shooting woes.
“…I’m going to stop you first, I don’t know if its a storyline. I think that’s you guys’ storyline. I don’t think that’s our internal storyline to be honest. We just play the game the right way and we’ll make shots as they come and it was good to be able to hit shots…we keep making and taking shots and we always going to give ourselves a chance to win the game.”
Top Spot in a Bad Category
Westbrook has always been one to push back on outside noise and narratives, whether it concerns him personally, his play, or his team. However, in this case, the storyline he wants to reject holds some weight. One could argue that a part of Denver’s shaky start to the season can be attributed to their shooting struggles. It’s not that it’s a negative narrative; it’s apparent and visible from the outside. While he may not alarmed by it, it’s still relevant.
Westbrook himself is sitting in a not-so-elegant basketball category right now. Despite a 21-point night on 6 of 10 shooting on Monday, the 199-career triple-double veteran has the worst field goal percentage of players who have attempted at least 50 shots in the entire league. That painful number would be 28.8%. Westbrook’s shooting efficiency has dropped immensely over the years, but this is not a good look for him even still.
It’s true that in the Nuggets locker room, their three-point shooting may not be the number one topic of concern. And Westbrook isn’t wrong to push back on the narrative. But when he speaks of ‘making shots as they come’ and ‘giving ourselves a chance to win,’ perhaps he should reconstruct his thinking on this one and focus on making his own shots when given the opportunity to shoot. Westbrook won’t be the catalyst for a Nuggets successful, championship-aspired season or the opposite. However, his contribution needs to elevate to some degree as the campaign progresses, especially in the absence of Jamal Murray.
