Christian Braun is Emerging as an Elite Role Player for the Denver Nuggets
After losing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in free agency, there were a lot of concerns about who would complement Nikola Jokic. Christian Braun has seamlessly filled the void.
The Denver Nuggets lost a key piece to their championship puzzle over the summer and subsequently have gotten off to a shaky start. After Kentavious Caldwell-Pope chose to join the Orlando Magic in free agency, the Nuggets chose to make a big-time bet on their young core stepping up to fill the void. The overall rotation is still a work in progress, but Christian Braun has met the challenge and is emerging as an elite role player.
In his first two seasons, Braun provided the Denver bench with defensive versatility, athleticism, and an all-around infusion of energy. Unfortunately, though, the offense continued to be a major question mark as teams didn’t really respect him as a shooter or creator. This year, though, Braun’s offensive efficiency has skyrocketed and allowed him to step into Caldwell-Pope’s role from last year with ease.
Whenever a team switches out a veteran guard for a younger one in the starting lineup, you expect there to be some serious changes. Oddly enough, though, there hasn’t been much change in the Nuggets’s overall advanced numbers between when Caldwell-Pope was on the court last season to Braun this season. The team’s difference in net rating is down only 1.8 to just an embarrassing +10.1 (87th percentile), per Cleaning the Glass. Additionally, the offensive rating has only dropped from 124.1 to 122.9, and the defensive rating is nearly identical from 112.2 to 112.9. Those are obviously team numbers, so there are four other players who are influencing them, but for Braun to step into a much more prominent role and essentially not affect those numbers at all is encouraging.