Nurk’s fit in the Budenholzer system is critical.

Welcome to the 2024-25 Phoenix Suns Season Preview series, where we embark on a comprehensive journey through the roster. In this series, we’ll break down individual player previews, offering a detailed look at each member of the Suns’ lineup. We’ll recap their performance from last season, highlighting key moments and areas of growth, and analyze how their skills, experience, and roles will contribute to the team’s championship aspirations.

Whether it’s the seasoned veterans or the rising stars, each player has a unique role in what could be a defining season for the franchise. Join us as we explore the potential and challenges that lie ahead for the Suns in their pursuit of basketball glory.

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Jusuf Nurkic

Center, 7’0”, 290 lbs, 30 years old, 10 Years of NBA Experience

Career Averages: 12.1 PPG, 8.9 RPG, 2.5 APG, .9 SPG, 1.1 BPG on 50.3/28/64 shooting splits

The Bosnian Beast in some ways exemplified the up-and-down nature of the Phoenix Suns last season. Whether it was off-court Twitter shenanigans, or on-court plays, his role as the defensive anchor of the Suns defense invited both surprised delight and deserved angst. Who Nurk is as a player and has shown us to be can give us an accurate idea of the floor and ceiling that we expect next season.

Big Nurk was born in Zivinice, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and began playing in Slovenian youth leagues at the age of 14. He played professionally in various leagues across Europe between 2012 and 2014 before entering the NBA Draft.

The Chicago Bulls drafted him with the 16th pick and he was traded to the Nuggets on draft night. Of course, the Nuggets drafted some other center during a Taco Bell commercial, but it was assumed that Nurk would be the anchor in the middle for many years. He made the NBA All-Rookie second team, but in a sign of things to come, ended the season with surgery on his patellar tendon. He would only play 32 games in his 2nd season.

When that 2nd rounder supplanted him as the starter in year 3, he was traded to the Portland Trailblazers, where he would team up with Damian Lillard for some of the most fun playoff runs that franchise had had in many years. Nurk was a key part of those teams and had 3 years of playing 65 games or more, establishing himself as a double double machine. His catastrophic leg injury held him to 45 games played in two years and under 60 games played the 2 seasons after that. Fair or not, this gave him a label as being injury prone, but hey, my leg has never snapped in half, so what do I know about how long it takes to comfortably carry 290 pounds around in an NBA setting.

When it became clear that the Blazers were never going to break through as constructed the tank was on and Lillard and Nurk were both traded, where his journey as a Sun began.

2023-24 Recap

Stats: 10.9 PPG, 11 RPG, 4 APG on 51/24/64 shooting splits. 2.3 TOV, 1.1 STL, 1.1 BLK

The trade for Jusuf Nurkic ended our long regional nightmare that was the Deandre Ayton experience. James Jones sent Ayton and Toumani Camara to the Blazers as the facilitator for the Dame trade. They received Nurk, Grayson Allen, Nassir Little, and Keon Johnson in return.

While many people were relieved to see Ayton move on, the way he divided our fan base, in some ways immediately transferred over to Nurk. I always accepted that in any Ayton trade, we would be downgrading at the center position, with the hope that you were getting better value on a much smaller contract. I was not excited about the trade but was mostly relieved to not have to talk about DA anymore.

James Jones and Mat Ishbia preached that the move was all about fit and that his facilitation and rebounding would offset any defensive concerns and that Frank Vogel would be able to work his defensive big man magic.

Despite injury concerns, Nurk and Kevin Durant proved to be some of the most resilient players on the roster. Nurk played 76 games in the regular season and immediately showed us how his role as a screener and facilitator could anchor the Suns and provide needed versatility. He and KD immediately established a rapport and did their best to weather the storm when Book and Beal were battling injuries. He also showed some surprising defensive chops in Vogel’s system. We also saw that he committed some truly mind-boggling turnovers, a harbinger of things to come throughout the season.

The highlight of his season came in a loss to Denver, where he put up a season-high 31 points along with 14 rebounds. Unfortunately, he fouled out before the end of the game and it was a perfect example of how Nurk could inspire and deflate a fanbase all in one game. He also had a game against the Thunder where he broke the Suns’ single-game rebound record with 31. But once again, that performance came in a loss.

The Suns were +404 with Nurk on the court, by far the best on the team and their best lineups often featured Nurk, although some of this was attributed to how bad Drew Eubanks was. He also had the best defensive rating on the team by season’s end despite being slow, a liability, and a ho-hum shot blocker.

But all of that began to degrade after a thumb injury in January. His efficiency around the rim, which was never great, began to decline, his free throw percentage plummeted, and he completely eliminated three-pointers from his game.

All of this culminated in a colossal flameout in the playoffs. To be clear, NO ONE on the Suns played well, but it was frustrating to see Gobert cook him as he averaged only 7.8 points and 8.3 rebounds in the sweep. He was played off the floor, but the Suns had no viable center behind him. Thus the first season of the Nurkic experience left many with a bad taste in their mouth, although considering the expectations many had for him at the beginning of the season, he proved himself to be a valuable regular-season center who could hold up on defense, gobble up rebounds, and provide delightful internet content for those who could avoid the Bosnian Block.

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Contract Details

Nurk is entering the 3rd year of a 4 year, $70 million contract. His cap hit, this year will be $18,125,000. He’s the 16th highest-paid center in the league, sandwiched between Jakob Poeltl and Zach Collins.

Highest Paid Centers: 2024

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Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths:

• Rebounding

Key Stats: Team leader in rebounds and 9th in league with 11 per game. Suns’ single-game record of 31 rebounds. 14 games with 15 or more rebounds. Nurk is a large human and one of the few big men in the NBA who can bang with Nikola Jokic in the paint. Sadly, we didn’t get to see this put to the test in the playoffs.

• Screening

Key Stats: Nurk was 8th in the league in screen assists at 3.8 per game, leading to 8.3 points per game. His dribble handoff game was something the Suns went away from in the playoffs when it had been one of their bread-and-butter actions all season. The man is large and when he sets a screen opposing defenders feel it, giving critical space to the big 3.

• Facilitating

Key Stats: Nurk averaged 4.0 APG, a full 1.5 higher than his career average. Paired with his screen assists, he was a major factor in springing guys open. Another factor of his was his outlet passes. The moment he’d come down with a rebound he would often look and fire a long pass to streaking Booker or KD. The downside was that his Turnovers per game were 2.3, which was just a tick better than his turnovers per game the last time he averaged 4 assists. You would hope that with less responsibility to be a facilitator, that number can go down. Many of his turnover came from putting the ball on the floor instead of going up strong to the basket as well. Hopefully, Tyus and Monte help with this going forward

• Drop Coverage

Key Stats: Nurk held up very well in drop coverage and was 10th in the NBA in both 2-point shots contested per game and total shots contested at 6.0 and 8.5 respectively. Despite being big and less than fleet of foot, he is a smart player and Vogel used him to hedge a recovery quite a bit. The most surprising stat for Jusuf Nurkic in my mind is that he was 4th in the NBA in Defensive Rating at 108.2. The only players ahead of him were Rudy Gobert, Victor Wembanyana, and Nikola Jokic. You may say that, he’s a terrible defender, but he worked hard on that end, and Vogel really tried to implement a scheme that protected him. His liability on defense is greatly exaggerated though he can be exploited in the playoffs when having to switch out on an athletic wing or guard.

Just Look:

• Give a Shit

Key Stats: While there’s no real stat for Give a Shit (GaS% should exist), Nurk was a breath of fresh air on the court when it came to effort. He held himself and others accountable, communicated, and wasn’t afraid to mix it up in defense of his guys. DA would never. Nurk may have single-handedly kept the Warriors out of the playoffs, by making Draymond Green absolutely insane. That Big Balkan energy was sorely needed and of course, left us with this meme for the ages:

Weaknesses:

• Finishing

Key Stats: There’s no way around it. The most painful part of Nurk’s game is his finishing. While he actually had a couple of awesome plays finishing at the rim to seal games against the Warriors and Bulls, the overall numbers told a different story. He only shot 51% at the rim, just out of the bottom 20 centers, compared to the leader Derek Lively, who shot 74.7%.

The deeper you go, the worse it gets: 1st Percentile was not what we were looking for.

• Switchability

Key Stats: This has always been a huge question mark for teams with Jusuf Nurkic. Can he stay on the court when teams start targeting him and getting him out on the perimeter? He will come out and we will contest, but once a skilled player gets him going in one direction it is difficult to recover.

• Free Throws

Key Stats: In the first half of the season, despite not being able to finish he was drawing fouls and shooting 72%, so the damage was mitigated somewhat. However, after his thumb injury, we saw his free throw percentage plummet to 55% which made fouling him a great idea for defenses. This only exacerbated the finishing as teams did not fear creating a three-point play opportunity.

• Three Point Shooting

Key Stats: The year before he came to Phoenix, Nurk put together his best 3-point shooting season on the highest volume ever. He shot 36% on 2.3 attempts per game. There was hope that he had unlocked something that would give the Suns even more versatility and space with the big three. How tantalizing. However, he struggled out of the gate, only shooting 27% before his injury. After that, he stopped taking them altogether and ended up finishing at 24.4% from deep on the year. Nurk has to prove in Bud’s system that the 22-23 season was more than just a mirage.

• Fouling

Key Stats: Nurk has always been foul happy and that has only been exacerbated since his leg injury. He had 5 or more fouls in 16 games and fouled out in 6 of them. Surprisingly, they only lost 3 of those 16 games, but with Eubanks as a backup, it was always dicey anytime Nurk sat.

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One Key Factor

The biggest factor in how Nurkic will flourish or flounder on the 24-25 Suns is how he meshes with Mike Budenholzer and his system. On defense, he does fit the mold of a drop coverage big, but is not nearly the rim protector as Brook Lopez. He will contest and give great effort in that contest, but that’s not his game. On offense, Lopez created so much space for Giannis, Jrue, and Middleton to operate 3 man actions. This is why the summertime posts of Nurk in the off-season are interesting. They provide a few clues:

Agility. Nurk looks noticeably slimmer:

He’s clearly working on his three-ball. Is this an indicator that Bud wants him to go back to 2-3 attempts per game, hoping he can shoot in the 35-36% range?

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Prediction Time

I think that Nurk will start the season getting a chance to flourish in Bud’s system. Some may think he’s an obvious trade candidate, but unless something crazy happens, you’d just be downgrading at center again.

I think Tyus and Monte will set Nurk up better and that with the Big 3 playing off-ball more it will create a bit more space for him in the short roll. I think his finishing will improve, but I expect his assists to go down this year with the addition of real point guards. If he can see his 3-point go up closer to his season high, I can see him being able to stay on the floor in more versatile or jumbo lineups.

I also think that our improved center depth means that Bud will have a quicker hook and be able to go with who is playing well on any given night and be more strategic based on matchups.

Prediction: 12 PPG, 12 RPG, 3 APG on 55/34/67 shooting splits.

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Final Thoughts

I’m excited to see year 2 of the Nurkic experience. Despite his flaws, he was a key part of what the Suns did well and will be instrumental to their success going forward. While the potential of a trade always exists, I expect him to stick with the team until at least the trade deadline, unless the season goes sideways. I can’t wait to see more Nurkic moments in games, in interviews, and online this season!

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Read other 2024-25 Player Previews right here: