Facu Campazzo’s arrival in Denver is full of unknowns. The first, for the importance it will acquire in the first bars of this stage which will last at least two years. Mike Malone, coach of the team, has not commented on the arrival of the Argentine and what it will mean in terms of play, expansion of minutes and functions on the court. Then by how you will know how to do the job considering that it is your first experience in the NBA after a good school in Europe.
Campazzo will enter with force in the rotation endorsed by the management, where the Lithuanian is Tommy Balcetis (assistant general manager) or the Polish Rafal Juc (head of the scouts roster), the bench, with the Spanish Jordi Fernández, or with other workers who know their performance, such as the exACB Boniface N’Dong or your ex-partner Martynas Pocius. His growth at Real, in competitions with a long following such as the Endesa League, the Copa del Rey or the Euroleague, has given him a usual position for a 29-year-old rookie, already a veteran, as players like Jorge Garbajosa were in the past. , Arvydas Sabonis or his compatriot Pablo Prigioni. But, history aside, his role remains to be realized.
One of the points to take into account in his signing is the ability to play at a high pace, being precise and decisive either going to the basket or leaving the final responsibility to another teammate. Other elements, such as his strong positioning in the pressure lines when defending, his ability to steal the ball, his shot after bounce or the shots for elevation, have counted, but the rhythm is a key element in the franchise in the that lands. Why? It is a plot in which they need a change. The Nuggets roster has been a consistent block for years, it was before Malone and it is with him. The changes have been very sustained, playing little and always keeping. Progress in the game was seen, above all, two seasons ago, when they even led the Western Conference during the regular season. In the last campaign they reached the conference finals, staying one step away from the goal they continue to have set. The gameplay is delimited by stars that have already taken control of the controls. Nikola Jokic, Serbian center, and Jamal Murray, Canadian guard-guard, represent very well both the diversity in cultural terms and the style that Malone wants him to impose, with which he wants to reach the top of the NBA. But 48 minutes doesn’t have to be the same, and that’s where someone like Facu Campazzo should come into play to be a disruptor.
The rhythm of play, that is, the possessions that are played in a game is too low. They get a lot of points out of it, putting fifth position on the offensive ratio list (112.6) last season, but they are the Penultimate team in terms of pace (97.6). This data, collected by Joel Rush in Forbes Thanks to the NBA statistics page, they only corroborate what is seen. Static attacks work well for them because of the technical quality of Porter or Millsap, Morris’s skill or the power of Grant or Harris, and they are Jamal Murray, a point guard who is comfortable in more or less fast transitions but is not a dagger in counterattacks, and Nikola Jokic, who has admitted on numerous occasions that he likes to be calm rather than gallop, those who set that pace that at times they will need to accelerate if they want to be even more dangerous.
It remains to be seen how the Cordovan fits into the minutes proposed by Malone. At his side he has another much less expert rookie, R.J. Hampton, and ahead in assimilation of concepts are Monte Morris, very similar to him, and Jamal Murray, who could alternate with Campazzo in what could be compared to the pairing that Harden and Beverley formed in the Rockets a few years ago. That increase in the pace that can be proposed thanks to the arrival of Campazzo has as its most recent letter of introduction the point to which it has taken Real Madrid in the Euroleague, where the whites were the 2nd with the most possessions until he left (only for behind Maccabi in Tel Aviv). Now, already on another continent and on a team where you have to earn your place again, wants to imitate that frantic game who has fallen in love in Spain, Argentina and the rest of the world.
