Nuggets' Nurkic unhappy with limited role: 'I'm not here to sit on the bench'

Jusuf Nurkic is the only person in Denver who shouldn't be excited about the emergence of Nikola Jokic.

Nurkic began the season as a starter alongside Jokic in an oversized Nuggets frontcourt, but between Mike Malone's decision to go smaller - which at first sent Jokic to the bench - and Jokic's rapid development, Nurkic has seen his role minimized greatly.

"It’s tough. I'm 22 years old, I'm not here to sit on the bench, I’m here to play basketball," Nurkic said at Thursday's practice, as reported by BSNDenver.com's Harrison Wind.

"Tough decision for me, from starting, to three minutes, to seven, four straight not play. I don't accept that. Nobody probably understands my position so even if you don’t know if you’re starting the next game or not. But like I said, you can control what you can control and I let my agent do the rest of the stuff."

Nurkic started his first 25 games of the season, was relegated to the bench for a couple of games two weeks ago, then logged four straight DNP-CDs before getting less than nine minutes of floor time in Thursday's victory over Minnesota.

"It’s not good when you're not playing and you don’t feel part of the team," Nurkic said Thursday. "It’s not fun, especially when you’re starting in the preseason, how many games, I don’t even know, and you just come to the game and you’re not in the rotation, nobody tells you anything, so it’s not my control."

The third-year center is averaging 9.1 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.4 assists, and a block in just under 20 minutes per game, but the Nuggets perform 11.1 points per 100 possessions better with Nurkic on the bench as opposed to the court, while performing 12.3 points per 100 possessions better with Jokic on the court.