Vlatko Cancar is taking the time-tested tradition of effusive preseason praise to new extremes. Even his coach wants him to pump the breaks.
As the Nuggets officially welcomed Dario Saric to the gym this month, his new teammates beamed at the potential of his versatility. But Cancar’s prediction for him echoed loudest.
“We just have to find the right system for him here and fit him good with the second unit,” Cancar said. “Because I’m pretty sure he’s going to be the Joker of the second unit.”
Michael Malone would like to interject, respectfully.
“Well, there’s only one Nikola (Jokic). So I’d never say that we have a Nikola of the second unit unless Nikola is playing with the second unit,” the 10th-year coach said, chortling. “As a three-time MVP.”
Saric himself has reservations about the comparison. Speaking with reporters recently about the possibility of sharing the floor with Jokic, he described the pairing with a self-aware specificity: “I’m going to play off of him. … I think I have a solid IQ. He has a high IQ.”
Why the differentiation between “solid” and “high” IQs?
“I mean, he is high,” Saric said, laughing. “I can’t put myself in his conversation.”
Even if the ambition is clearly outsized, Cancar’s comment more or less captures the stylistic vision Denver has for its new backup big man. Saric might be the most important tool at Malone’s disposal off the bench this season, but his arrival in Denver has played out at a curiously low volume. He was the Nuggets’ most expensive acquisition in free agency this summer, a $10.6 million commitment over the next two seasons. The external hype just hasn’t correlated with the internal valuation.
It’s easy enough to understand why. Russell Westbrook is a more prolific and polarizing newcomer, and his status as a revered teammate seized immediate attention at training camp. Saric offers a fitting balance to that personality, making him a positive asset for team chemistry in other ways. He and Jokic are close friends, for instance. When they played for different teams, they occasionally met for dinner and hung out when Saric was in Colorado for games.
The Balkan roots of Denver’s roster have strengthened. Saric adds Croatian representation, joining Serbia (Jokic) and Slovenia (Cancar). And as that region increasingly becomes part of the Nuggets’ identity, so does its corresponding basketball dogma.
“I think in America, you have players with high IQ. But that’s how we learn to play basketball. It’s always, ‘How am I going to trick you?’” Saric said. “It’s not how I’m gonna be faster than you, how I’m gonna handle you. It’s more (focused on) how I’m gonna trick you. … That’s how we learn. I think we play more team basketball because usually, we have clubs, so (on the) clubs, all 12 guys know how to play kind of the same style, and everybody kind of fits in the team.
“But in the States, it’s more like, you have a couple of guys on the team who are gonna …read more
Source:: The Denver Post – Sports
