Will Barton of the Denver Nuggets is questionable for his team’s Sunday evening game against the Memphis Grizzlies due to suffering from left adductor tightness, according to T.J. McBridge of Mile High Sports:
Well this is a bummer.
Will Barton III is questionable for tomorrow’s game with left adductor tightness.
Hopefully another core injury doesn’t derail Barton III’s strong start to 19-20.
— T.J. McBride (@TJMcBrideNBA) November 16, 2019
Barton has been one of the best players on the Nuggets so far this season, though the team has been somewhat uninspiring – despite their 8-3 record to start the year. Nikola Jokic, while still great, does not look like the slam-dunk All-NBA First Team center that he was last year, and the Nugs have looked sluggish in many of their games as a result.
However, Barton has looked far from sluggish, and his unofficial “Will the Thrill” nickname has been a prescient one throughout the 2019-20 season.
Barton is putting up career-highs in points per game (15.8), rebounds per game (7.7), field goal attempts per game (12.8) and three-point percentage (45.9%) all on a career-high-matching 33.1 minutes per contest per Basketball Reference.
Because Barton is starting, he is no longer the impact substitute he was in the early tenure of his time with the Nuggets, or during the start of his career with the Portland Trail Blazers, but the Nuggets have needed Barton’s exceptional two-way play to start the season.
The Nuggets do have a strong starting unit, but it is Barton that is second on the team in net rating, according to Cleaning the Glass, with a +23.7 in his 297 minutes played. Most impressively, Barton’s defensive impact has actually outshone his offensive work, as the Nuggets’ defensive rating is a whopping 18.4 points better when he is on the court.
Surely, the Nuggets hope that their starting three gets well soon.
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