Nemanja Bjelica, a former Euroleague MVP, came to the NBA smack in the middle of his physical prime at the age of 27 and for nearly the entirety of his NBA career, he toiled away on bad teams. Bjelica began his career with the Timberwolves and at the end of that contract, he had an opportunity to actually join a good team and signed a deal with the Philadelphia 76ers in the summer of 2018. But Bjelica later reneged on the agreement to join the Sacramento Kings, for some reason, and played for another bad team until he was 32 years old and no longer in his physical prime. A trade-deadline deal in 2021 sent Bjelica to the Miami Heat but he saw few minutes in the playoffs and was mostly on the fringe of their rotation.
Last summer, the Warriors, who had apparently been interested in Bjelica for quite some time, offered him a vet minimum deal, which he was thrilled to sign. "It took less than a minute [to accept] [...] I just said yes. I didn't think [for] one second. To be part of this historic organization is pretty exciting,” Bjelica told the Bay Area media last summer.
Bjelica began the season as the Warriors’ backup center. It was expected that his minutes would eventually be ceded to James Wiseman, but when the second-year center never got healthy, Bjelica became a valuable innings-eater. As early as training camp, Bjelica’s playmaking ability caught the eye of Draymond Green, who said this about his teammate:
Early in the season, Bjelica was one of the Warriors’ more effective bench players. His opening-night performance against the Los Angeles Lakers was especially memorable.
In 26 minutes, Bjelica had a double-double with 15 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 assists and played well-deserved closing minutes. Bjelica’s playmaking in the fourth quarter created several open shots for his teammates and he even made a deep three down the stretch out of a dribble handoff with Steph Curry. That version of Bjelica, a confident playmaker and shotmaker, offered the Warriors a skillset they’d never really had from the center position. But in a downsized NBA, Bjelica wasn’t always a necessary part of the rotation. In the third and fourth games of the season, Bjelica played 9 and 7 minutes against the Sacramento Kings and Oklahoma City Thunder.
In the next 11 games, Bjelica averaged over 15 minutes a game and then played 3 and 6 minutes against the Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers. Bjelica was a -6 and -8 in short stints of rotation minutes, but he proceeded to play double-digit minutes in the next 8 games. One way to look at it: Bjelica almost always got a bite at the apple, but he wasn’t always needed for 15-20 minutes a game, and that’s ok! That’s exactly the type of production you should expect from a backup center.
Nemanja Bjelica appeared in all of the Warriors’ first 49 games of the season and gave the Warriors double-digit scoring in 10 of those games. But in late January, Bjelica missed six straight games with back spasms and the Warriors had to cobble together 48 minutes of playing time at the center without Draymond Green, Bjelica, and on some nights, Otto Porter Jr. During this two-week stretch, Jonathan Kuminga and Juan Toscano-Anderson got additional frontcourt minutes. After Bjelica returned to action in mid-February, his playing time was more inconsistent and he did not appear in 5 of the Warriors’ final 26 games.
But in the final week and a half of the season, Steve Kerr tightened his rotation in anticipation of the playoffs and Bjelica played nearly 20 minutes a game. After a 19-point, 12-rebound, and 6-assist performance against his former employer, the Sacramento Kings, Bjelica said this:
“Today when I was playing with Draymond, I was playing the five, but I was guarding the four,” Bjelica said. “We just, you know, switch that during offense and defense. He helps not just me. He helps everybody. With him and also Andre, when he’s on the court, I look way better. That’s good for me also. Then I can play my game. I feel more confident.”
Bjelica’s quote needs some context. Draymond Green had only come back from his disc injury two weeks prior and Bjelica had only played 4 of the games since alongside Green. In the 38 games before Green got injured, Bjelica’s +/- was a +2.7. In the games prior to Green’s return, that number went down to +0.5. Bjelica clearly felt that Green’s return was beneficial to him, which in turn earned him enough minutes to be a part of the Warriors’ playoff rotation against the Denver Nuggets in the first round.
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