The Warriors sign Nemanja Bjelica: a review of his previous season(s)
Understanding Bjelica's previous season with the Kings and his shooting decline, Bjelica's history as a high volume three point shooter, and lineup stats and Bjelica's potential value at the 5.
In 6 NBA seasons, Nemanja Bjelica has played for two playoff bound teams, the 2017-18 Minnesota Timberwolves and the 2020-2021 Miami Heat. Bjelica, the 2015 Euroleague MVP, has spent most of his NBA career playing for mediocre teams. In Minnesota, Bjelica played a little less than 20 minutes a game in a three year stint and shot 37.1% from three over those seasons. In the summer following the Timberwolves flameout in the playoffs, Bjelica signed a deal with an emerging Philadelphia 76ers team, only to change his mind to sign a contract, for some reason, with the Sacramento Kings. Bjelica started 70 and 67 games in his first two years with the Kings, which was apparently a point of frustration for former #2 pick, Marvin Bagley III.
In Bjelica’s final season with the Kings, the organization decided to start Bagley at the power forward, which pissed off the Serbian big man so much that he sat out games in protest, as reported by The Athletic. On merit alone, Bjelica had a right to be mad, but he also chose to sign a contract with a mediocre team who had a young big man picked #2 overall who would eventually command minutes, whether by merit or by organizational priority — Bjelica shouldn’t have been surprised that this day would eventually come. Bjelica was shipped to the Miami Heat at the trade deadline and played 11 games, mostly only in spot minutes or as an emergency starter.
Now 33 years old, Bjelica reportedly turned down money to come to the Warriors on a veteran minimum deal. The Warriors want to win games next season, so there’s really no reason that Bjelica should feel aggrieved about his minutes or role with the Warriors. Draymond Green and Juan Toscano-Anderson are the incumbent players who should get the bulk of minutes at the 4, but Bjelcia could play spot minutes there to provide shooting around James Wiseman or Kevon Looney. But what strikes me as more likely is that Bjelica gets most of his minutes at the 5 in a quasi Mo Speights role. This highlight video of Bjelica dropping 25 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 assists against his future employers, the Miami Heat, does a nice job of showing the depth of Bjelica’s offensive game:
Bjelica shoots confidently from the three point line, he attacks closeouts with gusto and keeps his dribble alive long enough to walk into shots in the post or kick the ball out to open shooters, and he has good touch around the basket. What you will also notice here is that Bjelica is not a very physically imposing or athletic guy. He doesn’t profile as a credible rim protector and NBA.com’s tracking stats say that for his last three seasons, players shoot well above their average with Bjelica defending within 6 feet of the rim.
Crafted NBA, an NBA analytics site I recently discovered, has Bjelica’s man shooting +6.8% better than their average when Bjelica defends him at the rim. Perhaps more concerning is that Bjelica defended 44.5% of opponent’s attempts at the rim when he was on the floor, which ranks in the 85th percentile. It seems that opposing teams make it a point to attack Bjelica at the rim when he’s on the court. In spite of that, Bjelica had been a positive player per most advanced metrics up until this year, so it’s not like having Bjelica on the court is going to tank your defense.
The reason the Warriors signed Nemanja Bjelica is because he’s a skilled offensive player who can space the floor, attack closeouts, and pass well enough to be an ideal fit for Steve Kerr’s motion offense. Nemanja Bjelica is unlikely to play more than 15 ish minutes a game for the Warriors and he should almost always be surrounded by high level defenders. If opposing teams want to spend most of Bjelica’s minutes going out of their way to attack him on defense, that’s fine because he should be a part of bench units that gun threes and run opposing defenses off the floor. It’s easy to imagine the Warriors going small for short stins and going on runs with a frontcourt of Otto Porter Jr. and Bjelica, Jordan Poole or Steph Curry at the point and a combo of any two of Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Damion Lee, or Moses Moody.
Nemanja Bjelica’s statistical profile (career bests bolded):
37 games played, 16.1 minutes a game, 6.5 points a game, 3.4 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 0.9 turnovers, 0.4 steals, 0.1 blocks, and 1.8 fouls.
45.4% FG, 31.8% 3P, 72.5% FT, 55.4 TS% (-1.8% league average TS), 52.3% EFG (-1.5 league average EFG).
5.3 FGA, 2.3 3PA, 1.4 FTA.
BBREF: 111 ORTG, 116 DRTG, -6.5 +/- per 100 poss., -0.1 VORP, 0.71 WS/48, 18.4% USG.
NBA.com: 109.8 ORTG, 116.5 DRTG, -6.7 net rating, 18.4% USG.
In Miami Heat stint: -9.1 DIFF in non-garbage time (14th percentile), 57th percentile usage, 27th percentile PSA, 89th percentile AST%, 92nd percentile AST:Usg, 83rd percentile TOV% among big position.
0.24 ORPM, -1.81 DRPM, -1.56 RPM (#318 rank of 534 players).
Nemanja Bjelcia actually played less games this last season than Otto Porter Jr., but of course, Bjelica’s limited minutes have everything to do with what was going on in Sacramento, rather than injury concerns. With that in mind, I’m inclined to view Bjelica’s low shooting efficiency and his poor advanced metrics as an aberration in his career.
In the 2019-2020 season, Bjelica ranked at +1.7 per BBREf’s BPM and +0.2 per ESPN’s RPM. Cleaning the Glass has Bjelica with a +6.8 and +7.2 net differential/net rating in his two seasons where he played big minutes in Sacramento, which would put him in the 88th and 86th percentile in the league for those seasons. Bjelica’s 55.4% TS is the second lowest of his career. The only year that was worse was his 2016-17 season, where he shot 31.6% from three. In every other year of Bjelica’s career, he’s shot above 38% from three and he has three seasons of >40% three point shooting to his name.
I’m not putting a lot of weight in anything from Bjelica’s most recent season, but I was intrigued by his passing numbers. In his career, he’s ranked in the 76th, 68th, 53rd, 65th, 87th, and 87th percentile in AST% for his position per CTG. In a reduced role with inconsistent minutes, Bjelica bumped up his assist per 36 minutes to a career high 4.2 — this keeps with three years of increased assists per 36 minutes. As we saw in the highlight video above, Bjelica is a capable passer and he can keep his dribble alive — he should be a useful connective passer for the Warriors.
Something to consider: Bjelica has mostly played on bad teams with eh floor spacing and the best shooters he’s played with are Buddy Hield and Karl Anthony Towns (Duncan Robinson too, but for all of 11 games). Out of curiosity, I checked Bjelica’s lineup numbers in Minnesota and almost all of the Bjelica/KAT lineups grade out positive. The same thing holds true for most of the lineups Bjelica played in with Buddy Hield in his Kings stint, up until this most recent season. Bjelica will have far more spacing in Golden State than he did in his stints with the Timberwolves or Kings, which should help Bjelica take full advantage of his off the dribble verve and his passing ability.
Nemanja Bjelica’s shot profile:
Restricted area: 66.2% on 71 attempts.
Non-restricted area paint: 40.6% on 32 attempts.
Mid-range: 25% on 8 attempts.
Left corner 3: 40% on 5 attempts.
Right corner 3: 37.5% on 8 attempts.
Above the break 3: 30.6% on 72 attempts.
Floaters: 57.8% on 19 attempts.
Layups and fingers rolls: 57.8% on 43 attempts.
FGA% per total drives: 36.9%.
Assisted by: De’Aaron Fox (11), Cory Joseph and Tyrese Haliburton (9), Buddy Hield and Harrison Barnes (5), Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro (4), Hassan Whiteside (3), Gabe Vincent, Justin James, and Trevor Ariza (2), Marvin Bagley III, Precious Achiuwa, Richaun Holmes, DaQuan Jeffries, Victor Oladipo, Glenn Robinson III, Duncan Robinsion, and Max Strus (1).
Total FG’s assisted: 64
FGM% assisted: 71.9%
FGM% unassisted: 28.1%
To give you a sense of how much Nemanja Bjelica’s shooting declined in 37 games this year, he shot 40.7% on nearly 300 catch and shoot three point attempts and 45.5% on 33 pull-up three attempts in 2019-20. Those numbers were 40.8% on 223 attempts and 41.4% on 29 attempts the year prior. Although his percentages declined this last season, the diet of shots he took is practically identical over the last three years. Bjelica takes a miniscule amount of midrange jumpers and if he can’t get to the hoop, he’s comfortable taking shots the non-restricted area paint, where he shot 50.5% on 95 attempts in 2019-2020 and 43.5% on 92 attempts the year prior. Most of Bjelica’s three point attempts come above the break, where he shot 39.7% in 19-20 on 272 attempts and 42.8% on 208 attempts the year prior.
Something I found interesting about Bjelica’s numbers this year is comparing them against Otto Porter Jr.’s. They’re quite different from one another, but they signed at more or less the same time with the Warriors and they both played nearly the same amount of minutes on the season (606 minutes for OPJ and 595 for Bjelica), so it’s fun to compare the two of them. Bjelica shot nearly twice as many restricted area attempts as OPJ, but took only three more FG attempts on drives. This is because Bjelica only shot the ball on 36.9% of his drives this previous season and while Porter Jr. shot on 2/3 of his drives. Bjelica passed the ball on 47.3% of his drives this past season, which is a big increase from his 39.4% and 35.7% percentages the two previous years in Sacramento. I’m not sure exactly why Bjelica passed the ball so much on his drives, but that should be a welcome trait in Steve Kerr’s system.
I’ve included shot charts from Positive Residual of Bjelica’s previous three seasons below:
2020-21:
2019-20:
2018-19:
The lineup stats!
Cleaning the Glass’s non-garbage time numbers for notable 5 man combos (positive ones bolded):
D. Fox/C. Joseph/T. Haliburton/Bjelica/H. Whitside: -11.3 net rating (117.5 ORTG) in 80 possessions.
D. Fox/B. Hield/H. Barnes/Bjelica/R. Holmes: -6.9 net rating (131.0 ORTG) in 58 possessions.
C. Joseph/T. Haliburton/H. Barnes/Bjelica/H. Whiteside: +15 net rating (125 ORTG) in 40 possessions.
C. Joseph/B. Hield/H. Barnes/Bjelica/M. Bagley: -52.5 net rating (120.5 ORTG) in 39 possessions.
D. Fox/B. Hield/G. Robinson/Bjelica/M. Bagley: -22.4 net rating (108.1 ORTG) in 37 possessions.
G. Dragic/T. Herro/J. Butler/A. Iguodala/Bjelica: -17.6 net rating (105.9 ORTG) in 34 possessions.
C. Joseph/T. Haliburton/B. Hield/N. Bjelica/H. Whiteside: +6.1 net rating (118.2 ORTG) in 33 possessions.
D. Fox/C. Joseph/T. Haliburton/Bjelica/R. Holmes: +29.7 net rating (112.5 ORTG) in 32 possessions.
K. Nunn/D. Robinson/T. Ariza/Bjelica/B. Adebayo: +0.9 net rating (127.6 ORTG) in 29 possessions.
C. Joseph/B. Hield/H. Barnes/Bjelica/R. Holmes: +35.7 net rating (128.6 ORTG) in 28 possessions.
C. Joseph/T. Haliburton/G. Robinson/Bjelica/H. Whiteside: +29.6 net rating (118.5 ORTG) in 27 possessions.
D. Fox/C. Joseph/B. Hield/Bjelica/R. Holmes: -20 net rating (120 ORTG) in 25 possessions.
G. Vincent/T. Herro/D. Robinson/Bjelica/P. Achiuwa: +40.7 net rating (116.7 ORTG) in 24 possessions.
G. Dragic/V. Oladipo/T. Herro/Bjelica/B. Adebayo: 0.0 net rating (100 ORTG) in 23 possessions.
C. Joseph/T. Haliburton/H. Barnes/Bjelica/M. Bagley: -11.5 net rating (104.5 ORTG) in 22 possessions.
T. Herro/D. Robinson/J. Butler/T. Ariza/Bjelica: -1.7 net rating (133.3 ORTG) in 21 possessions.
All but four of the lineups listed here have an above average ORTG. We’re dealing with small sample sizes, but that’s still noteworthy. Something else I noticed here and in the lineup numbers for Bjelica’s previous seasons with the Kings (we’ll get into that below) is that Bjelica rarely plays the 5. In sample sizes so small as to be effectively meaningless, Bjelica was a positive at the 5 for both the Kings and the Heat this year, per CTG. The 2019-2020 season is the only one in which Bjelica has a significant sample size of minutes at the 5 and the Kings killed teams in these minutes to the tune of a +15.6 net rating and 121.3 ORTG.
Bjelica’s numbers at the 5 are very encouraging, but I can also understand why he hasn’t played big minutes at the 5 at this point in his career. In 2019-20, Bjelica played 19% of his minutes at the 5. I expect that number to bump up significantly with the Warriors because they have the defensive personnel on the wing to get away with Bjelica at the 5. The present-day Warriors collection of bench wings cannot match the collective IQ and passing chops of Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston, but they might be more capable of guarding up at the 4 and they offer way more floor spacing. As such, Bjelica at the 5 should be survivable on defense, and it might be utterly devastating on offense.
I’ve screenshotted the lineups from 2019-20 where Bjelica played the 5 for the Kings. Note the high octane ORTG’s but also the bizarre collection of guards and wings the Kings trotted out with Bjelica at the 5 — this is not exactly a stout collection of defensive players. Harrison Barnes frequently played the 4 next to Bjelica, as did recent ex-Warrior, Kent Bazemore. There’s even a few lineups here with Jabari Parker at the 4 crushed teams, albeit in tiny sample sizes. The screenshot is below:
I’ve also screenshotted the Bjelica lineups that received the most minutes in 2019-20 and 2019-18 below:
2019-20:
2018-19:
What’s next for Nemanja Bjelica?
This will be the first time in Nemanja Bjelica’s NBA career that he’s played for a team with deep playoff aspirations. Bjelica figures to be someone who plays 15-20 minutes a game at most and it wouldn’t be a shock if he’s in and out of the rotation if James Wiseman can contribute positive minutes in his sophomore season. But Bjelica should have a crack at getting substantial minutes to start the season, especially as Wiseman eases back from his torn meniscus. Bjelica is a proven commodity who bombs threes above the break on high volume and accuracy, he’s comfortable putting the ball on the floor and looking for his own shot or kicking it out and moving to the next spot, and the Warriors have the defensive ecosystem that should let him play minutes at the 5 without getting killed on defense.
Although they are quite different players, Bjelica could occupy the Mo Speights role for the Warriors as a high volume stretch 5 off of the bench who is useful in the regular season but is not trusted to play heavy minutes in the playoffs. That’s a fine signing at the veteran minimum! The Warriors need options and lineup versatility, Bjelica could provide that. If the Warriors can steal 15 minutes a game for say, 50 games this year with Bjelica mostly playing the 5, that should help preserve Draymond Green and Kevon Looney for a deep playoff run.
Bjelica hasn’t played a lot of 5 in his career, but he’s been on bad teams that didn’t have the long, defensive minded wings that Warriors now have. Before their Warriors stints’, Mo Speights and David West hadn’t played much at the 5, but the Warriors survived defensively when those two big men played up a position. Bjelica joins a very different Warriors bench than the ones Speights and West played with — one that is low on veteran knowhow but has great shooting potential — but it’s easy to imagine how he could be useful to the Warriors. Like Otto Porter Jr., Bjelica offers the Warriors great value for a veteran minimum contract. He won’t be a key part of this Warriors team, but he could be a legitimately useful one.