Realistic Expectations for Emmanuel Mudiay's Rookie Season with Denver Nuggets

This is a trial by fire. 

Now that troubled point guard Ty Lawson is ready to bring his myriad assists to the Houston Rockets at the start of the 2015-16 campaign, the Denver Nuggets have all but officially handed the reins to Emmanuel Mudiay. Even though the young floor general played in little more than a handful of games for the Guangdong Southern Tigers last year, he'll likely be trotted out on opening night as the starting 1-guard. 

No pressure, rook. 

But really, what other options do the Nuggets have? Even looking past the desire to see Mudiay succeed after making him the No. 7 pick of the 2015 NBA draft, their other choices include an aging Jameer Nelson, an inexperienced Erick Green and no one else. Nikola Radicevic might have been an option, but the No. 57 pick will probably be remaining overseas to play out the ensuing season with Sevilla, per Christopher Dempsey of the Denver Post. 

Also via Dempsey, Nuggets general manager Tim Connelly doesn't seem to think poorly of throwing Mudiay into the mix right away:

"

I think it's certainly a slippery slope. If you look at a lot of the elite players, they were thrown to the wolves early. Their early failures led to big-time success down the road. There's going to be nights when Emmanuel is going to look like a 19-year old, and hopefully there's nights where he looks like one of the elite point guards in the league. But we're not going to put too much pressure on him. We're going to kind of let it happen organically. And having a guy like Jameer [Nelson] behind him makes the transition that much easier.

"

It simply has to be Mudiay, especially after he enjoyed such an encouraging set of performances during Las Vegas Summer League. 

On the surface, the 19-year-old didn't have the numbers of a true star. In four appearances, he averaged just 12.0 points, 3.5 rebounds, 5.8 assists, 1.2 steals and 0.2 blocks, but he shot only 38.5 percent from the field, 14.3 percent from downtown and 50 percent at the stripe while recording five turnovers per contest. 

However, summer league is never about sheer statistical prowess.

The setting naturally depresses shooting percentages, as players are often working in isolation and devoid of much chemistry with their teammates. Cough-ups and bricks run rampant, especially for guards tasked with attempting to lead a team that doesn't boast any semblance of continuity. 

What's more impressive is that Mudiay appeared to be in full control of the proceedings at all times. No matter what looks a defense threw at him—icing pick-and-rolls, sending an extra defender on a double-team, giving him space to shoot—he didn't look fazed in the slightest, instead operating with a preternatural level of maturity. 

"I love playmaking, love making other people better," the teenage point guard told Dempsey while reflecting on his four exhibition outings. "This week, I wasn't too focused on the scoring part, just because I wanted to facilitate. I'm going to work on everything—even finishes around the basket."

But if Mudiay sounds humble in his own evaluation, not everyone was. Take Connelly's review, per USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt: 

"

He certainly showed a poise and played with a pace that’s unexpected for a kid his age. He showed lot of game-plan discipline. We knew he was a natural playmaker and we knew he excels in transition. What stood out in summer league was his patience and letting plays develop. It's a term that’s rarely used anymore. He's a true point guard. You very rarely see guys who understand that instinctively.

"

ProBasketballTalk's Kurt Helin called the Congolese 1-guard the most impressive player at summer league. Ditto for Sam Vecenie of CBS Sports.

But keep in mind that success and accolades earned at summer league, even if it's the most recent method of evaluation for a first-year player, aren't necessarily harbingers of Rookie of the Year consideration. Mudiay could very well work his way into that race—and he should, based on the expected playing time he'll receive on a depleted Denver depth chart—but fans simply shouldn't expect star-like numbers right away. 

The biggest issue will inevitably come in the scoring column. 

Mudiay isn't ready to function as a go-to scorer in the NBA. For that matter, he shouldn't be asked to play the part of secondary or tertiary scorer, either. 

Garrett Ellwood/Getty Images

Until the Nuggets coaching staff gets him to break down his jumper, he'll continue to shoot the ball on a flat trajectory, making it tougher for him to find the bottom of the net with any sort of consistency. Mudiay certainly doesn't have three-point range on his jumper right now, and his woes at the free-throw line are as good an indicator of poor shooting form as any.

Throw in the fact that he has a late release, one that often comes as gravity is pulling him down to the hardwood, and he's going to have shots swatted back into his face by lanky NBA defenders too often. 

Most rookies in the backcourt have trouble scoring while maintaining respectable percentages. Mudiay won't prove to be any exception, and it would verge on shocking if he knocked down even 42 percent of his shots from the field after hitting at a 47.8 percent clip in China. 

But his playmaking should allow him to remain quite valuable. 

Mudiay does have a tendency to force risky passes into tight spaces, resulting in a substantial number of turnovers. He's also tasked with playing on a team that doesn't figure to feature elite levels of spacing, especially when Kenneth Faried and Jusuf Nurkic are on the court with him. That will only make it harder for him to operate, even if he's done a nice job creating space for himself and his teammates in the past. 

Garrett Ellwood/Getty Images

At first, he'll use his impressive ball-handling skills and run plenty of pick-and-roll sets, where he's proved to be quite comfortable operating against mismatches and forcing defenses to fall back on their heels. But this will still be a work in progress.

In all likelihood, he'll finish with a significant number of assists per game, making his teammates better as he tries to minimize the many mistakes he'll inevitably deal with throughout his rookie season. 

Just after the draft, I predicted that Mudiay would finish his first campaign in the Association with per-game averages of 12.0 points, 3.8 rebounds, 5.8 assists, 1.2 steals and 0.1 blocks. Summer league hasn't done much to change that, especially since we were already operating under the assumption that Lawson wouldn't be long for the Mile High City. 

Chances are, his scoring won't be quite that strong—and will be accompanied by some low percentages. But his dime-dropping ability was on full display in Las Vegas, and there's no reason to expect anything less than the original prediction in that category, which should put him right at the top of this rookie class. 

"It’s very rare when you're picking No. 7 to get the guy you target. I kid you not, when I got the job, Connelly said, 'Emmanuel Mudiay. That’s the guy.' We were in my hotel room just this afternoon, watching film together," new Denver head coach Mike Malone told Grantland's Zach Lowe in an exclusive interview. "Getting to know him, we feel we have a special young man."

Now, Mudiay will have every opportunity to prove just how special he can be. 

Rookie-Year Predictions: 10.1 points, 3.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 1.2 steals and 0.1 blocks per game

Note: All stats, unless otherwise indicated, come from Basketball-Reference.com. 

Adam Fromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @fromal09.