Kenneth Faried has had to fight through a rough start to his season. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
A couple of weeks ago, Kenneth Faried expressed concern with the state of his game and the start he’s had to this season. In an interview with The Denver Post, he called it “awful” but hoped that December would bring a change.
It hasn’t. Not yet, anyway.
In fact, this month has brought injury to the insult of not being able to get going the way he’d like. Faried’s missed the last two games with a low back strain, and when he has played he’s appeared many nights to be a shell of his former Manimal self.
Nuggets coach Brian Shaw was asked about Faried’s start, and this is what he had to say about it.
“It’s really hard to say,” Shaw said. “Obviously, he’s disappointed in the way he’s played up to this point. There hasn’t been a level of consistency. One of the things that I try to remind him all the time is what made him, got him to this level, got him paid recently, is the fact that he’s always brought energy and always rebounded the ball. When you look at his stats up to this point, is the energy always there? I wouldn’t say that it consistently has been. But even before that, is he rebounding the ball the way he is known for rebounding the ball? He’s not doing that either. So no matter what happens, you get back to the basics of what got you here. And I think that’s what he has to do.”
Faried’s 25.6 minutes per game is his lowest average since his rookie season. His 11.1 points is his lowest average since his rookie season. His 6.7 rebounds is the lowest average of his career, and his 51.2 percent on field goals is the lowest percentage of his career.
“He’s been a little bit beat-up and a little bit sore,” Shaw said. “But what comes when you have the kind of summer that he had, and you get paid for that, (is) there’s a certain responsibility and expectation that go along with that, too. And there’s an adjustment period. Now there’s other guys around the league that maybe think that ‘If I was playing maybe he wouldn’t be on the US team’ or ‘If he’s making this much money, let me show him what I’m worth.’ And that’s all part of it, too. Now, you become the hunted instead of the hunter, and you have to adjust for that and brace for that.
“So night in and night out, the guys who are superstars in this league they are expected to at a certain level at home and on the road. For some, they have to get adjusted to that pressure, if you want to call it pressure. And right now he hasn’t been able to do that.”
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or @dempseypost
