EuroBasket Takeaways for Denver Nuggets Centers

As the preseason unfolds, many NBA analysts scramble to extract relevant information for their season projections. It’s a flawed approach given that these exhibitions are more meaningful for the franchises’ marketing departments than actual athletic preparation. The intensity levels barely resemble competitive basketball. Yet paradoxically, these same analysts often ignore international tournaments that offer far superior evaluation opportunities.

This disregard for FIBA competitions grows increasingly puzzling as the NBA’s global talent pool expands. Gone are the days when tournaments like EuroBasket or the FIBA World Cup held little relevance for the National Basketball Association—now the world’s best players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, and Nikola Jokic regularly compete in them. These tournaments also offer the best opportunity to identify upcoming rising stars, as we potentially saw this year with Alperen Sengün and Franz Wagner.

These high-stakes games—with national pride on the line—offer insights into player development and its effectiveness in a competitive setting that no preseason game can replicate. That’s why Nuggets fans should have paid close attention to what this summer’s EuroBasket takeaways revealed about their two representatives.

EuroBasket Takeaways for Denver Nuggets Centers

For Nuggets fans, closely monitoring international basketball is nothing new, considering that the franchise’s greatest ever player has been competing in these tournaments regularly for years. This summer’s EuroBasket carried added significance for Denver, as their arguably most important offseason acquisition, Jonas Valanciunas, was also competing for the Lithuanian national team.

Valanciunas’ performances could offer crucial insight into whether he can finally solve the backup center problem that has plagued the Nuggets for years. While neither veteran was expected to provide any revelation in their games at this stage of their careers, EuroBasket still offered an intriguing—if slightly disappointing—showing from both. Their respective tournaments gave valuable insight into what lies ahead this season, particularly for Valanciunas. The challenges he faced, how the national team utilized him, the team’s approach in certain matchups, and the off-court drama preceding this year’s tournament are all valuable information that the Denver Nuggets organization and its fans could find as interesting EuroBasket takeaways.

Partnership Between Jokic and Serbian Team has yet to Truly Click

Another EuroBasket, another disappointing finish for Jokic and the national team. A pairing that should be a match made in heaven, built to dominate on paper, yet somehow remains perpetually star-crossed. This year’s tournament was particularly frustrating after Bogdan Bogdanovic’s injury once again prevented Serbia’s two best players from sharing the court for an extended period. While the quarterfinal exit undoubtedly was a huge disappointment for all Serbians, Nuggets supporters should find solace in the fact that Jokic looked in great shape and more than ready for the upcoming season.

Offensively, he was far from the version we’re accustomed to seeing in Denver. That’s a familiar pattern for his stints with the national team. The country’s traditional coaching approach tends to limit Jokic’s revolutionary point-center playstyle. Whether it’s a matter of personnel constraints or coaching philosophy, the Serbian national team simply doesn’t grant Jokic the same freedom to orchestrate the offense as he enjoys in Denver, leaving him unable to fully display the depth of his skill set.

What should excite Nuggets fans, however, is his physical condition and defensive intensity. That said, opponents still exposed his defensive shortcomings. Particularly against Finland, whose five-out offense effectively exploited his limitations on switches and his struggles against small-ball bigs like Mikael Jantunen. Similarly, Sengün’s dominance in the matchup with Turkey highlighted some concerns, though these remain manageable issues for the Nuggets.

Denver’s superior athleticism and defensive personnel should provide sufficient support to mask Jokić’s vulnerabilities. The key to constructing a championship-level defense isn’t eliminating those weaknesses entirely, but ensuring that Jokic offers consistent resistance and effort—something he clearly demonstrated with Serbia.

 The EuroBasket takeaway for Nuggets fans? Expect another MVP-caliber season from the Joker.

EuroBasket Takeaways for Jonas Valanciunas

Valanciunas’s EuroBasket campaign offered the tournament’s most intriguing subplot for Nuggets supporters. His flirtation with a potential move to Panathinaikos Athens over the summer raised legitimate questions about his commitment to Denver. While he displayed moments of brilliance, certain concerning revelations surrounding this summer’s tournament should give Nuggets fans pause.

When Lithuania faced top-tier opponents like Germany, Valanciunas gradually became marginalized—to the point where he came off the bench in their round-of-16 matchup against Latvia. Mobile bigs relentlessly targeted his limited lateral quickness on the perimeter, exposing a defensive vulnerability that Lithuania struggled to mask. Perhaps most tellingly, despite his NBA pedigree, the big man wasn’t even Lithuania’s best player. That distinction belonged to Rokas Jokubaitis until an unfortunate knee injury cut his tournament short.

All of this followed some pre-tournament drama involving a dispute between Valanciunas and assistant coach Tomas Pacesas, who publicly criticized the physical shape of certain players, remarking that some arrive at camp with “big bellies.” The controversy and ensuing dispute may have contributed to Matas Buzelis‘ decision to skip this year’s EuroBasket.

Still, those comments are hard to take lightly after witnessing Valanciunas’s physical struggles during the tournament, with the coaching staff actively managing his minutes due to conditioning concerns, even after Jokubaitis went down. His performance against Greece in the quarterfinals was impressive and should give Nuggets fans reason for optimism, but it was equally concerning to see him visibly tire when forced to play over 30 minutes after spending most of the tournament in a reduced role.

Valanciunas’s Struggles Could Spell Trouble for the Nuggets

It should certainly raise some concern in Denver that Lithuania’s strategic adjustments against teams with shooting bigs — even at the EuroBasket level — saw Coach Rimas Kurtinaitis deliberately cut the center’s minutes and move him to a bench role against Finland and Latvia. Both opponents featured stretch-fives capable of exploiting his defensive limitations. That tactical decision could serve as a preview of how opposing NBA coaches may target the Nuggets’ non-Jokic lineups, especially in the playoffs when matchup hunting reaches its peak.

The Lithuanian can still dominate offensively against several opponents, but elite teams with floor-spacing bigs or the flexibility to deploy effective small-ball lineups will inevitably force David Adleman to make some difficult choices. The question isn’t whether Valanciunas can contribute — he’ll undoubtedly make an impact throughout the regular season — but whether Denver can afford to keep him on the floor when it matters most, particularly in potential playoff series against the Thunder, Rockets, or Lakers.

So the EuroBasket takeaway for Nuggets fans should be that, while exciting, the new backup center still comes attached with a big question mark of how much he can actually help the Nuggets in the latter stages of the playoffs.

Final EuroBasket Lessons for Nuggets Fans

EuroBasket did not reveal any revolutionary developments about these veterans—unlike younger players such as Alperen Sengün or Lauri Markkanen, who showcased some dramatic improvement in their games. Jokic, in particular, looks to be in excellent shape, setting the stage for what could be another dominant MVP-level season.

These EuroBasket lessons confirmed what we already knew: These are established players with well-defined strengths and weaknesses, but without any truly concerning drop-offs in their games. Nuggets fans can look forward to one of the league’s most intriguing center combinations this season — a duo that could very well help Denver capture its second championship.