Where Do The Denver Nuggets Go From Here?

Where Do The Denver Nuggets Go From Here?

we should start with the Nuggets because I think what’s I didn’t see a lot of this but I saw and heard some of it in the aftermath that there are people that were genuinely shocked they didn’t win the series and yeah when you ju oppose it against they blew a 20-point lead in the second half I get it but like Minnesota’s been there all year I was asked on a show I did just before this if this like signals a Changing of the Guard and it’s kind of like there was a Changing of the Guard at the top of the West already and it included the Timberwolves this season like the nuggets were there but they kind of rose to because they won the championship we knew they were relevant but they won the title last year like we moved away from kind of this Warriors and who does LeBron play for our talk and it’s Thunder the Mavericks we kind of thought were they were like in it and then fading out but now they’re back in I mean Hulk talk about being wrong about the Mavericks not related to what we’re talking about at the moment but it’s not a Changing of the Guard like the Timberwolves were right there and I think that curious your thoughts on that but I also just think the better team won this series and the team that was built to be the Denver nuggets’ foil by the guy who also built the Denver Nuggets uh they ended up being the Denver nuggets’ foil and that to me more than anything is what I take away from this series yeah I think The Changing of the Guard idea I mean in some ways yeah like Anthony Edwards is in a Conference Finals like for everybody that you know has been talking about face of the league next Jordan all this other stuff like yeah that tracks I guess but that presumes that Denver is not going to be part of that Elite you know class of in the west or like short list title contenders next year which I don’t think is the case I think like this ties to yeah Minnesota earned it for sure but like if this is a 14 game series we play seven more like this might just be seven to seven like I think I really like we saw it’s it’s hard to get past you know oh Denver kind of lost it at the end because they did blow the 30 58 38 lead and and scored 32 points I think basically in the second half so it’s easy to fall into the same thinking we did after games one and two where the Wolves jumped them but then there were three G three point you know six games in between that where Denver was the better team so like I think yeah new teams have risen into the contender class Minnesota being one of them which was there all year same with OKC same with Dallas I guess now uh but Denver’s not going anywhere we can talk about what may change for the Nuggets or like just what may get prohibitively expensive um but like there’s no scenario where Denver is not I don’t know one the four five you know best odds the 20 25 title winning teams next year when we go into the season like so it just I just I I again I I’ll get back to what I said initially of like I can’t kill Denver like they it did look rough at the end when the Wolves were just on this run that seemed so improbable but like I don’t know for half of that series basically Denver was the team that was dominating and and it just came out you know slightly less than half I guess we should should say uh but but yeah like and I kind of feel that way for different reasons like the Don’t Panic for Denver I have the same Don’t Panic for New York and the same Don’t Panic for OKC but for for different reasons we can get into there specifically do you like does that track for you or is it more like oh the wolves are now a team that we should just regard as clearly A Cut Above Denver going into next year or it’s just like yeah they’re going to fight it out again I hope we get another series there’s yeah I hope they I think it’s more likely that we would get this series in the Conference finals next year than that this somehow signaled that okay the West is no long there’s no longer a debate as to who the top of the West is and by the way there could just be other teams that enter like they still have to we still have to go through the Mavericks they were built to beat the Nuggets which is why it’s kind of fascinating to see well how do they match up against the Mavericks like Dallas mean we were clearly wrong about them they might still have other moves up their sleeve uh and so like you know you can kind of say like Phoenix is done if you think like they might win a bunch of games but they’re not a real threat ditto for the Warriors maybe even the the Lakers but like the Kings still have assets to play the Pelicans have cards to play their Thunder just floating around out here so I don’t it’s not time for Denver to panic with that being said like this is a and I don’t know how much of an indictment it is on how they went about their off season but they clearly based on who was playing by the end you leaned too far into the I’m not going to call it the two timeline model but it’s and I respected what they were trying to do in the sense of we want to hit on these guys because we’re about to get mega expensive and if we want to keep this SC together we need to hit on some cost controlled players but by the end of that series it was Christian Brown okay you hit on him but we knew that last year pton Watson not playing this series basically and you having to hit the the Justin holiday button who played well for you it’s concerning but to say that they lean too far into it you have to acknowledge well what was the alternative they didn’t have money to spend do you think that they could have done better Reggie Jackson with the mini mle maybe but who was the most impactful mini mle signing this year it was like you had guys on minimums hitting harder like a Kelly UB Jr who really wouldn’t have done much for this team anyway and so there’s that element to it the other one is though we could also acknowledge Jamal Curry’s Jamal Curry Jamal Murray’s calf wasn’t right and that created this variance in his performance that yeah he was good enough for them to win game seven he hit very big shots against the Lakers in the first round as well and there’s always been variance to his performance but it was more turbulent this year than most so that’s a I think a reasonable excuse but when you look at kind of the way in which they ended up losing where it was their offense that kind of failed them and it was just I know it’s just the Wolves but like when you have a team that can disrupt how you want to run joic and Murray together and then really just disrupt even joic who can still have these great games but how much credit do you ascribe to the Wolves for you know kind of like going after Michael not even going after but like Michael Porter Jr has a horrid series for him single digits in the the final four games I think he scored he apologized after the game to his team and felt like if he played better they would have won I mean he’s right but like it doesn’t just fall out his shoulders and so you could look at this as if Murray’s healthier if Michael Porter Jr hit shots and I know what do you have nine boards in game seven but there was like two issues where just Nas Reed comes in and like did he didn’t even like have him on his raidar like come flying from the corner for that putback Duncan game seven there was issues with a bunch of people in this one so I think you can look at the and say they might just be back here next year they might be better than the Timberwolves I just I’ll throw the the thing I’ll note though is you have to get to a point where you have more than six guys that you trust yeah and I don’t know how they get there they if look kyp has a player option and if you with his cap hold which is like 22 plus million right now they’re about $10 million into the Super tax hat to Keith Smith of spot Trak for coining that I just I don’t think he gets 22 million but even if he picks up his player option they’re and maybe they extend him off that number and that’s how they save some money in the short term but they’re in the super tax and I’m assuming they’ll pay it for at least one year but how do you get better aside from internal development and that might be a like you have Reggie Jackson I assume he’ll pick up his player option that’s a little over five million Zeke naj’s extension kicks in that helps you from a salary matching perspective but oh hey you can’t aggregate salaries and so Zeke Nai being your best trade chip at 8.9 million on an extension that look it he gets three fully or is it four yeah it’s four guarante years because he has that player option for 27 28 there aren’t going to be teams that just he didn’t do anything for you this year so even if you were willing to attack attack attach your I think they can trade their 2031 draft pick or even if you’re willing to attach you can’t even attach a player and so that’s what gets super challenging you you have to believe that this core is it and you’re get enough internal development from pton Watson on offense from Julian Strather just I know he got injured in the middle of the Year and that kind of shook him up but are you going to trust jayen picket next year to handle some backup point guard minutes oh by the way you have the Aaron Gordon at the five button still but you kind of still need a backup big who isn’t DeAndre Jordan or zachi at this point I would argue uh and if you want to make a meaningful change how what is who’s getting traded it’s not gonna be yic I don’t think it’s gonna be Murray I don’t really think it can be Gordon now you’re looking at Michael Porter Jr trades that still seems like an overreaction though to how this season ended yeah everything kind of does right because like normally normally in this situation if if this so hanging over every piece of nuggets analysis will do whether it’s got to do with the series that was just completed or what they need to do to improve themselves in the off season is colored by the fact that they that were making those assessments based on how they looked against like maybe the best playoff defense we’ve seen in like 15 years or or like you know I don’t know what you almost can’t get to hyperbolic about how good defensively Minnesota was just I mean obviously in this series but all season just Far and Away the best like that second half of game seven specifically though I and not just like oh they’re athletic and young and big it’s like no they really excelled at like let’s make jic shoot 10 threes like that’s what we want him to do and we’ll wear him out because anytime he touches it inside the three-point line we send two and so now he’s tired so when we leave him to shoot those threes he’s exhausted that’s hard like they it wasn’t just a physical Advantage like this was a ton of talent deployed really intelligently so like yeah would be great if Michael Porter Jr could like do a little more with the ball so that he’s not just someone that you close out to and as long as he doesn’t get a three up like success for the defense sure that’d be great like if some of the young guys were a little reader like pton Watson basically not playing I Gotta believe almost any other opponent other than Minnesota he would have he would have played like you just you couldn’t put him out there against the defense that good I think uh so all those things are just of of a part of a larger package where it’s like you got to get Casey pack and you got to get a little more from Christian Brown and a little more from Watson and maybe one of the like the other you know guys from the batch of young players that kind of count as a second timeline but are also kind of like if kcp leaves Insurance like strawther picket Hunter Tyson like all these guys maybe one of them can be give you 15 minutes or 10 minutes in a playoff game by next year and so if you’re Denver it’s just like sometimes it’s impossible to be like Far and Away the title favorite and the best you can ever expect to do is to like be in that mix which Denver very much is and with any Improvement at all is at the top of that mix next year so it’s just like it’s really hard to evaluate kind of soberly just because that Minnesota defense was so good and you can’t like M and yeah maybe it’ll be there next year maybe it will be as good but maybe not and like if it’s 98% as good maybe Denver wins the next time they play a playoff what if what what if Jaden McDaniels is 98% better on offense we’ve seen I mean it could go either way like we could be back here next year and Minnesota has taken a step forward and Denver is the same or slightly worse and that’s a six-game series or a five game series or something um but yeah like I the I it feels to me just because I just mentioned STW and picket and all those guys like they feel like they weren’t supposed to this year but they were supposed to be hypothetically ready if you’re planning this far out for the possibility of losing calwell Pope I think or for Reggie Jackson declining his option and leaving and suddenly like you just need that like backup point guard spot to be filled by someone cheap and I was going to ask you I I agree with what you just said and I the Payton Watson thing if you’re looking for something to find unsettling him not you could say okay well it’s only against the Timberwolves and it’s well guess what like that is probably one of the if we’re looking ahead at next season right now we need to go through free agency the draft trades yada y y that’s one of the two or three teams that Denver is going to need to go through anyway like that the primary teams are G need to go through um I think where would be time and and this would flip a bunch of our analysis on its head is if they decide that they can’t and it’s not an issue of can’t it would be an issue of what I’m about to say is won’t pay kcp and that’s when it’s okay now you just lost two of your top six guys from that initial title Bruce Brown you couldn’t pay I don’t think I saw anyone fr as they could you couldn’t we move on look what Happ but like if you don’t I know he had a rough offensive playoffs um he was second Team all defense for me this year and I think he deserved it he’s 31 we his best days are probably behind him he’s too important to what you’re doing now and I think we’ve now proven unless you’re just going to get a monster offensively from pyton Watson next year but I even look at Christian Brown now you still need stuff from him offensively specifically three-point shooting you can’t just insert insert by the way Christian Brown I was a believer in him last year rcky points this season offensively I’m just after this Timberwolves here he was their best probably their best Anthony Edwards Defender I know work on him he’s gonna have a role like no ma if his offense doesn’t change at all he’s gonna have that same role or a bigger one going forward but you can’t I’m not at the point where I could say well you put him in for kcp and like kind of like you nudged him up the pecking order and you were fine for Bruce Brown I just this would go one too far they’re just not ready for it yet and I don’t know how they bringing back kcp at least gives them more time to plan around like this oh if we if they decide they need to get cheaper that they can’t afford these guys but even when you go that route this is act my actual question to you is there ever room or should there be room should they have already made more room to see if Michael Porter Jr can do more offensively because of what you just mentioned where you’re talking about by the way by the end of this series it was even if Michael Porter Jr was taking a three it was kind of a win for the but like for him to do more with where goes up against these lanky and physical defenses and like if you bump him off the three-point line or he’s not open there’s only so much that he can reasonably do and it’s do they need someone more who can punish mismatches in the post or operate more off the dribble and then the two-fold question off of that is should you make room for Michael Porter to Jr to do that during the regular season next year but also two like do you even want him shouldering that type of load because with that does it increase his exposure to back issues where if he’s trying to bang in the post or just take these guys more off the dribble and follow through on all of his drives or if you’re also going to task him with doing some playmaking not only is there the extra physical toll but you’re gonna have to deal with some turnovers there buddies yeah I think if if he if feels like a lot to ask uh but because of what we’ve just spent time talking about where it’s like I mean it’s more likely to me that they lose kcp then they bring in like a level of player that because they just can’t that that’s at kcps level or higher I think most likely they will just keep him and pay what it costs and deal with it but if if you had to choose between are they gonna lose him or bring somebody else in like that is as valuable as kcp it sort of has to be the former because they’re just they don’t have the ability to to bring in someone so anyway that that’s not the porter question it’s it’s fascinating because like he would have to be the thing with the Nuggets is they are had until this series been able to like get to what they wanted to which is just a heavy heavy dose of joic and Murray when they really needed to score and so like yeah to your point like I don’t know if you want to take away from those reps because you’re giving Porter Jr like more more chances I guess or just giving him a bigger share of the offense but like I guess yeah if you’re gonna play a good enough defense that can actually take away the effectiveness of some of jokic’s game and some of Murray’s game you do just need it to come from somewhere else and I think of the other three starters like it’s probably it’s definitely kcp it’s not Gordon unless like in terms of like can you score against like a a defense that has overloaded to joic and Murray it sort of has to be Porter Jr I don’t even know what that looks like because he’s not someone that’s gonna like run a second side pick and roll you know with any regularity it’s GNA have to be like a a fake you know Drive the clothes out either finish at The Rim or make the next pass for an open three which again like Denver was pretty happy I mean Minnesota was pretty happy giving up threes as long as you weren’t getting anything close so like I guess I guess like yeah because we’re banking on organic growth like as the Nugget’s best way to improve guys like Porter Jr do have to add like 5% more you know as an off the- dribble score or something like that because where else where else is it gonna come from you can’t say oh yic needs to be better it’s like he’s as good as a human can be and and like Murray yeah more consistency would be great but I don’t know how to evaluate that given the calf injury and I think for people that are probably maybe and I I will say I’m maybe slightly uncomfortable with kind of where the Nuggets go from here because now you’re so dependent on internal development but the fact that maybe they understood this or decided this before we thought they needed to be that dependent b as well for them but if you’re looking to actually overreact or be more like our analysis boils down to the Nugget are just going to be right back here next year and they need to be incrementally better somehow that’s not spicy the spiciness could come I think there’s probably like three or four flash bulb potential developments it’s we already mentioned one the kcp free agency now the extension eligibility this is too for Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray if like you don’t even hear Whispers that those talks are happening probably specifically with Murray just because he becomes a free agent after next year I think that’s the last year of his contract he’ll be unrestricted um that would be the one where it’s okay what is going on here uh and then the other one well and I don’t think if they don’t extend either of them like maybe there’s just something but like the Murray one is probably a bigger one than the Gordon just from a how committed are you to continuing to pay for this core and then so that’s that’s three of those and then the final one would also be if you start to hear talk of Michael Porter Jr trades and the returns that you’re hearing are like oh there are these teams that have cap space or I don’t even like traded player exceptions and there’s draft Equity being rumored that’s when you get worried if they like I would even be a little bit worried if they decided that they wanted to break him up into like two or three players just because well what does that say about your faith in your internal development but like if you start like hearing those Whispers that’s when you start getting concerned because it means oh they just watched this guy but they just got punked by the guy that they could have kept good for Tim Conelly and if you’re Stan Kony and you’re looking at this like I I think as a competitor I’d be like well I need to prove that like yeah they wanton a title without him already but it was with Tim Connelly’s roster infrastructure you should double down and spend more but if they go into like cost cutting mode or even just sniffing around it this isn’t the level of they were able to save money and get case TP there will not be a move out there that makes me feel the same way about this and so if you’re looking to overreact to the nuggets and their future I just don’t think you could do it right now but those are the things I would be monitoring to see if this team is tilting in a direction that it should not be and of those of those options that you laid out I think an mpj trade has to register as the most uh like I don’t know about most I guess most likely and sort of the cleanest way to get in maybe better without you know without organic growth like just because think of the if if mpj is going to be in this role which is like a limited role right like he’s nowhere close to your best defender you don’t need him as like oh we got to have his length on this guy and on offense he’s no higher than third on the on in the pecking order and given like the amount of facilitation Aaron Gordon has to do might be fourth so like you really could split him into two guys one of which is like I don’t know 80% 85% of the offensive player just in that role of like a catch and shoot guy and then someone that can defend like I don’t know there’s there’s ways to go there if you split him and it would be semi-interesting if I didn’t think that the shooting that Michael Porter Jr provides is I think more valuable to this team Than People realize because the Nuggets I’ll die on this hill they didn’t shoot particularly well during the playoffs from like they don’t take enough threes and I understand that a lot of that is just like look at how they’re generating their offense if they need to but like when you’re talking about like up a variance where it’s just like if you see the Timberwolves like when they were kind of up by seven inside two minutes I know Denver’s offense is Denver’s offense is Denver’s offense but it was just like oh it’s over yeah and then certainly when they go up 10 with three you’re just like it’s over and because they’re just not a team that really goes to three-point volume that way and Michael Porter Jr at least gives you that idea how are you getting a player who replicates that well then also deepening your rotation I agree with you that the cleanest way to deepen your rotation of proven players would be to trade Michael Porter Jr but you also get into the issue of well are you trading him I don’t want to say the ner of his value but for less than he means to you because you just perfectly outlaid his role and how it’s limited who’s looking at his salary and saying well I want to pay him Max money without knowing whether he can actually do much more he’s their number 3.5 option you call him are we in a position to pay Max money for that when we don’t know if he could do more or even just to put him in the same role and so that like you get into weird territory with that which is why I’m just at this point you’re kind of married to the like the it’s not the two timelines but it’s you’re married to your internal development and I’m like you run back your core five yeah and hope that you get enough breaks offensively from Christian Brown and from Payton Watson maybe strawther or picky can come in and give you minutes next year maybe Hunter Tyson can do something but like you’re kind and could you hit on a minimum you know I had thrown out the idea actually wrote about it is I know his Philly homecoming was cool but like if you wanted to go ring chasing and you’re willing to sign for the like Kyle Lowry would be fantastic for this team uh I don’t think he SES everything but it’s like that’s someone else who could give you different layers of offense even at his age right now I just who are they GNA hit on and like but maybe that we’re talking about them getting incrementally better or deeper you could feasibly do that just by signing the right minimum guy yeah and it’s like at the end of it it’s this is not an uncommon position for a champion a past Champion to be in where it’s like now because it’s you cannot get yet here without being expensive basically with very few exceptions and so now it’s just like we need one or two guys to hit that haven’t contributed yet and that’s not this that’s not the most unlikely outcome in the world like I keep thinking back to uh some of those Spurs teams where it’s like they never went back to back they just they’d get there they’d win it they’d come close or not that close sometimes the following year and then you know two years later they’d win it again and it might have been because like Tony Parker took a step or like they suddenly got Danny Green or they you know that whatever it is like mattered this time or what do you say all the time sorry it’s I’m trying to I’m trying to par I’m trying to quote you to you we love Danny Green around here we do everybody loves Danny Green uh or just so it it it’s it weirdly like there’s a blueprint here for for the nuggets and the Spurs pulled it off for like 15 years where you just kind of try to stay as close to this good as you can and it’s going to look a little different on the margins for a while but you’ve got the main piece in yic and you can just like you know hope one or two guys pops so you get a second rounder somewhere and he turns into a guy that can give you 20 minutes and like you’re just there so again this is all circling back to like you just I can’t Panic here I can’t do it because they’re so good still and you saying the Spurs made me think of this and I have a question for you to wrap it up I think that’s maybe a different podcast but the observation here is how did they win their first title by not overreacting to these postseason failures and I thought I don’t know if you saw the Michael Malone quote I thought he phrased it perfectly failures is not fatal it’s like you could be pissed that they blew the 20-point lead but they also lost to a team that quite they were the Timberwolves were better than the Nuggets like that’s just we could say it now they were at least in the discussion beforehand so you got to this point by not overreacting why are you GNA overreact now when there’s nothing you look at when again the core five specific like your starting lineup and saying there’s no reason what is the reason that they could not be back here next year aside from injuries it’s do you see regression coming from anyone aside from kcp and probably not no [Music]

Dan and Grant discuss the future of the Denver Nuggets and what they can or should do to continue maximizing the Nikola Jokic championship window. CHECK OUT THE FULL EPISODE: youtu.be/P6RYKHT6pF4.

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