How the Denver Nuggets Can Rebuild For A Finals Run Next Season | NBA Podcast

How the Denver Nuggets Can Rebuild For A Finals Run Next Season | NBA Podcast

Denver’s offseason westes I just want to preface all of the possibilities we’re going to run through here in a in a little look ahead by saying I still believe in this team and I still believe in this starting five and if I’m Calvin Booth I’m going into the offseason and I’m not panicking I am not overreacting and I’m spending what it takes to keep the group together as priority number one now other opportunities can come along their hand could be forced with one member of that starting five who we will get to right away but they lost to a team that was healthier more confident and deeper than them happens that that’s kind of my Topline view of where Denver’s at right now I don’t think this is a an emergency situation yeah I’m glad we agree on this um Calvin Booth before the season telling Kevin oconor from the ringer in in a feature that he wrote that hey you know if we don’t go back to back it’s not the end of the world we’re looking to win multiple championships over this half decade plus kind of thing and if we never win back toback the way the Spurs never won back to back that’s okay like we still think we can establish a dynasty in that way and you heard even Michael Malone reflect those same things uh in his postgame press conference after their game seven again uh lost to Minnesota so everything’s going as plan essentially like you didn’t plan to win back toback and guess what you didn’t so good for you I guess but um I’m with you also the look most people are going to say well Denver lost because they didn’t have depth and Minnesota did and that’s partially true but it’s not as true as some people are making it out to be at the end of the day your starting five needed to be better and Denver starting five which has been the best starting five in basketball for a couple of years now was not that in the playoffs and certainly wasn’t that against the Timberwolves and if your starting five is just better which at the end of the day that’s what wins you championships right like Bruce Brown Jeff Green are great the starting five is what wins you a championship sh and so if you’re starting five is better then you’re better and it was still a seven game series and they still LED 20 in game seven it’s not and it still took a nazre explosion in the final two minutes to turn that game it’s not even like it was some kind of blowout you were up 20 you were up 11 and a half like but I said I think there’s still team needs I think that there’s like if you if you it would also be a little bit malpractice to just run it back and not make some tweaks on on the fringes like you should probably do something after losing in the second round uh especially when it feels like the league is caught up to you a little bit here so you’ve got to do something to move the needle um but you mentioned cavius called wal po or alluded to him he’s probably going to opt out of a $15 million contract um even though we don’t know that for certain but if he does opt out that’s basically priority number one for Denver is trying to bring him back I would imagine yeah he is 15.4 million I think there will be a market for him bigger than that you know Philly’s the obvious one but yeah he fits everywhere I mean he’s he’s the quintessential kind of three and D smaller Wing guy that you can slot in anywhere he shot 33% from deep in the playoffs 37% somehow in that Minnesota series which feels like a misprint but somehow it’s it’s true it just felt like that weapon and he would be such a big part of their their biggest runs he’s great at the you know Sprint and stop catch and shoot threes and transition when they would really get rolling last year when he’s making those shots he has his own two-man chemistry as a screener and a you know dribble handoff option with yage it just felt like that was stamped out even though apparently I guess again he shot 37% against Minnesota um so him being better and sticking around like that that literally could be the difference between us feeling better in May of next year about about him that said they’re not that far from the tax I mean that the the second apron I should say which is I think going to be the the restraint they have and something again that could force their hand if they have to match an offer for kcp that’s a substantial raise on what he has now do they have to get rid of other players and what kind of position does that put them in and are they getting worse just to keep him I think that’s why that first Domino is going to be so big but if we just assume they’re able to keep him without sacrificing the best young guys they have Wes what do you feel like is the main place they do need to up upgrade to get better get deeper get in a better position to win that second Championship yeah I don’t think it’s crazy you need to figure out what you’re going to get with backup center can you convince some sort of Veteran to come take the minimum and be willing to come off the bench for joic for 15 minutes a game in the regular season and maybe four or five minutes a game in the postseason until you just don’t anymore and that’s the tough spot right like I don’t know how many veteran centers are signing up for that unless they want to you know Chase a ring and in that case hey really great kind of carved out role for you um but they need to figure that out and there’s a b you know there’s always minimum guy centers out there and they’ve tried the DeAndre Jordans and things like that but they got to they got to find an answer to that problem uh and the other thing too is I think they need to go find some Wing stopper sounds like that’s not going to happen the minimum that’s essentially what they got with holiday this year is sort of a wing is stopper is kind of guy but maybe find another one of those guys you know who can who can give you another option there but you know I also don’t know that you want to completely Veer off course here you’ve got Payton Watson you got Christian Brown you got a couple of young guys like these are obst the guys who are going to have to step up for kcp if you do lose him in free agency which would really put you behind the eightball there but if the idea was we’re not going to sign veterans going into this year because we want these guys toel to develop then I think you do stick to that plan and you still try to elevate those guys and develop internally because that’s been the plan all along and so I I think that’s what you have to do unless you make a more dramatic change in terms of a trade with one of those high high price guys then you can kind of rejigger the rot the whole thing a little bit more but for now yeah I think you basically just do the same thing and just hope that instead of DeAndre Jordan whoever you get this time hits and instead of you know holiday whoever you get this time hits a little bit more you know it’s just hard because the reputation Malone had for not playing young guys I it felt like maybe we had moved past that when he slots Christian Brown into the playoff rotation last year and it works and then this year it kind of reverts right back you know this is the guy Once Upon a Time who got fired from the Kings when he was like above 500 because he just has this Clash of vision with the front office with ownership with whatever now Sacramento I’m not going to give them the benefit of the doubt the same way that I would Denver but he has to figure out which of these guys he can trust because at the end of the day you can find backup centers and they do need that because they don’t even have a young guy option there I don’t think I think we know now Zeke Naji it’s just not going to happen um whereas those other positions they do but getting rid of those guys to go chase some minimum signing on the open market it’s just it’s gonna the upside of that is lower you got to figure out can Hunter Tyson who we barely saw can Jaylen picket who we barely saw can these other guys take a step forward he just stop playing pton Watson in the playoffs like that’s I don’t you know when you get to a game seven it’s understandable but to not even ever try it in this Minnesota series for any extended stretch it’s just like you can’t really be doing that because those are your guys for better or worse you don’t you don’t have other options here so but we’re on exactly the same page backup big is is huge joic off the court in the playoffs two stats fell off a cliff offensive rebounding and defensive foul rate so those both go to they didn’t have the size and the the defensive kind of backbone that they needed and I think truly facing Minnesota a big team if you think back to what their second unit was last year when they didn’t have yokich on the court obviously Gordon was still their Center they had green as another kind of bigger dude but really what kept them afloat was having both Browns out there Murray would be out there Gordon would be out there and green would be out there and they would just switch everything yeah you can’t really do that against Minnesota and there’s going to be more of teams like that I don’t think if they had played Dallas that would have really worked and so maybe that was a one season trick and you have to be a little more traditional and the league is is actually changing back to what you are but you only have one of the guys in jic that that gives you that identity you have to have it across 48 minutes so um that that’s luckily not the hardest thing to find but there will be a demand there like the Suns need that I know plenty of teams every summer are hunting for those guys but you mentioned big big trades here and I think what people are thinking about if they were to do something big if the salary situation forced them to is Michael Porter Jr I will say Wes um I think Porter Jr is overpaid in a vacuum I think this idea of where he could go you’re not getting untapped potential for MPG I don’t think it’s there I think he is what he is but at the same time I do think he could be more valuable elsewhere if that makes sense where what he does just being a volume shooter if that’s all you’re getting and a vet and a positional Defender some younger building teams maybe could see that as worth something in a way that Denver could afford to take a step back in if that makes sense like I thought of Detroit I think you have some ideas of as well like Marcus Sasser who was kind of a fun little six-man scoring guy for the Pistons this year and like Isaiah Stewart could you could you just turn them into two pieces who maybe fit with what you want to be and provide some depth in different areas and the Pistons could say hey yeah it’s not maybe worth 26 million or 30 million or whatever but what are we going to spend our money on Tobias Harris yeah let him space the floor for Cade and and we’ll see how that goes so I would be looking for a team like that I think there could be a trade out there but but again I’m not trying to do it if I’m the Nuggets Michael Porter Jr is a good player he’s not worth $35 million and in this new CBA with a second tax apron and the limitations with it which was not the CBA that this team was built under you’re you might have to make some changes it’s really hard to afford what you might uh uh Nik yic Jamal Murray who’s going to be up for an extension soon uh K uh Michael Porter Jr at $35 million and if you want to bring back CP at whatever he’s going to be making $20 million a year whatever we think it’s going to end up being market value wise and I do think that Michael Porter Jr is the harder player in a vacuum to find but kcp is more important to Denver and especially if you’re getting him at $15 million less annually than what mpj is worth because that’s the other part too is there’s a cost benefit analysis to this and I don’t think that Michael Porter Jr has been worth $35 million to Denver and when they signed him to that they probably did think he had a little bit higher ceiling than what it turned out that he has and by the way quietly not a very good playoff performer and that’s what it’s all about a very dependent player right so teams can turn off the faucet can you move him and his $35 million and turn that into two or three players who and maybe even save you a little bit money that frees up some of this cap space to go make some other moves and I think there’s something to be said about being better for it and then what to your point too you’re no longer the hunted you’re the Hunter and those two teams that you talked about that you could have matchup problems against Dallas and Minnesota those are the teams in the Western Conference Finals those are the teams that if you’re Denver you have to hunt so you have to approach this offseason a little bit different in saying like what do we need to beat these teams because these teams got further than we did and one of them beat us head to-head so um I like the Detroit idea I like the idea of going and getting a guy like Isaiah Stewart like that to me does make sense it’s sort of funny we thought like early in the Denver build they had to split up nurkic and yic because the two centers didn’t work well now joic is a completely different player than that at that point than he was obviously he has a three-point shot you could play him next to another Center and it could feasibly work I don’t know that I would go to that fulltime because then there’s spacing issues between yic another Center and Aaron Gordon but I would least like to have the optionality and I don’t know that just finding a guy on the minimum gives you that optionality right like it’s one thing to go get Andre Drummond but he you don’t want him playing next to joic necessarily so um I got I have three said that right about Minnesota he said they can be big or small and that really challenged us so he’s speaking truth to all of this as well I think they that lack of Versatility really hurt them I’ve got three trade ideas uh two of them to Young teams like you mentioned one of them to a not young team uh all right so Michael Porter Jr to Orlando for jayen Suggs and Joe Eng Les I kind of love the idea of Suggs and Denver Engles would be SS and Denver would be great I think you could make the case Suggs is more valuable already that’s the problem I think so that that was kind of where I landed on it but mpj in Orlando makes a lot of sense also like that kind of is exactly what if they would be willing to move off huge while also that they need um at least call him about it Memphis for Marcus Smart uh Kar and GG Jackson kind of get three rotation pieces GJ Jackson it would he would just become an allar with the nuggets and we would all rip our hair out um I love mpj and Memphis that that’s a really good fit I I think that’s awesome um they’ve just they’ve needed any kind of of volume shooter and then of course they get it in Desmond Bane then he has to play a whole season on the ball because jaw gets hurt so one more guy to space who’s again he I feel like his defense is you can survive it and especially if you’re not having to have a defense that plays the way that Denver’s does with joic always stretched out and mpj having to be the low man he could just kind of take up space I think I think you could do a lot worse this going to sound this is going to sound like almost a disc but like mpj is really good at Mo waving his arms around like that’s he’s good at being 610 right exactly he just he waves his arms like a butterfly and he just like that’s what we need you to do that’s great um I like the idea of also having somebody like Marcus Smart in Denver it’s a similar thing to jayen Suggs where you can kind of go big and you can go small right like Marcus Smart or Jaylen Suggs either one of them can play next to Jamal Murray and cavius callwell Pope you can go a little bit smaller if you wanted to in those in those Lins as well Bruce brown right same same thing exactly my final one Michael Porter Jr to the New York Knicks for buan bogdanovich and Mitchell Robinson I do like the Mitchell Robinson concept even though he would y inevitably you know Miss some time but that’s a good one I mpj tibs guy nope but tibs doesn’t call the shots there hang up true neither is bonovich evidently so it doesn’t matter we’ll see how tibs his contract extension toxco which is a great transition over the Knicks I have one last thought before we get there though which is if Christian Brown can demonstrate that his three-point shooting progress from the first regular season he was in the NBA till this past one is real and not fall off a cliff as a shooter in the postseason each year a lot of this stuff changes because he could be a kcp replacement he could even be part of a of a replacement option for mpj if he can make shots but he shot 22% last year in the playoffs 20% this year that’s not going to be good enough when you’re sharing the court with Gordon and joic and everything else obviously the pton Watson offensive development would be would be massive too but just got to be about who they trust and what else they can do all right let’s go to the Knicks

How can the Denver Nuggets rebuild the roster after this season’s second-round exit, and what major decisions do they have to make this offseason?

Brendon Kleen and Wes Goldberg discuss the ins and outs of Denver’s summer.

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