Why Denver Nuggets will be BETTER next season

Why Denver Nuggets will be BETTER next season

All [Music] right, Nuggets fans. Welcome into Pickax and Roll brought to my good friends here at Mile High Sports. I am your host Ryan Blackburn, NBA Blackburn on Twitter, part of the Mile High Sports Podcast Network. And I am very excited to talk this week about a variety of topics, but the first and foremost to kick off the week is some reasons for optimism this off season. Uh that’s what I’m going to focus on in this first segment. and we’ll kind of talk about both on the court, off the court things over the course of this entire spiel that I have planned. But very excited to be able to get into it and excited to be able to turn the page. I’ve had a little bit of time off, been able to refresh myself a little bit, not spending as much time online, which I think is good. Uh although I have been having a lot of people ask me questions about trades, about free agency targets, about everything in between. Try to share my thoughts where I can on there. But over the course of these next couple weeks, I will be pivoting into specific names that the Nuggets can target on the free agency and trade markets this year. Uh, I know that the overall point of view that the front office has been portraying, that Josh Kroni in his most recent statements to the media had been portraying is that Denver would be focusing on internal development. That may or may not be true. We’ll see what ultimately happens once the season fully wraps up from the NBA perspective and then the draft gets closer and then you start to really hear from agents and the Nuggets are popping up into rumors and who knows maybe one thing leads to another. But I want to focus in this segment about on the court reasons why the Nuggets can feel some reasons for optimism heading into the off seasonason knowing that hey there are things that are going to happen that may or may not change next season that could be good for the better. The first thing I want to cover, it’s one layer that I’ve tried to bring up every now and then, but one that I think a lot of Nuggets fans forget about, and that’s the fact that Don Holmes is coming back. I’m not going to sit here and say that Don Holmes would have changed the entire season for Denver. A rookie very rarely does, but Denver traded up for him for a reason. And I know that Calvin Booth telegraphed the move. It was a bad like you way that he traded up. Everybody and their mother knew the Nuggets knew that they were going to go after Don Holmes around the NBA. It was the worstkept secret in the entire NBA and it is why the Nuggets needed to give up so many draft assets in order to get it done. However, there is a reason why the Nuggets targeted Deron Holmes. There’s a reason why before the draft I was like, “Hey man, Don Holmes is really good. He might be one of the best bigs in this entire draft class.” A draft class that included Eve Mei, Khell Wear, and some other guys like Donovan Klingan who had pretty good seasons overall or at least good enough that they could be considered like future starters. Deron Holmes isn’t as big as those guys, but he’s more versatile and he’s certainly somebody that the Nuggets could have used in his rookie season. Now, of course, tears the Achilles and when you tear an Achilles, it is very, very difficult to kind of foresee and understand recovery, what it’s going to look like. And so when he comes back, and he’s going to come back, have it on pretty good authority that he’s going to be trying to get to the summer league and play again in summer league with this Nuggets team. And he’s going to try to get his feet wet, get see what he can do, get some some reps under him before like he comes back after the off season and comes back into training camp. And you’ll see what it looks like with Deron Holmes. But think about a versatile, athletic, skilled big man who could play the four, he can play the five, he can do some rim protection, and he can also do some rim running for the Nuggets. There’s a lot of things that they can do with him on the floor. And I think that is an underrated aspect of why Denver’s bench was so bad this year. It’s because they didn’t have the element that they were expecting. So, he’ll be back. And I think that that is a massive reason for optimism. Are you expecting massive contributions? No. I don’t even know if I’m expecting him to be an everyday player. But so much about why the Nuggets were so tired at the end of the season was because they had 14 roster spots. 15 was dedicated to Don Holmes who was just suffering from an injury and had to recover. And then Vlaco Chantar got hurt and so they had 13 roster spots and they didn’t really trust the two-way guys so they couldn’t lean on them at all. And then Dario Sar became unplayable and then you’ve got 12 roster spots and you just run out of people run out of players you can actually trust. So, if you can go into the season with a clean slate of health and everybody 1 through 15 is capable of playing minutes, that is a great start and something that I think is extremely underrated. Denver hasn’t had that happen really over the course of the last couple of years. So, getting this spot I think would be really, really helpful. Next, another year of growth for Christian Brown, Payton Watson, and Julian Strawther. As a starter this year, Christian Brown going from year two to year three made a massive leap. He finished fourth in the NBA in most improved player voting, and it was very justifiable. Now, there are aspects of his game that he didn’t fully tap into. One of them, I think, is his balance between offensive and defensive responsibility. As a starter, he became more of an offensive-minded player, less of a defensive-minded player, like defense only. Now, he had to really focus on an offensive role. And I think that there are things that he learned. there are things that he could do better and things that I think he will be better at as a secondyear starter, not just a firstear starter. I think just playing with Joic, playing with Murray, playing with whether it’s Michael Porter, Aaron Gordon, whoever, I think that he’s going to get more comfortable, more confident heading into year four. He also may have a contract. We’ll see what happens with the contract talks. Apparently, he was uh not not him specifically, but Bobby Marks projected it. He’s from ESPN projected his contract number 30 million per season as an extension target. I think that’s a little high personally. I think it should kind of be in the 22 to 26 million range. That would be my expectation. Like I think four years 100 million feels very reasonable for what to expect from that kind of position. Do I think that he is a like is he a third starter on a champion? No. And that’s kind of what I would project 30 million to represent. So I think it’s fair to pay him like the fourth best starter. Uh but if he earns that kind of contract and then plays like that, I think there’s a world where Christian gets a little bit better across the board. He’s a little bit better defensively. He’s a little bit more comfortable of a shooter after going through the fire in the playoffs this year. He is a little bit better of a ball handler. He’s somebody who just understands and appreciates his role even more and knows how to impact the game. I think just getting the reps and getting the experience is going to be so much of the battle. And there’s a lot of people that think that his ceiling is relatively low. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do think that like if I was ranking him in terms of shooting guard starters in the NBA this year, I’d have to really tap into the list, but I’d guess that he was around 18, 20, somewhere in that general range. What if he gets up to around 13 or 15 and is just a little bit more consistent across the board? Is that that crazy to think? Could the Nuggets account for that when they’re like when you’re trying to think about what’s going to be better for this upcoming season? I think that’s at least reasonable. So, reason for optimism right there. Julian Strawther, Pton Watson, I think, are both in a very similar category as well. It’s a good thing for them that David Adelman was brought back. He’s very familiar with their games. He’s familiar with what they need. He also like he knows their strengths and weaknesses and I think is going to help them get better in this coming off season. Uh the question is what they will be able to do from a consistency standpoint, what they’ll need, what they’re going to improve upon. Pton Watson, it just is reps. He needs more comfortability running pick and roll. He needs to be somebody that can handle the ball. kind of get back to a situation where he’s reading the floor reasonably well, taking the pull-up jumper, and just being more comfortable in situations where he’s asked to do more offensively because if you want to have a role in the NBA, and you want it to be a larger role than like certainly what it was during the playoffs this past year, which let me let me look it up really quickly so I’m not talking out of both sides of my mouth here. Payton Watson averaged in the playoffs this season 14.2 minutes per game. That is effectively what Christian Brown averaged as a rookie. And then as a secondyear player, Christian Brown averaged, let me just check it here, 17 minutes per game. And then this past year, Christian Brown averaged 39 minutes per game. So, if Payton wants to see his if he wants to see his role increase, he has to be more reliable across the board. He shot pretty well from three during these playoffs. But it wasn’t just about that. It was about their willingness, their ability to include him in pick and roll actions, include him in DHO actions. He has to be able to handle those better. And so if you are the Nuggets, if you’re trying to figure out exactly what Pton Watson is for you this upcoming season, getting him more reps, getting him more opportunities, maybe some opportunities to start, uh especially when Murray is out, then I think that that’s a great opportunity for Denver to give Payton Watson some more responsibility and really try to work on some things during the regular season Because that’s one thing that Denver did not do a good enough job with Michael Malone is they just tried to win games and they tried to do it any way they could and you just rely on your pet actions. You rely on your starters. You rely on what you trust and they didn’t trust Payton Watson enough. And his usage went down. His minutes went up. He was out there but he was standing in the corner a lot. He was standing in the dunker a lot. He wasn’t really involved in what they were doing. So if you believe in him, you have to get him more involved. And the same is true for Julian Strawther, who was more involved than Pton Watson pretty consistently, but he was also more involved in a lot of defensive actions because the opposing team was hunting him out the wazoo. So Julian got to get better defensively. If his consistency on the defensive end improves and then his consistency on the offensive end improves, you’re talking about a six man right there. like there there is a great opportunity and I mean great for Julian to make a whole bunch of money in this league as like a Payton Pritchard Sam Hower type just somebody who is reigning hellfire from three because of how versatile of an outside shooter he can be and if you can create a little bit inside the arc force opposing teams to react to you there’s a lot of things that can happen there so I think that there’s reason for optimis ism for all three of Christian Brown, Peyton Watson, Julian Strawler. If the Nuggets are going to focus on internal development, that is the name phrase of the last week, then I think that those are the three guys you’re talking about. Maybe Jaylen Picket pops is a backup point guard if you if Russell Westbrook decides to move on. Maybe Hunter Tyson becomes a role player for the team that they can trust. I don’t really believe in that one because I don’t think he’s athletic enough. But who knows if there’s another guy that could pop off of their bench, whether it’s Zeke Naji, whether it’s Jaylen Picket, whether it’s Hunter Tyson, and just become a player that they could trust. It’s one more than they had this past year. So, who knows? Maybe that’s something. And final reason for optimism on the court, what if Bruce Brown just comes back? There’s been a lot of smoke, and I mean a lot, a lot of smoke, about Bruce Brown being very interested in coming back to Denver. I have heard that both an on there information from uh just just what Bruce Brown is posting. He’s sharing a lot of uh love for Denver on social media lately. And uh there’s there’s a lot of things that like he was back in Denver for game two of the OKC. uh not not OKC, it was uh game two of the Clipper series, I recall, and has just been around the team and trying to show support. And then off thereord stuff, like I’m not going to get too deep into it, but there are a lot of people that are just kind of not penciling it in, but at least saying they’re trying, like the Nuggets and Bruce Brown. So, if there is an opportunity for him to come back, I think that he’s going to. and I think that he wants it. So, if the team and him can come to some sort of financial agreement, like even if it’s just the same taxpayer mid-level exception, I think that there is a world where that just makes a lot of sense. So, we’ll figure it out. But if you’re talking about good vibes and trying to generate a feel-good situation for Denver where you want to like Gary Payton II just did this with the with the Warriors where he won a championship with them in 2022. Things didn’t work out with the Portland Trailblazers in 2023 when he signed a contract with them. So he went back to the Warriors and then has been with them ever since. kind of feels like a similar situation here with Bruce here where things did not work out for him after he got traded from Indiana. It already wasn’t great in Indiana, but he got traded to Toronto, kind of floundered on their bench, and then got traded this past year to New Orleans, and now his contract is up. And so, I think he’s made his money, or at least made enough money that I think he feels pretty good. So, get him back in Denver where he enjoys playing basketball. I think everybody everybody would love that. His fit with Christian Brown and Russell Westbrook and Pton Watson notwithstanding. I think that there is a world where he’s just the kind of versatile piece that didn’t necessarily look good with other teams but might look really good in Denver and they’ve already won with him. So, who knows? Maybe that’s a a good situation to be in. All right. When we come back, we’re going to talk about some off-the-court reasons I think you can be excited about Denver, including are the Nuggets just going to be a better organization than they were before? I have some some positive feelings about that. We’ll be right back here on Pickax and Roll. And we are back. Pickax and roll. Ryan Blackburn here. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Hit that like button. Hit that subscribe button down below. Would really appreciate it. Also, if you’re listening on the audio side, would love to see a five-star review come through if you have the time. Uh those do really help and they show that people are listening and and are constantly listening and the the recent reviews are definitely helpful for new listeners. So, would really really appreciate that. Okay. Uh better organization. Let’s focus off the court here just for a second. Like I think Don Holmes is going to help Denver. think the growth of Christian Brown, Pton Watson, Julian Strawler will help them. I think getting somebody like a Bruce Brown, maybe there’s another couple of free agents that they could get. I don’t know. Maybe there’s a trade that they could make. Who knows? But the thing I really want to highlight is off the floor. Denver, of course, needed a reset given the Michael Malone and Calvin Booth situation that have been cropping up. It had been cropping up for a while and it’s something that when you’re too close to the team, it kind of became normalized a little bit for you to hear stuff like that like, yeah, they’re not getting along, they’re not seeing eye to eye, things like that. But when you take a step back and take a step back, especially at this point to the season where Denver’s done, you saw the kind of breath of fresh air that it gave Denver when those guys were gone. And you start to realize, man, it’s always better when the team is just aligned and pointed in the right direction and everybody’s just focused on one goal and it doesn’t matter like who gets the credits or how you do it. It’s just about how you get the job done. And Denver was like that back in 2023. It’s the first year of the Malone, Booth like full-on relationship where yeah, he got like Booth helped get Christian Brown, Peyton Watson, Bruce Brown, KCP, all four of those guys. Good versatile wings. Got DeAndre Jordan in there. Uh didn’t work out that he got Reggie Jackson and uh Thomas Bryant in there during the during the year, but Calvin Booth worked for Michael Malone and the Nuggets in that situation. And then they won the championship. And I think Calvin Booth kind of started working for his own personal plan believing that he was the right visionary for the situation that he knew best. Uh there were people that believed in Calvin. There were people that believed in Michael Malone who was like, “Hey, we just had a great plan when you did what I wanted. Continue doing what I want.” And that just didn’t really line up. And so you had a whole bunch of question marks, a whole bunch of people pulling in the wrong directions. And during this year, it kind of snapped. Kind of just went past the point of no return. Josh Kroni saw it. A lot of people saw it. There were a lot of like like the locker room was very down. Everybody felt resigned. I like truly folks, it was a miserable experience in the Nuggets locker room after losses following the All-Star break. Like even before the All-Star break, there were some there’s definitely some moments, but they they entered the All-Star break in a pretty good place for a variety of reasons. Um, but coming out of the All-Star break where teams were like, “Okay, it’s go time. It’s we’re we’re ready to go. We’re going to see what happens.” And then Denver got off to such a mess start and everything felt so charged and it was just a lot of stress and Denver never played well. They were losing games that they shouldn’t lose and things were just stressful like in the locker room and I’m sure that a lot of that stemmed from the pressure that had been applied throughout the organization by the rift that had been developing. So now part of that might be overstated. I’m not going to sit here and say that I know everything because I don’t. Um, but just from the outside looking in and just from talking to a variety of people that have been a part of that situation, it was crazy. It’s just a very crazy situation. So I think that getting past that and putting yourself now into a situation where you you understood the faults, you understood what happened, you understood the factions developed and that the team needs to be more aligned in this case. Is it going to help that David Adelman was hired before the next general manager? Who knows? Uh that could be a source of contention that the Nuggets will need to massage. they’ll need to figure out. But as we’ve seen early on in a relationship, things can work out pretty well where it doesn’t take time like there it’s not enough time for things to fester early on in a season. U Denver during the first season that Calvin Booth took over, Calvin was very much aligned with this is what I think we need. Michael Malone, what do you need? that vision aligned for the most part and they got perimeter defense. They got a whole bunch of athleticism and versatility and smart high IQ basketball players and that really worked. And now David Adelman is very familiar as somebody who’s been around this team for eight years. He knows what they need. He understands what they’re good at, what they’re bad at. and whoever comes in as the general manager will have the ability to kind of maneuver make some things happen as much as like he can that that’s at least the hope. I don’t think there’s going to be a mandate put out there that says they have to develop internally. Like if there is another solution, I think a general manager would have enough autonomy to pivot as long as they made the case and said this is what I think is the right call and then as long as everybody’s on the same page, then you can really start to pull in the same direction. If you’re making moves that are smart, that are in the right direction, that work out, and everybody feels like they are involved in this situation, I think Denver just becomes better as an organization through this. Now, there’s no guarantee that that happens. Like, this is a reason for optimism. But if we’re doing a reasons for realism, then Denver just kind of feels like the same organization they’ve always been, which is they don’t really spend enough money on everything. They lucked into Nicole Joic in a lot of ways and only getting one championship would be a failure. I think a lot of people know that, but I also think Josh Gronkey knows that and I think he understands that and he is going to do what he can to help Denver get out of what is perceived to be kind of a stuck situation. And so whether they stay attached to internal development, whether they are patient enough and they can make the right move at the right time or if they are kind of forced to make a panic move, you don’t you hope that they don’t have to do that, but they will if they feel that it is necessary. So I’m very curious to see what happens. But I do think that just excising the issue that was the Malone Booth feud I do think is really important. And if Adelman and whoever the next general manager is, whether it’s Ben Tenzer, whether it’s Tommy Belchettis, whether it’s somebody else, Matt Lloyd is a name that’s popped up according to my friend Matt Moore over at Locked on Nuggets. Uh then whoever it is, Denver should feel like as long as everybody is pointed in the right direction that they’ll have a better chance than they did before. Nobody’s working against each other in that situation. You want people to work for each other. It’s a team sport. It’s a team environment. It should be built upon winning and built upon pulling together with teamwork. Like that’s just what this is supposed to be. So we’ll see whether that actually manifests. But the final thing, and I brought this up at the end of the Locked on Nuggets podcast that Matt and I did last night, I think that Denver is in a tenuous position. They’re a team that has had the benefit of having a superstar, the best player in the world. And they have long benefited from the idea that Joic is not going to be causing drama. He’s not going to be throwing his weight around and say, “Hey, you have to do this or I’ll leave.” He’s never been that guy. And he I don’t think he’s going to be that guy. He has three years left on his current contract. I believe. Let me just confirm that real quick. Um, no, my mistake. He has two years left and then a player option on the third season. So, what that would look like from a contract extension standpoint is you can only be signed to a contract for five years uh after or including the current season that you’re a part of. So, once I believe July 8th hits, a week after free agency starts or so, Joic will be eligible to sign a what is effectively a three-year extension, but it’s actually a two-year extension. he will be opting into his player option or or he’ll like decline his player option and then maybe resign for a new number or something akin to that that’s built off of the previous 59 million number. Uh I don’t know if that’s like like maybe the new 35% number for the salary cap is is one of the reasons why he would do that. So either way, the number that he could give is the number that Denver would give. Like they would be trying to give him the most amount of money possible. And Jokic, I think, would probably accept that. But when they offer it to him on July 8th, they’ll have talked to him all the way up until that point from now until then. And I’m sure that like this is a conversation that his agent uh Misco Raznovvich and the Nuggets front office, whether it’s Josh Kroni, whether it’s Tommy Belchettis, whether it’s whoever, uh those guys have already had these conversations and I’m sure that Jokic and his agency knows that that’s coming. He’s eligible and they’re going to offer it 100%. They want to keep him as locked in as possible. But if you’re Jokic and you’re looking at the situation that Denver’s currently in, there’s one tradable first round pick. There are zero tradable second round picks. Your top star next to you is Jamal Murray, and he’s, I would say, developing a little bit more consistency, but the top levels are definitely lower in the playoffs than they were before. 2023 was great. 2024 was shaky. 2025 this year had some good moment. He had the 43 points against the Clippers in game five of that series. He had some steady moments against the OKC Thunder, but nothing earthshattering from the OKC series. Certainly though, he did have a 25point performance in game six while he was sick. Like again, like he’s had good games, but nothing like all-star caliber that I think a lot of folks including my guy Swipa would love to see Denver have next to a guy like Jokic. So, if there’s no immediate help coming, if it’s just, hey, we’re going to run it back. We’re going to add Bruce Brown. We’re going to uh try to shift some things on the fringes, but for the most part, we’re going to bring back mostly the same pieces. Is Jokic going to sign that contract? Is he going to sign that extension and say, “Hey, all right, sounds good. I’m going to commit to I’m gonna make sure that I’m committed for as much time as possible. Or maybe it’s a he declines the player option in 2027 28 and then signs a new three-year contract that gives him a player option at the end of that one. And it’s just basically a guaranteed two more years that he’s with Denver on top of the two that he’s going to be. So it would be a four-year contract plus a fifth year player option is what this is really amounting to. Is that worth it for him? For somebody that wants to play for one team for his entire career, but also would like to see Denver be the most competitive that they can possibly be to have a chance to win a championship. Does he feel like the Nuggets have given him the best chance to succeed? I don’t know. Does he agree with all the moves that have been made? Does he agree with the game plan? Does he agree with the organizational alignment? Things like that. If the answer to any of those is no, then he may hesitate. He just might. And it’s not like he’s demanding a trade or anything like that. He’s got plenty of time. Why risk it? Like, or not risk it, but why why commit too early if you don’t necessarily believe that the team is going to be the best version of themselves? for you. And so I think it would be at least fair for him to wait and see what happens. I’m not sitting here and saying that like July 8th might come around and Denver may have made a big move and they are in a better position to compete for this season because of it. And maybe Joic is like, “Okay, that’s good enough.” And then signs the contract. Or maybe he’s like, “You know what? I’m just going to give it another year and we’re going to see what happens. And that would really put some stress on the entire city because it would be the very first time that Jokic and the Nuggets were not fully in the lock step on him being the pillar of the organization and him being perfectly content to not worry about any of the contract stuff. When the contract comes due, he will sign whatever needs to be signed. I remember after 2022 where the supermax extension was going to be eligible for him. The Nuggets just lost in the first round. Pretty tough situation for a team that had championship aspirations. But Joic was like, I’m signing that. Like they offer it. I’ll sign it. And there was no drama. There was nothing there. And so maybe that’s the same situation that happens this time around. But it just wouldn’t surprise me if he waited because I do think it’s been three years since that moment where he signed that supermax contract extension without any drama, without any fanfare, without any question as to whether he was going to bolt from Denver. Giannis Antompo has gone through it three separate times and will go through it again this off season. So Joic, I think, is very committed to the Nuggets. The Nuggets need to make sure it is perfectly clear that they are as committed to him as possible. And if that means making a trade that they may not feel like is in their best interest, but it helps Joic, they’re probably going to have to consider that even if they don’t think that that’s the right thing to do. So, we’ll see what happens. Like, Jokic shouldn’t necessarily be throwing his weight around trying to be the GM of the team. He’s already doing some coaching and he’s already being the best player. He’s already being an MVP caliber player, the best player in the world. So, you’re going to do everything. So, I do think that look, this is a podcast about optimism. This is a podcast about um like I’m not trying to sit here and say that Jokic is going to walk away. What I am going to sit here and say is that the Nuggets know that there is pressure. The Nuggets know that Joic is going to apply some of that pressure that he wants to see them be the best. So, okay, last time this happened was the 2022 offseason and Denver got everything they needed and won the title the year after. Let’s see what they can do with limited resources this time around. Let’s see who they can go get. Let’s see if there’s anything that they need to change. And if the answer is they need to change a lot and Jokic thinks that they need to change a lot, then maybe they’ll change a lot and maybe maybe that’ll be good for the team. Who knows? All right, everybody. That is going to do it for this episode of Pickax and Roll brought to you by our good friends here at Mile High Sports. Thank you so much for tuning in. Really appreciate the love and support. upcoming podcast schedule. Monday today, Wednesday morning, Friday morning. Those are going to be the three days a week that I am doing podcasts. Monday morning, Wednesday morning, Friday morning, we’ll be releasing these at 10:00 a.m. They’re going to be recorded, I believe, but maybe there’s one that I go live. And there will also be some times where I am on with guests, and I’m very excited to be able to do that as well. So, thank you so much for tuning in to this particular show. Hit that like button, hit that subscribe button on the way out. I will talk to you guys very soon.

On the latest episode of Pickaxe and Roll, Ryan Blackburn shares some Reasons for Optimism for the Denver Nuggets heading into the offseason, from DaRon Holmes’ return to the court to internal development of young players to better organizational alignment.

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