Nikola Jokic Did Something in the Playoffs No Other Players Has Done | Should Braun Be Extended?
The Denver Nuggets are currently enjoying their offseason while the NBA Finals are set to start tomorrow. It feels like their is a narrative circulating that Jokic was NOT good during these playoffs and I want to discuss how/or why that may or may not be true.
The Nuggets are banking on internal development but if this plan is going to work they need some VERY specific kind of development from within the roster. How can Adelman help speed this along?
Christian Braun and Peyton Watson are extension eligible. How should those extensions be handled?
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12 Comments
Expecting Jokić to beat or look good against the historically great team with historically great whistle from the referees is like expecting Jon Jones and four randoms to beat five legit UFC fighters in a bar fight..
Trade Jokic!
Free Joker
Is there something you didn't notice about SGA winning MVP and leading OKC into the finals hitting one 12-footer after another? Is there something you haven't noticed about these so-called useless midrange shots being wide open cause everyone is obsessed with threes? Well, in the playoffs, with everyone playing kamikaze defense in a pressure cooker, it aint so easy to hit those threes. You're obsessing about the mediocre three point shooting. I see it a little differently. I think Christian Braun's offseason should be all about taking a couple of dribbles and nailing 12-15 footers no one is paying attention to. For threes, Strawther can definitely catch fire, this is no longer theoretical, he proved it. He just needs a longer leash in the regular season. And a lot of marksmen we could trade for can't play D. Vlatko looked like a perfectly playable forward till he got hurt; no reason that guy can't play a few playoff minutes. I'm not real high on bench internal growth possibilities for the simple reason I don't see anything Hunter Tyson does well and I can't see Pickett being any more than a guy. Bruce Brown would obviously be a huge help cause he can hit threes and midrange shots while excelling on D. If they can somehow get Brown — which shouldn't be a pipe dream considering his last two teams shipped him out unceremoniously, and Holmes can play somewhere near advertised, Vlatko gets healthy, and they can somehow scour Europe for a playable substitute center, they'd be a tough out. The way history plays out, OKC looks unbeatable now … which doesn't necessarily carry over to the next season.
You’re not beating OKC with so many turnovers
SWIPA, leave it to you to bring sanity to this Christian Braun conversation. The fact is that Jokic, Porter, and Mal were clamped down on because teams know DEN lacks shooting, plain and simple. The Nuggets simply cannot afford a 5th starter who has no shooting gravity. And here's the other thing:
It is absolutely the most unfair assessment of MPJ to blame him essentially for the lack of good shots Porter got due to increased coverage because Braun can't shoot. Further, it would be the most basketball unintelligible thing to trade a 6'10 shooter who is a career 41% 3PT shooter who can get you 5-10 rebounds a game in a league where shooting comes at a premium to develop a 5th starter in Braun who is not a shooter.
17:44 see why Denvers window of contention is closed. Last year they let KCP as an excellent shooter to go, and CB as a good / ok shooter came in his role.
The way worse thing is that CB good / ok shooter role got replaced by Russ, who is also not very great shooter, good at times but usually inefficient…
Thats the beginning of all the niggets problems, allowing defenders to come in the paint and to double – triple team Jokic so that he has to either shoot very tough shot, get blocked / stolen ball or to kick the ball out to inefficient shooter in the corner or wing….
Braun provided D where it wasn't coming from anybody else. The way he's been improving, I assume he's going to be shooting 3s in the gym at a torrid pace to get better.
They need to lowball Christian at like 22 or on an ascending deal or with some non-guaranteed money. You can’t tell me as tight as salaries are right now that he’s gonna run off and get a $30 million contract next off-season in one of the biggest free agencies in recent history. He isn’t a shooter yet and he’s not even much of an on ball slasher
You improve the ability to win in 25/26 by totally forgetting completely about 22/23
There is no rebuilding that team and there is no recreating that moment.
The very first thing you do is use your MLE on Jokic's backup.
You find the best possible backup center for $5.8 mil
The second thing you do is try to build the best defensive team around Nikola Jokic.
If that means trading core pieces, you trade core pieces.
Third you have to assess whether Jamal Murray is still the right #2 option.
If your answer is yes, you build the best defensive team you can around the Jokic/Murray duo
If the answer is no, then you need to decide if you want Jamal Murray as a #3 or if it's better to use him to go after another #2 option?
If you are good with Jamal as your #2 or your #3, then you shift to dealing either MPJ, AG, or CB…..
If Jamal is your #2 again, then you can probably afford to trade MPJ and hope either AG or CB can assume the #3 spot.
If Jamal is more of a #3 then you can try to move MPJ and other pieces to go after a new #2
If you want to stick with Jokic, AG, MPJ, and Murray as the championship core, then you probably need to look at packaging CB and other pieces for vets on expiring contracts and maybe some 2nd rd picks…
Bench improvements and or internal improvements would be nice but to me those are not the most critical issues.
Are The Nuggets starting five capable of succeeding against bigger physical teams?
Keep Bruan Jokic Gordon and trade everyone else away
Dude! cannot overestimate jokic swipa, it is impossible. Of course dude had 3 bad games against okc, bc nba allows okc to rape folk. So yeah he gon play bad getting mugged and held holy shit