How can the Nuggets win the West?

How can the Nuggets win the West?

Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily for July 8th, 2025. I’m Dave Devour here with Esparenny and Adam Mahrez from the AllNBA podcast and DNVR to talk about all things Nuggets offseason. Good morning everybody. Good morning guys. Welcome Adam. Welcome back to the show. Pretty uh pretty good summer so far for your Nuggets out there. Yeah, I can’t believe it, man. This is the most uh eventful off season of the entire Jokic era. There’s never been more than one or two guys added to the roster. This is a whole roster overhaul. So, very exciting. Well, we kind of talked about this, you know, after the season a little bit, like something had to change. And I was of the opinion that this team needed to go out and get an all-star caliber player. But I think what they’ve done, they’ve gotten like the role player equivalent to getting one all-star. You know, they’ve really filled out the rest of the rotation. I can’t remember. When was the last time the Nuggets had 10 guys? Was it title year? Yeah, that’s part of it. The title year and even then it was I think it was eight deep if you recall the playoffs. Eight is enough to get you through a playoffs as long as you don’t run into some a team that requires a different type of player than the eight you have. But so Denver was able to make it through there. But you mentioned it. To me, the Cam Johnson piece of this is just so exciting. It’s not just a lateral, you know, like player for like player. I think it’s uh the first time Joic has had five guys in the starting lineup who all know exactly what to do and be in the right spot. So, I’m very excited about Cam Johnson. It’s also like changing the fabric of the team because Michael Porter Jr. was so important to what they were for a very long time. And so you’re you’re rejigging what the quote unquote core was of this championship level roster for a really long time. How do you feel Cam fits in? Cuz I I think he fits in like a glove playing offball. Yic. I mean Dave and I have talked about like just the cutting ability moving without the ball, but what do you think first impressionwise with Cam on this team? Uh for me it’s a home run fit and and if you look at Christian Brown, if we just talk about skill sets, you know, how great of a player is he? He’s really good. He doesn’t have a great skill. He’s really good at a lot of things. What he’s great at is being in the right spot. And Joic is the type of guy that if you’re in the right spot, he sees it whether he has to look or not. Aaron Gordon always in the right spot. He does have a more expansive skill set. He is great at some things, but he’s always in the right spot. Michael Porter was a great shooter. Cam Johnson’s a great shooter, but Cam Johnson is always in the right spot. And I know one area in particular in transition and even in the half court, Michael Porter did not like being in what he considered the coffin corner. You go stand in the corner, you got to do your job. But he didn’t like it because you go there four or five times in a row, ball never finds you, but you’re still doing his job. Cam Johnson lives in the coffin corner. He loves the coffin corner. It’s not a coffin corner to him. So, I just think that it’s mentality, but also reading the court. Denver is at their best and won a championship when five guys, no matter who it is, are all working together to solve problems and they just got a problem solver who’s much better than the guy they had in that same spot. How do you feel about the the defensive part of this? Um, you know, do do you feel like this this works better for them? Are they going to be a little bit more switchable? Is he going to play up for them at all and have maybe Aaron Gordon at the five? Uh, so I don’t know that they’ll want to go to the head, although their their center position, their backup center position in flux at the moment. So maybe they’ll So maybe they’ll be forced to, but I don’t think that was the plan when they signed him. What I think this does, it’s it’s really twofold. One, mistakes kill you when you’re not a great defense. And I think Denver in the playoffs in the Yokera has been a good defense. In the regular season, they’re not at all, but in the playoffs, they’re good. And they can have moments of being very good when it was required of them, especially in clutch time. They’re not great. And mistakes kill you because you can be very good or good for 46 minutes, but 2 minutes worth of mistakes and all of a sudden your def defensive rating is terrible, the other team gets on a run, you’re giving up wide open shots. That’s what Michael Porter represented. And I think first and foremost, Cam Johnson is not a mistakrone guy. Oh, I forgot the coverage. I didn’t go back as I forgot who I was guarding in transition. So, you erase that. But secondly, he is good enough at just doing his job that I don’t think Denver’s going to have to use Aaron Gordon to guard second best perimeter players, which is what’s happened to Denver in the last couple playoffs where they’ve taken him out of rim protection mode and said, “Yeah, but we can’t have MPJ on JDub or whoever it is. We have to put Aaron Gordon there.” And now Michael Porter is your rim protector, your low man. I think Aaron Gordon will now get to play that role a lot more. Not because Cam Johnson’s great at defense, but he’s solid enough to not make that compromise. Well, there’s also like the depth element to this, too, because you can have fresher legs if you can play more guys in the postseason. And so, when you have an eight-man rotation to be able to go to, you can keep a Christian Brown more fresh, you can keep a Cam Johnson more fresh. Um, I I think of like the additions of Bruce Brown and Tim Hardaway Jr., while there are defensive questions to what they provide, obviously, it’s just a matter of getting fresh legs. Do you think that plays a part into the guard rotation, not including Yonas Valentunes right now? Well, there’s no question that Denver needed bodies. And if you think back to each of the last two years, two years ago, Denver was in a battle for the one seed with Minnesota and Oklahoma City. And they had to sprint to the finish line. They ended up tripping up and losing to the Spurs with two games left to go. And that sprinting ended up all being thrown out the window because of that loss. Changed that entire postseason. It changed the whole thing cuz the routes were different. And then Denver ran out of gas against Minnesota when they went to that seven game series. Clearly ran out of gas. I think they ran out of gas this year as well. You know, having to sprint, you change coaches, all of a sudden sevename series, first round, second round. So I think just having the ability to not wear yourself out is a big piece of this. But the biggest piece, and it might be as big as the Cam Johnson piece when we talk about everything, is that Michael Malone, in my opinion, was largely responsible for Denver sprinting to the finish line. In both of those years, he did not trust guys seven through 15 on the roster. Did not play them. And you could argue he made the right choice. Maybe those guys weren’t ready. But I think David Adelman now is going in with a deeper roster, but also a commitment to we might lose games in October, November, December, but we have to stretch it out so that these guys are not playing. Jokic played 37 minutes a game last year. It cannot happen again. Right. Yeah. Well, let’s talk about Yonas Valentunis because that’s the big question mark hanging over everything right now. um as we’re recording, we don’t know if he’s going to be a Denver Nugget. Um he’s got this this offer in Europe. Um you know, I think he’s going to wind up playing. Uh it doesn’t seem like the Nuggets are going to allow him to to leave his contract and according to the FIA bylaws, essentially they would have to allow him to leave that contract. Do you think they’re still going to I mean, is this trade going to happen? Like how what’s your gut say? I mean, that’s a good question, and I really don’t know the answer to it. Um, you know, we’ll have to see how it plays out. This is a very un uncharted territory, but you said the point. I think Denver does ultimately hold the final trump card. They can enforce this and say you have to you have to stay here. I imagine Denver is falling back on that, but probably also looking at, okay, if he doesn’t want to be here, is there a path an easier resistance that we can go to find an Al Horford or some other player to come in? But if they do force him to play, it’s an awkward situation. But it’s also an exciting one for Denver because to your point, they have not had a player of his caliber backing up Joic. Joic, we saw 40, 50 times last year, would go to the bench in the third quarter for 2 minutes before he had to get back up cuz that bench just hemorrhaged points and all of a sudden he’s at 37, 38, 39 minutes for the night. Valenunis represents at least the idea that even if your second unit is hemorrhaging points, it’s like, yeah, but it’s good process. That’s a guy we believe in and we can at least stick with it and let’s keep Yic’s minutes uh more sustained. And then on top of that, Big Val’s good. You look at the West, it’s getting big. He’s a great rebounder. Steven Adams, Glen Capella, uh John Collins, and Brook Lopez. There’s a lot of backup centers now who can rebound. And I think Denver just needs a big true center to just whether it’s Valenudas or somebody else. They need it as a a weapon in their arsenal. He can score too, right? Like he gets touches in some of the similar spots as Jokic, right? But he he’s a finisher. And I think that that’s something that’s lost, right? Like he can maybe keep some of these units slow in ways that DeAndre Jordan just couldn’t. I mean, beyond just rebounding, he can actually put the ball in the basket, too. There’s no question. And and that’s part of what’s exciting. I mean, look, Denver has not done a good job. May maybe it’s the Michael Malone era. Maybe we call it the Jokic era. I don’t know what it is, but Denver has not done a good job in their bench minutes. Hopefully, this gives them a couple not just release valves like, okay, now it’s more deep, it’s more complete, but also guys you can play through. If you recall in the championship year, their second unit would throw the ball into Jeff Green often for a Jeff Green isolation. Not because he was phenomenal at it, but because at least it was an option. Valenunis represents a better example of that. I don’t think he’ll be option number one in the second unit. But he is a nice release valve of okay, we ran some early offense, nothing happened. Big Val’s inside. Let’s play through him. And that alone gives them an identity. There’s also like you don’t necessarily need him in the playoffs as an inning eater. You need him in the regular season to take that load off, right? like he’s probably going to end up being a guy who’s maybe 10 minutes a night, maybe less in the playoffs, but during the regular season, you could rely on him for a 20-minute night. You can rely on him for a 25minute night. Give Jokic, you know, I guess a 30 minute game. Played in the finals. Sorry, Jonas Valent. He can probably give him minutes. It’s going to be up to the coach to figure out how to use him. I that’s that’s the number one thing cuz the guy is I mean he can score enough to be on the court that 100% and the innings of this is important though too just ask real quick to follow up because I do think there is something to he is a guy that shows up on the on the scouting report and it’s not like you he’s oh the most complicated guy but at least it’s oh they have a big guy we have to play so if Joic has a night off which hopefully Denver can afford that this upcoming year at least the other team has to think well okay but they still have big vows so we have to go big we have to box out. We have to do these things and that’s just different from a DeAndre Jordan or a Zeke Naji. Well, yeah, you won’t be at a disadvantage. You’ll be starting a real like starting caliber center on nights that Yokic has to miss. Huge upgrade. Uh have to talk to you about the Bruce Brown reunion cuz I know that’s something a lot of Nuggets fans are excited about. Uh, I know he had like a really strange couple of years in between between injuries in Indiana and Toronto hat and the hats and the cowboy hats. He’s back though. He’s back in his hometown. You know, he’s he’s vibing with the hats in Denver. Um, how do you feel about the Bruce Brown acquisition? And I guess to tag on to that, Tim Hardaway Jr. as well. Well, I’ll start with Tim Hardaway Jr. because as I’ve been thinking about who’s the big winner of this trade in terms of or all these moves, Tim Hardaway Jr. might be number one. And I think it’s because this is a great situation for him. He can shoot the ball. He can run dribble handoff game and pick and roll game cuz he can handle a little bit. I think he’ll look really good when he gets to play with Nikolic which is I think going to be quite a bit. So he’s a big winner and I’m excited for him defensively. There’s nobody chasing him. It’s not like Denver has a better defensive option which I think could limit him. So I think he’s going to have a great year. The Bruce part is more interesting though to me because part of me thinks two things. you get injured. So, his year, his last two years have been a little up and down, but that’s injuries in part. But number two, when you’re the caliber of player he is, which is probably south of a 20 million a year player, which was what he got, you’re given that contract to be traded. He was used to acquire Pascal Seakum. He was used to acquire Brandon Ingram. So, in a weird way, he actually didn’t have a downyear. He fulfilled what it was he was trained to do and what he was traded to do. And I don’t know that he was ever going to get traction when he was just sort of this rolling stone over the last two years. But that might not be the case. We’ll see if he comes back to Denver. I expect him to be phenomenal back in Denver like he was two years ago when he was championship team when he was healthy post knee surgery uh in Toronto and in New Orleans. He actually was really good. Like same bounce kind of great job as a coach that much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean hopefully he’s well rested. Uh guys stick around after the break. We’re going to get Adam to tell us how the Nuggets compare to the rest of the West looking ahead to next season. The Nuggets pushed the eventual champion Thunder to seven games. I actually I felt like the Nuggets were the second best team in the West. Um and and a lot of that is because they have Nicole Joic. He’s the best player in the world and he’s the ultimate rising tide with with these moves. I mean, it’s going to be hard to say that they replaced the Thunder because of course they didn’t. Uh, but do you put them now in the same tier as the Thunder? I mean, the the Thunder were just head and shoulders above everyone else. But do you have the Nuggets on the same tier now? I do. And a lot of this hinges on whether or not they can keep Valenunis or replace him with another center because I do think that Joic is so relied upon that if you rely upon him in the same way, that lessens your odds quite a bit. If we assume Valenunis is there, I do put him in the same tier as Oklahoma City and it’s Oklahoma City will be a very interesting case study next year because while I think they’re an incredible team, obviously the champs won 68 games, it feels like will they all get older, therefore they will all get better. And I am curious if stylistically they are what they are if they add other wrinkles to it. So it’s possible they surpass my own expectation, but I expect them to be more or less the team they were this year. Maybe a little more confident. Whereas Denver, to your point, did take them to seven games. Joic is a problem for them. Caused a lot of problems and the weaknesses that they had, namely lack of depth last off of the bench, lack of shooting. They resolved both of those issues. So, I look at it and I say absolutely. I think Denver, if they keep Valenunis, I will have them in tier one of my NBA contenders. I like that. I like that take. Um, and we we talked about it on our live show about where Nuggets and Rockets kind of compare to what the Thunder are doing. Uh, a lot of that is on how the depth pans out for Denver and if those guys can actually be rotation players for you in the regular season. I think generally when you look at what Denver has done, especially against OKC in that matchup, it’s they found a blueprint, a recipe to make things annoying for a team that won 68 games. Uh that might be something that other teams try to replicate, but it’s also like they’re a good matchup for Denver, just like how Minnesota feels pretty comfortable facing off against the Nuggets in certain matchups. I don’t know if that necessarily still applies with Julius Randall, but generally they they feel pretty comfortable. They’re like, “Yeah, we like our chances.” Do you think there is now a blueprint to how Denver can match up with OKC if they end up facing in the playoffs next season? Well, I think it’s going to will look if every both teams are healthy, I think it would look a lot like this series did, which is that it would be ugly. It would slow down. Uh, you know, Oklahoma City did have one game where they really opened it up and put up I think 149 points, but the rest of the games, you know, it was a bit of a struggle. And I think one of the reasons that it’s a struggle for Oklahoma City is they thrive on pressuring the ball and they thrive on turnovers turning into fast breaks. When you play through Joic, he had turnovers often trying to force it to non-shooters and everybody collapsing, but it’s not like he’s turning the ball over because of pressure or this or that. Denver has the ability to kind of negate their biggest weapon, which is that we’re going to speed him up by getting into him. You throw it into Joic and all of a sudden that’s tough. That will remain. What will change is there’s extra shooters. You remember Michael Porter could not make a shot last year in the in that series and Jamal Murray was the only other shooter. They didn’t have anyone else. This year they’ll have Tim Hardway Jr., Cam Johnson, Bruce Brown. Uh they’ll have some options there. Julian Strawther perhaps. And I I I just think it’ll make for a really fun matchup. I don’t think Denver’s better than Oklahoma City, but I do think that they’ll be right there with them. Well, I mean, we also saw that the Thunder have a little bit of sustainability issue offensively, right? Like something like 20% of their points come off turnovers. So when you’re when you have a a guy like Joic, I mean, you look at what the Pacers just were able to do, pushing them to seven games, just limit that that transition scoring from them and and they get into some some tough spots. What about the Rockets? Do they worry you at all? I mean, they they’ve got so many guys that they could throw at Joic in a theoretical matchup. Kevin Durant obviously is a shot maker who I really wish he would have tried to force his way to Denver somehow. I don’t know how they would have made the money work, but it would have been it would have been a lot of fun. But do they do they worry you in the West? For sure. I think they’re the other team that I have in tier one. And by the way, that’s in either conference. No disrespect to the Eastern Conference, but I think those are the three best teams. No, that’s valid. Um, so I do think that Houston is a concern. I think Denver matches up maybe a little bit better with them. Amen. Thompson to me is the big swing factor there. I’m as high on him as I think anybody on earth. I just think that guy’s incredible. And when we talk about teams that have struggled or had made Denver struggle, Minnesota’s defense, all this, we talk about, oh, their front court, they have guys that can bother him. Joic, I think he’s the only player to put up 35 points against Oklahoma City’s defense last year. He did it three times, twice in the playoffs. I think he solves those those equations. You talk about Minnesota, one of his best games ever, game five last year in that playoffs, but he’s had success against it. The real slowdown for Denver is what you do to Jamal Murray. Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels to kill Alexander Walker really gave him problems. Lou Dort, Kase Wallace, and everybody else that they can throw at you. So that doesn’t change. And then when you go to Houston, Amen Thompson represents, can he shut down Jamal Murray in a series? If you if the answer to that is yes, then yes, they’re going to make things very difficult for Denver. If the answer is that’s only one guy and he’d have to be out of position, then I think Denver would handle him. So expectations are to be a championship contender next season. Anytime you have Nicolola Joic, you have championship level, you know, kind of expectations. What has to go right for this team to be in that position April, May, June? Well, first of all, I I’ll just say this because I know, you know, every time you have a guest on, they’re always a little bit higher on the team they cover than everybody else. I I want to get in front of this. Last year, we were talking about the Raptors, in which case Ed would absolutely, you know, just way worse on them. Yeah. Last year, I thought it was going to be very tumultuous for Denver. I picked 51 wins and I said it’s possible they’re going to be a five, six or seven seed. They ended up a four seed by courtesy of tiebreakers and they won 50 games. So this is not something where every year I’m just so Denver’s better this or that. I was low on them last year. I think they’re very talented this year. What has to go well Jamal Murray has never come into the season ready to go. He always starts slow and what that cost you is a couple a couple things. Number one, Joic has to carry the team even more minutes more earlier in the year and all throughout the year. And then number two, some of the bench issues in my opinion come down to Jamal Murray. Your second player should carry your bench. And when you have young guys like Pton Watts and Julian Strawther, their lives are made easier when you have a guy that is carrying the load for him. So Jamal Murray has to come in and have a career season, no questions asked. And then number two, it’s Peyton Watson. Denver, as much as I like their depth, defensively, they’re not that deep. Bruce Brown can guard perimeter. Christian Brown, Aaron Gordon, Deron Holmes or Zeke Naji, maybe question marks, maybe they add. Peyton Watson to me is the only guy who guards the players in the gap between who Christian Brown guards and Aaron Gordon guards. Those players are guys like Kevin Durant, Shay Gildis Alexander, your scoring guards in the West. And if he is not up to snuff, like he wasn’t this year, I don’t think, ready to be that guy, he has to take a leap this season for Denver to win it. And if he doesn’t, I just think they’ll be one defender shy. You know, the other thing that Jamal Murray coming in out of shape does for this team, it honestly, it punts a little bit of this continuity and chemistry that you’re coming into the year, you’re getting rid of an advantage because you are a worse player and they could be banking wins before Christmas. We know how important it is the first, you know, two months of the season. And so this was a a 50- win team last year that didn’t didn’t really have its footing under them and look like a normal basketball team because Jamal Murray didn’t look like he was in shape until much later and then he got hurt, you know, again before the playoffs. This is the other thing with him. It’s it’s the physical conditioning that leads into the health that leads into the physical conditioning. And so, you know, the hope is that this is the year, right? Like, is it going to be the year? I I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I’m done expecting it. You know, this is like I was looking at the Clippers roster and I I like the moves they made and I’m like at some point I have to stop pretending they’re going to win it. So the Clippers, that’s how I feel. And with Jamal Murray being in shape, at some point I have to stop saying, is this the year? When he does it, it’ll be great if he does it. But to me, it’s absolutely one of the prerequisites for Denver is he has to be healthy all year. And for him to be healthy, he needs to probably be in the best shape of his life. Is there anybody else in the West that you kind of look at? Like I mean, you mentioned the Clippers. I just mentioned the Clippers. And again, it’s funny cuz it’s the Clippers. like they keep they do this to us every year, but I do like the moves they made in their front court. I think it’s very interesting. Golden State, I feel like something’s there’s a shoe waiting to drop there. But I am one of the people that bought Golden State as a true contender when healthy. They just happen to not be healthy. I’ll tell you another one, and this is my last take, I guess, about all these teams in the West. I think it is harder than ever to make it through 82 games and four rounds of the playoffs. And so when we talk about do they have a chance to do it? I think the health question we just kind of it’s like an act of God. There’s something too. This is another thing about Houston. Can Kevin Durant make it through four rounds of the playoffs? They’re excruciating. Every team lost some half the team’s lost guys in catastrophic fashion. Not just a torn ankle big injuries. And so I think that’s part of it. So when I look at Golden State, I look at the Clippers and even a little bit Houston. It is one of the questions I have. If they could beat anyone, but can they beat everyone? That’ll be tough. Yeah. Well, uh, thanks Adam for hanging out, guys. Go and check him out. He does the AllNBA podcast with Tim Leggler. It’s a great show that covers the entire NBA and obviously covers the Nuggets at DNVR. I’m going to see you in Vegas here in a couple days. Uh, for Adam Mahrez and Esparhenny, I’m Dave Dufour and this has been the NBA Daily. Thanks for waking up with us.

The Denver Nuggets have had a splashy start to their summer. Dave DuFour, and Es Baraheni are joined by Adam Mares from DNVR to discuss the Nuggets additions and where they stack up in the West.

Host: David DuFour
With: Es Baraheni & Adam Mares
Executive Producer: Andrew Schlecht
Audio Producer: Grayson Moody

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/nba/

Timecodes:
00:00 – Intro
00:24 – Most eventful offseason for Jokic’s Nuggets so far
01:42 – Cam Johnson’s fit with this team
03:14 – Upgrade on defense?
04:49 – Options to rotate more
06:32 – Jonas Valančiūnas
10:43 – Bruce Brown + Tim Hardaway Jr
12:46 – What tier do we put the Nuggets in now?
15:00 – Do the Nuggets have a blueprint for matching up with OKC?
16:37 – Do the Rockets worry Denver?
18:06 – What has to happen for Denver to contend?
18:53 – Jamal Murray has to step up
19:25 – Peyton Watson to take a leap
19:58 – Physical conditioning
21:08 – Can anyone else in the West be a problem?

Thumbnail – Stacy Revere + Matthew Stockman via Getty Images Sport

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