FIRST TAKE | Nuggets are building a nice core around Nikola Jokic – Stephen A. sends warning to West

FIRST TAKE | Nuggets are building a nice core around Nikola Jokic – Stephen A. sends warning to West

center to the NBA and free agency day two. Nuggets have gotten a lot done. They traded Michael Porter for Cam Johnson, then sent Dario Sarge to the Kings for center Jonas Valenunis. And then they added guard Tim Hardaway Jr. on a one-year free agent deal. And finally, they brought back Bruce Brown. Denver’s bench getting deep. If you add Valenunis, it’s the latest move in what’s been a really busy at least start to the offseason for the Nugs. Denver also traded, as I mentioned, Michael Porter Jr. to Brooklyn in exchange for forward Cam Johnson, who by the way averaged career highs in points and assists last season. The champ is here, our three-time NBA champ, Udonis Hasslam, joining the show. UD, what do you think about all these moves that the Nuggets have done so far in free agency? I mean, I love it. I mean, this is a team who we’ve criticized in the last couple years for just being a little bit stale, kind of running it back. Obviously, this is a team where we understood they were going through some changes with their coaches. So, first and foremost, I love Adaman as a coach. I love his leadership. I love the fact that you bring in a guy like Valenunis because listen, the Joker averaged 40 minutes per game in the playoffs last year. He led you in rebound, he led you in scoring, he led you in assists, he led you in every single thing. This man needs a break. So like the hot boys say, somebody help him out. So I love the fact that Joker has some help. Cam Johnson I think is an upgrade and this is no knock on what they lost, but I love him as a basketball player. He can score the ball. He can defend on the other end. So I love that and he can make plays. Bruce Brown is a guy who averaged 11 points a game in the finals against us. I hated him then, but I love him now going to Denver right now and he’s also a Miami Hurricane guy. So, I am happy for Bruce Brown. There you go. Bruce Brown, a key member of their 2023 championship run. David, has Denver done enough to support the Joker? Absolutely. I think Denver right now, they last year, of course, took OKC to game seven and the reason they lost, they ran out of players. They ran out of depth. They could not even get really four guys on the court. Now they’ve added Cam Johnson, who I think is a better player than Michael Porter, especially with that contract. And they’ve added depth, which is something that they’ve missed. And the Tim Harderway Jr. aspect of this is so underrated. Duke shot 63% on open spot threes. How many more of those threes you think you’re going to get with Joic on the court? This team has gotten pretty much the stuff that they need. And Joic, of course, is the wild card. They are as tough a competitor of OKC as there is in the West. This is the stuff that I think that would make Jokic want to come back. Tim, I mean, Denver has added some okay veteran role players, and this the sad state of affairs with the Nuggets the past couple years is that some okay role players might be enough to lift them over the finish line. That’s how poor their bench has been, and that’s how inevitable Nicole Joic is. I mean, this is a team that lost in game seven in each of the last two Western Conference semi-finals after winning the title, blowing a 20-point lead to Minnesota two years ago and then losing obviously a blowout in game seven to the Thunder. But they were up in game four of that series in the fourth quarter. If they win that game, I think Denver goes on to win the title. I think if they win that game seven against Minnesota, they go on to win the title. Instead, they lose those two games. They’re sitting here having not made it out of the second round each of the past two years. And now they’ve gone out and gotten an okay backup center, a couple of okay wings. We’ll see if Bruce Brown could get back to how he was in Denver. Tim Hardway Jr. is an okay shooter, but there’s a reason he’s bounced around a bunch. And you know, Valenunis at this point is again an okay backup center. But this is a team that did not have any depth at all and now they have some. Now I do think the upgra the upgrade or the alleged upgrade from Cam Johnson over Michael Porter Jr. as part of that trade is also a little muted. I would say those guys are very similar players. And the reason that Denver made that trade and gave up the one asset they have going forward, their 2032 first round pick is because it saved the Kronis a gazillion dollars in tax payments as a repeater tax team. It gets them out of the luxury tax this season. But if you look at Denver now, they are marginally better than they were last year. And marginally better might be good enough because they have the best player on the planet and on their team. And him with a little bit of help could very well be enough to get the Nuggets their 2026 NBA title. Wendy, by going from Porter Jr. obviously to Cam Johnson, they save the 1617. They say in the tax, but they’re also able to add a few players. Is that enough for Denver? This has been such a polarizing reaction as I’ve talked to people in the league because really on one hand they have gotten some depth to this roster that they just were so badly and needed and they’ve given new coach David Adelman something that Michael Malone didn’t feel he had. Whether he did or not was the basis of the argument between him and the former general manager Calvin Booth. But options, you know, he’s now can look down his bench and he can go with more veteran players or the younger players they’re developing. But the reason this is polarizing um is that a lot of people think that that that that this is not going to really help them. When I say people, I’m talking about like rival executives. So like they say it’s if you want to ever have a dream of prying Nicola Joic out of Denver, you’ve got to be happy that they use their prime last, you know, big trade chip, which Bon Temps referenced the 2032 pick in a in a money in a money dump move. Like I had somebody say to me, “If you’re if you’re the Lakers, you’d love seeing that because that that means that you’re not helping Joic with like a bonafide star.” Um I got other people saying, “Oh man, Valenunis is the best backup that Jokic has ever had. It’s like it’s like, you know, since Yousef Nurkach was there, like it’s terrific for him.” I got other people telling me, and again, these are the pros, so this is their job. This is not my opinion, okay? Other people saying Don Shunis won’t even play in the playoffs so they can rest her during the season. Won’t even play in the playoffs. So, um, the idea that they’re a winner or a loser, like I’ve seen a lot of people say that the Nuggets like, whoa, huge winner in the or in the in the in the people who are in the league are not sure about that. You know, some of them think this is, you know, long-term not going to be great. What I say is I have a sensitivity towards their new front office, Ben Tenzer and John Wallace, who just got these job. Both of them are inexperienced in these roles and they clearly had a mandate. They had a mandate from Jokic who said we need more depth and they had a mandate from ownership which was we ain’t paying that that repeater tax and they were able to deal with those two mandates in an inexperienced position and potentially satisfy both giving Jokic some some depth which as Bontemps mentions even a little bit is a major difference with a with a talent like Jokic and they’ve got their bosses happy that they got him off a bunch of money. I mean, the other thing to mention, too, when you talk about Denver and you talk about the the using the pick to get off of money, they’ve traded several picks during the Nicole Joic era over the past eight or 10 years. One time did they use a pick to truly make an upgrade to the roster. That’s when they traded for Aaron Gordon, which turned out to be the move that won them a title. Virtually every other time they’ve moved a first round pick, it’s been to save money. And it is does really make you think, what if Denver had been able to use those picks to go out and get further upgrades to the roster? You could be talking about a situation where maybe they’ve won multiple championships over the stretch. Instead, they have not. They’ve come close several times. They’ve made second, third round of the playoffs on a few different occasions, but they haven’t ever been able to quite get over the line in part because they haven’t had a lot of depth. And the one time they did win in 2023, they did have enough depth. They did have a Bruce Brown playing at a very high level. They had Jeff Green playing at a high level. And now, you know, you look at him, we’ll see if they can get back to that point next year. I I think on the macro level, the big question here to simplify this is this team took OKC to game seven. They probably should have won that series in game four. Are they better than they were then? I think they are. And if Jokic has just a little bit better than they had when they were competing with OKC, he has as good a shot at anybody to carry a team to a championship. So Wendy, are they better though than Houston as the biggest threat? Because this guy I honestly, it’s amazing anybody can beat him four out of seven. And it’s obviously happened the last two years. I I watched the guy and you know his I I voted for Shay Gildas Alexander this year and I was very you know I don’t regret it but I felt bad about it because watching what Joic does is so amazing and watching what it takes to beat him in these playoff series is so amazing and really as David referenced there we are really a narrow narrow pathway from having the Nuggets having gone to the final three years in a row because I believe if they don’t blow game seven last year against Minnesota with all due respect to Luca I think they’re winning in that series and getting to the finals. And I don’t know what happened against Boston as Boston was 0 and2 against them in the regular season. And this year, the Thunder won the title, okay? They were far and away the better team and they were in deep trouble against against the Nuggets and had just one or two little things gone a different way in games four and five. I don’t know. So, I’m just I mean I it’s it’s not a commentary on Houston who I think has been on an organizational hot streak. It’s a it’s a it’s an ode to the to the big man. Well, Paul Fineb had a comparison for like what you saw there was a guy who got you to seven games when his team was falling apart around him. And no matter how good that team was, when Jokic has the ball in his hands, it is absolutely terrifying to think about what can happen to your team. Like he can break you down. He can find ways to score. He will put up 40, 15, and eight or whatever kind of monstrous number no matter what defense you put in front of them. I remember a couple of few years ago, uh, the Warriors were playing in the first round. There was no Jamal Murray. They were up 3-1 and I was like, I don’t know if Jokic might be able to do this thing because it’s like get this dude out of here as fast as you can because you just never know what he can do. I was having this conversation with people during the playoffs and to me Nicole Joic has replaced LeBron James as the inevitable force in the NBA where when you watch a game and Joic is playing, you just expect his team to win. You expect him to figure out some way to manipulate the game in a way where he is just going to get it done. He makes these floaters like this where he just flips them in from everywhere. He’s like batting in shots from 80 feet away from the basket. He just makes the incredible plays look routine all the time. And look, we’ve talked about the way the teams have to build around stars and what the Lakers need to do with LeBron, what the Bucks need to do with Giannis. The last two years, the Denver Nuggets were a game seven away from, I think, winning the championship both years. And it’s really just because of this guy and his ability to do things that just we’ve never seen anybody else do, let alone do in the league right now. So yeah, I I think he’s the most inevitable force in the league and the I know from being around the Thunder, they were very relieved to get through that series as Lou said and and actually survive and advance because they were not sure they were going to all the way to the end. All right, I’m not going to say I disagree with you. I completely agree with both of you on Yokic, right? Like I will say that, but this show is about arguing and and debating and everything else. I had to come up with another name and the obvious other name I can think of is Steph Curry. argument for me about that one. Steph Curry is still one of the baddest men in basketball, especially come playoff time because playoff games are usually close and late game situations are the ones that scare you the most when it comes to him because you talk about a guy that finds a way to create a shot or get a shot off and a team that certainly knows how to find him and somehow someway you’re like, “How the hell did Steph Curry get open for that?” There are shots he has made throughout his career that just make you say to yourself, “That’s incredible.” like the incredible moments he has had in the playoffs and what you said earlier that the Warriors, why did they why were why why didn’t they not get to the conference finals? Because he got hurt otherwise he was the difference between them going to at least the final four or not. That’s how good he is. That’s how scary he is. And that’s why to me he’s also right there with Jokic as a scary guy that you would not want to face in the playoffs. None of you are wrong but you’re not as right as another answer because when you look at it, Joic is the best player in the sport. I understand that. Steph Curry is the player in the sport that I’d want on my team to start a team over anyone else. SGA is the MVP and LeBron’s the second greatest player of all time. Over the last 15 years in the NBA, we’ve had two dynastic teams really. We’ve had the Heat big three and we’ve had the Warriors

FIRST TAKE | “Nuggets are building a nice core around Nikola Jokic” – Stephen A. Smith sends warning to West