DaRon Holmes RETURNS for Denver Nuggets in Summer League

DaRon Holmes RETURNS for Denver Nuggets in Summer League

All right, everybody. Welcome into Pickax and Roll brought to you by good friends here at Mile High Sports. I am your host Ryan Blackburn at NBA Blackburn on Twitter, part of the Mile High Sports Podcast Network, and I am here reacting to the first Denver Nuggets summer league game as Don Holmes makes his return from injury. Other guys step up and provide some interesting things. I I thought it was a a pretty fascinating game. The the first half I I wasn’t really impressed with the way that Denver played, but second half they started really getting going. There was a lot of fight on the offensive glass. There were some good things that the team did. We will talk about it all or at least various notes that I have and various things I want to get through. Um but the first and most important thing uh was just a Denver losses on a buzzer beater. Uh Jamar Booty uh Jamari Buouay Buouay, excuse me. That was great way to start off the show. Um he was okay throughout the the vast majority of this game on the other side for for Milwaukee, but he hits a clutch step back three. Um he’s 26 years old. This is his fourth year in the NBA. He is still trying to break in. So not surprised that he had a good game. It it shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody that uh some of the the veteran Milwaukee Bucks guards were able to do their thing. Um, but Denver fighting back from that and I think from a deficit on the perimeter was impressive. It was good to see uh what happened with them. Uh, my guy Jeff Morton, who I was talking with before, says, “Many of you don’t know that Ryan also serves to talk to yours truly off the ledge of insanity.” I was talking to Jeff about the quote that uh that David Adam was putting out there about Yonas Valenudis being a being a point center. It’s going to be okay. We’ll talk about it later. Um, but like it’s it’s always interesting. You don’t want to make sweeping conclusions from summer league from either uh what somebody does, what somebody like how somebody plays or what anybody says. Uh that is how summer league generally goes. And if you overreact uh then you get situations like last year with Jaylen Picket who really like it was bad with Jaylen Picket. I tried to talk about that in my article uh for the setup for summer league yesterday and I I remember everybody and including myself being like, “Holy cow, this guy is really struggling.” And then it turns out he is actually like pretty good in the regular season. It’s just that he kind of carried that stigma over from summer league for a long time and a lot of people didn’t really know how to deal with it. Uh it it was tough for me to kind of figure out, okay, is is this guy ever gonna really be a player and then he got a chance and he played and I was fine. Um also it goes the other direction where guys look really good and then they suck in the NBA. So like it’s not like this is not a an unknown thing here. This is a everybody understands the deal or should understand the deal. Summer League is not the beall endall, but it should be fun. And so I’m going to kind of talk about it from a fun perspective mostly. Um Denver started this game yesterday with a lineup of Reese Beakman who is one of the point guard inclusions from uh into the lineup. Denver I think has a major deficiency at point guard kind of playmaking downhill guys who can go off the dribble because their main roster guys Hunter Tyson, Spencer Jones, Don Holmes uh even Tamar Bates not like awesome off the dribble players uh at least from from what I have seen. So you need somebody else who can kind of set the table and Reese Beman did that a little bit. Buouie came off the bench and did that a little bit. Uh EJ Liddell actually did some good things. I was pretty impressed with the way that he moved and the way that he was playing. Uh but Denver started Beakman, they started Hunter Tyson and Spencer Jones on the wing. Don Holmes played the four and Tyrell Harrison who’s about 71 played the five and kind of went the way that you would expect against a a Milwaukee Bucks group that you’ve got some other guys that have been in the NBA before. uh Buouay, Andre Jackson, Chris Livingston, Tyler Smith, Pete Nance. I think all of them have played NBA minutes before. Um but like they’ve also been at the end of the bench for the most part and not really a surprise that they didn’t do much. Although to me it is kind of a surprise. Andre Jackson, somebody that they had a lot of uh hype in, took two shots, two threes, made both of them. Uh very weird situation for the Bucks over there as they try to figure out how to build around Giannis. Um but Denver, they start out and Hunter Tyson makes his first couple shots. Tyrell Harrison plays reasonably well uh later in the game. He struggled at the beginning, but um hard for guys like Don Holmes and Spencer Jones who are more off players. You want guys who can create for them. hard for them to get involved because like Rhys Beman’s an okay point guard. Hunter Tyson, he’s not really a playmaker for other people. He was like getting buckets for himself. He was posting up. He was moving off of off of the dribble and and off of screens, things like that. But there wasn’t any major mechanisms to get Don Holmes and Spencer Jones involved. Um, and then Don Holmes had a wing three that he attempted and went in. It looked really good and that kind of took some of the pressure off, but it was it wasn’t really until the third quarter where he started to get involved. They actually drew up a DHO. I I believe that this was a a drawn up play where Don Holmes effectively faked a DHO and drove the lane from the left wing and finished through a crowd and it looked very athletic. It looked very good and then it kind of got the got the juices flowing a little bit. He he got a little bit more comfortable in that situation. The first half was effectively all right, we’re going to see how you handle things. Uh, but then again, we’re we’re gonna let you cook at at various points. So, it was very nice to see Don Holmes not only making shots, but going off the dribble and being creative and learning how to use his body and and how to use uh what he’s been given in order to be effective at the NBA level. And so, I’m very excited first and foremost to see Deron Holmes get through the basketball game. That was the the most important thing. But the second most important thing, he wasn’t moving perfectly. I I thought actually he looked a little rickety at times. Maybe that’s the wrong word for it, but looked a little um uncomfortable at times, but that’s to be expected, right? That’s that’s not something that you are immediately looking forward um like you’re you’re not going to get comfort immediately. It’s going to be a long road back and it’s probably going to be 18 months, not just 12 months, 18 months before he fully feels comfortable and within himself. So, this is going to be progress and and we got another step of progress today and was very impressed. Some of the plays that he was making were very impressive. 15 points, four rebounds, did have a really nice block. uh basically kind of allowed somebody to drive next to him, turn the corner a little bit, and then he smacked the ball off the glass with a very very large amount of athleticism there. Uh not only the recovery speed, but also the wingspan and the the frame to kind of get that ball and and it was pretty pretty easy for him. Uh I can only imagine what it’s going to look like when he actually like is moving at his best. So, I I’m looking forward to it. He he showed great touch from three. That was the most important thing that we saw. Uh but also, he like looks like he can go off the dribble a little bit. It’s not going to be perfect. He’s going to like there are going to be a lot of times where he tries to drive and then drives into a crowd, loses the ball and then like or he he goes up and stays under the rim because of certain jumping angles and then gets blocked and things like that. But I’m not really worried about that. just to see him play 24 minutes to see him play well. Uh that was the most important thing and and just a very exciting thing for the Nuggets who like they haven’t had a lot of like like they they’ve had young talent, but Don Holmes was really supposed to be one of the higher ceiling players that they’ve added in a while. A and I I continue to think that he’s a player that they can trust to like try to develop into the starting power forward when Aaron Gordon is ultimately ready to kind of transition into a bench roll. I’m not sure how long that’s going to be, but like Don Holmes has that level of physicality and clearly he has at least a level of three-point touch that is very useful for the position. So, uh, you can you can already see the vision with him playing off of Joic, him playing in the dunker spot, him playing on the wing in the corner, uh, and kind of spacing up that way, but then also maybe screening and rolling at various points. That’s, uh, that’s a very important thing as well. So, I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be good to see. Um, Kyle asks, “Did Da say confirm that JV is staying?” Ryan, I’ll get to it. He He talked about it. I will get to it. Um, as for other players on the roster, uh, because Don Holmes was just one guy that played, Hunter Tyson’s the only other roster player. Then you’ve got Spencer Jones and Tamar Bates, who are 2A guys. I’ll talk about those guys in the next segment. Hunter Tyson looked okay to me. There are people that were not pretty like they were not impressed with the way that he showed like what he actually showed yesterday. I’m I’m not sure I would go that far. I think that he’s in a tough position and the Nuggets are in a tough position because again they do not have a lot of onthe- ball creators. Reese Speakman is okay. He had six assists in 20 minutes, but really it was like he looked a lot more like Jaylen Picket than he did um Russell Westbrook or Chris Paul or anybody like that. So, you’re not always going to put the ball in Reese Beakman’s hands to set the table for some of these other guys. So Tyson had the responsibility as the returning guy of taking a lot of these shots of trying to create some offense for the team when none was really able to be created. He did grab 11 rebounds that was impressive. Couple steals. Um but I do think that there are clearly still weaknesses in his game. The athleticism to me is always going to be a difficult factor for him because it just feels like he has to try so hard to keep up in a lot of these situations. And then the moment he tries to relax, the moment he tries to like play at kind of a normal pace, somebody blows by him, he can’t keep up at certain points. That’s that’s definitely going to be an issue that plagues him for his entire NBA career. how long it is. Um, the other thing is that just not super efficient. A lot of guys are not super efficient at this level though. But guys like Chris Livingston went seven of 12. Um, Cormarmac Ryan came off the bench and went six of 11 and three of six from three. Uh, Tyson made his first three-point shot and then missed the next five. And so you would like for him to be a little bit more efficient than he was. he’ll get more opportunities to make some more baskets, but the hope is that the Nuggets can create some better shots and better looks for him. But I do think that one of the reasons why he wasn’t awesome was because the shots that he’s generating, the shots that the Nuggets are creating are just not awesome looks in general. And so the hope would be that Denver can get back to some better looks and maybe Hunter Tyson can benefit from that moving forward. But in terms of those debuts, um I would say that Don Holmes gets probably like a an A minus or so. There are certain things that I would have liked for him to do, would have liked for him to to show, but I mean, it’s his first game back from a torn Achilles. Like, I’m not nobody’s going to nobody’s going to really break the bank on that one. Hunter Tyson gets like a C minus. I think that that’s probably fair. There are some things that like again, it wasn’t a horrible like game by any stretch of the word. Still had 11 rebounds in 28 minutes and was hustling out there and was making plays. So, I don’t want to belittle that in any way, shape, or form, nor should other people. Uh, but I do think that he’s carrying too much responsibility on the offensive end, and Denver needs to find some other ways to get other guys involved without um like stretching Beakman and Tyson too far as playmakers. So, we’ll see what happens. But tell you what, let’s take a break. When we come back, we’re going to talk about the rest of the summer league roster, some other guys that stood out to me, and then I’m going to go over David Adelman spoke briefly and shared some thoughts. I’ll talk about what he said and some of the things he was really getting to on the other side here at Pickax and Roll. All right, we are back. Pickax and roll. Ryan Blackburn here. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Hit the like button, hit the subscribe button. Would really, really appreciate it. Uh, summer league is always fun because people want to they want to have these massive takeaways, but it’s not really reasonable to anybody to have massive takeaways. Like Cooper Flag yesterday went five of 21. Does anybody really think that he shouldn’t have been the number one overall pick in the draft? No, not really. Like, but five of 21 is also really bad. And so, like, it can happen to anybody. And the fact that like Denver’s not having perfect opportunities here for for other guys, not not that worried. Um, they do have like Denver does have an older roster. I was looking at this a little bit. They do not have anybody who’s younger than 22, which I think is crazy. Um, now it’s it’s actually, I guess, not that much of a surprise because they didn’t have a draft pick. And most of the guys that are kind of in that 18, 19, 20 range that are heading into the draft are getting drafted. Like they they would not be coming out and leaving college unless they had a promise. And so Denver, like a a lot of older veterans, a lot of guys that probably not expecting too much at the NBA level anymore. There’s not a lot of growth potential. I would say the Nuggets, again, they’re kind of doing a very similar thing that Calvin Booth did was they’re looking for singles. They are not looking for home runs. They are looking for guys that can help them in minor ways across the roster. And the hope is that you hit a little bit better than you did before. Um, but we’ll see. Like kind of getting into some of those players. Spencer Jones, I thought Spencer Jones looked great defensively. That’s one thing that I do think stood out with him, but the problem is that he had one point on three shots, 0 of two from three, including a a big airball in the fourth quarter. Doesn’t really get involved that much. And I can understand why. Um, again, it’s really hard for those guys to get involved sometimes in mechanisms that make a lot of sense, but like where’s Embid says Spencer Jones couldn’t hit a wide open three? The funny thing is is like we watched him hit wide openen threes and even relatively contested threes in the Nuggets gym, in the Nuggets practice gym. So like because I I was there, I was I watched him. He made a pretty impressive shot. Um, he can do it. The problem is that when you only have such limited opportunities, like he could go two of four next game and it it’ll feel pretty good or he could go one of four and the percentage will still be really bad. Everybody will overindex on the percentages and that’s unfortunate. But like all we have data data wise from Spencer Jones is that his shot does not look very good and that he shot one of 17 at the three-point level uh at the NBA level last year. Now what I will say he shot like 39 37% at the G-League level uh from three last year. And it’s something that a lot of people don’t want to they don’t bring up, but he has shown in a larger sample size that he can shoot. Uh the question is whether that’s going to translate to the NBA. And I don’t blame John Wallace and Ben Tenzer and those guys for bringing him in and bringing him back cuz the dude looks shredded, man. He’s moving great out there. He is like one of the reasons why like Buouay was okay but like Spencer Jones is 6’8. He is a like he’s closer in size to ONobi than he is to Jamar Buouay or anybody like that. And I thought that like Spencer Jones defended pretty well. I thought that he guarded pretty well. The problem is is that can’t be your only skill. And he’s got to develop something offensively that he feels a lot more comfortable with. And if he doesn’t, then it’s just it’s never going to work out at the NBA level because you can’t have defensive specialists anymore that play like consistent roles. It just isn’t the thing. You have to have guys that are capable of hitting an outside shot, that are capable of hitting like getting to the rim and then or maybe making some passes. Um, Cody says Andre Robersonson uh made a whole career from playing defense. Yeah, it first of all it didn’t last that long in part because of the injuries, but second of all, that was 15 years ago and now we’re kind of in a new we’re kind of in a new era here where these guys are being asked to do so much more than they were before. and the players that you are counting on. Like I I think that if Spencer Jones turns out to be like an 80th percentile or better defender in the NBA, then yeah, Denver should probably take a chance on him and continue to try to work on the offensive stuff. I I really do think that like he should like it shouldn’t be this hard and and he should be able to find some opportunities. I do think that he’ll continue to work on it and hopefully he has a game here at summer league or multiple games where he’s just hitting shots and it looks a little bit better, but the initial debut is tough and uh we will see what happens. But I I think he looks great physically. That that’s the thing about Jones is that he looks great and he’s moving great from a defensive perspective. I thought that his uh his actual slides and his actual ability to close space on some of these guards, even while he’s way bigger than them, was really impressive. He’s slimmed down a lot. He’s moving really well. Um it’s just going to be about whether you can do the rest of the stuff. So, we’ll see whether he can u in the rest of that starting lineup. Ree Speakman, he was okay. He was about what I expected. Seven points on five shots. uh six assists, two turnovers, two steals. He did enough to kind of help Denver get into some sets and and really set the table for some players. Uh but most of the time the mechanism that he used was kind of setting the table for guys like Tyrell Harrison who was a big 71 behemoth in the middle of the floor for Denver. And I thought he used his size pretty well in this game. If you look at the plus minus, Tyrell Harrison plus 14 in 24 minutes. Denver actually like was very functional while he was out there. They didn’t have a lot of breakdowns at the rim. They like were able to feed him the ball on a consistent basis and it just made a lot of sense. Um I liked that. I thought that that was good. Denver closed the game with Don Holmes at the five uh more so than they had before. And so I do want to see Don Holmes at both the four and the five in this case. But Harrison I thought looked like I described him on social media last night like he’s just good at being big. It took him a little bit to kind of get comfortable, but in the fourth quarter, he was making a lot of plays both as an offensive rebounder and uh just as somebody who was catching the ball in the lane and and forcing fouls and forcing double teams and uh just just doing the things that you would want a big guy to do. And so that’s nice. That’s good. You you want somebody who can who can handle that. Uh that’s a good kind of analog for Denver trying to deal around Jokic and around Valenunis and saying, “Okay, you’re going to have this big monster in the paint or on the perimeter or whatever. How do you work around that? How do you do that? Like what do you what are you looking for with those guys?” Uh so hopefully Denver can continue to figure out how to work with Harrison reasonably well. Uh but we will see what it looks like. Um, Deon says Tyrell started bad that but then woke up and played well. I I agree. Like it it looked pretty bad and there was one play that he had at the beginning of the game where he had an opportunity to dunk the ball but instead tried to lay it up and it it rolled off the rim and I I was yelling in my like for summer league by the way just yelling in my uh living room being like, “Dunk it. You’re super hu like you’re massive. Come on. Like let’s go.” So hopefully that’s not a mistake that’s made again. But yeah, that that’s effectively most of the the roster guys uh in the starting line. Let’s let’s talk about Tamar Bates really quick. I thought he was he was subpar in this game. Did get three steals, but I thought the first steal was basically it was just a ball that was kind of thrown to him while he was stationary. It wasn’t anything that he did. Um, but like one of two from three. Again, that actually makes a lot of sense. Like his his profile in college was effectively really efficient. Like extremely efficient as a three-point shooter, as a free throw shooter, doesn’t take enough of those shots. Like whether it’s a free throw, whether it’s a three. And that’s exactly what happened in this one. eight points on nine shots, but he was one of two from three, one of one from the free throw line, two of seven from two. Um, did have three steals to two turnovers, did have he was a plus seven. I actually was not impressed with his defense. That that’s something that I will I’ll be watching and looking for a little bit more. Um, he got lost a lot and I was I was pretty surprised by that. Surpris like he is the youngest player on the roster at 22. Uh so we’ll we’ll see what happens with him and then whether he can uh kind of get things together a little bit. I I won’t be surprised by the way if Denver changes up their starting lineup after one or two games and says, “All right, tomorrow you’re going to be starting either at the one or the two.” Uh that just it wouldn’t shock me in any way, shape, or form. Um but Denver, they’re they’re obviously going to give Tamar Bates some some run here. They want to see what he can do. I want to see him get some threes up. That’s the thing that uh I’d be a little bit concerned about for his development is that if he’s not getting up enough threes, then he’s kind of floating a little bit. He’s more of a slasher at that point. And that’s just not how the NBA works right now. you you need to be especially for a team like Denver where their actual level of three-point spacing was not very good last year because they had so many guys that would want to slash, that would want to cut, that would want to get into the paint. Sometimes you just need to be a guy who takes the three. And so I’m hoping that he grows a little bit more willing to just let it fly. But again, Denver did not have a lot of mechanisms where they set guys up perfectly, and I’m not really expecting it either. This is summer league. It’s a very chaotic environment. Uh that’s probably not what this environment is for. It’s just about guys getting out there and getting some reps and running up and down the floor and um trying different stuff. Uh but that’s that’s neither here nor there. Um Bates was good. EJ Liddell I really liked. He he was credited with 12 points, seven offensive rebounds, four defensive rebounds for 11 rebounds total. Uh was a minus3 in this game. There were some mechanisms that were weren’t necessarily working well around him, but he was one of those guys that I thought was very reliable. And he looks like small uh but in a good way like he could fit at the the small forward position. One of the the concerns about Liddell when he was coming out of Ohio State was that kind of traditional power forward type, not necessarily uh knowing where he’s going to fit in the modern NBA. Like he’s a Paul Milsap type, but not necessarily like in the era that Paul Milsap would be successful. But now Liddell, especially two years removed from that ACL tear, he looks more like a traditional small forward to me than he does like a traditional power forward. So maybe that’s just uh it’s just me. It’s probably not something major for for any of this. But uh I do I do want to see more of Liddell. Uh he seems like a guy who like he his off the dribble game was very good. I was shocked by that if I’m being honest. I I forgot that he was such a good player off the dribble, but handled that really well. wouldn’t surprise me if he became the best kind of wing for Denver in the summer league time. And if he was the guy that got that third two-way spot, I’d be happy with it. Uh but we we’ll see what what continues to develop there, what continues to grow. And um some other guys will eventually get some opportunities, too. So, we will have plenty of opportunities to evaluate everybody, but I do think it’s going to be fine. Um, okay. Now, time to get to the David Adam quotes. Uh, there was one that was going around that was effectively actually, let me see if I can pull it up. I know that Vinnie Benadetto put out there uh, that quote. Um, Vinnie Benadetto via Vinnie Benadetto of the Denver Gazette. David Adaman says that he sees Valenunis as a point center who doesn’t need a true point guard in the same lineup. DA names Demarcus Cousins as Denver’s last backup center who had a similar skill set to Nicole Joic. Uh pretty funny that this tweet from Vinnie went viral. A lot of people have a lot of opinions on what David Ottoman said. What I will say, this is not reporting. Guys are just having fun, man. Guys are just having fun at summer league. I don’t know how serious that actually was in terms of Yeah, we’ll we’ll see what what it ultimately looks like. Want to see if he could play some point center. Um I when people think of point center, they think of holy cow, he’s going to run some pick and rolls. He’s going to go off the dribble. He’s going to do that. Like that’s not what David Adam was saying. Effectively, what he’s talking about is somebody brings the ball up the floor, somebody enters the ball into the post or into the high post or at the the elbow or something like that. And then the big man makes decisions with the basketball and whether it’s a DHO, whether it’s a back cut, whether it’s passing the ball out to the weak side for a three, stuff like that. Um, that’s all this was, man. That that’s that’s all this was. I’m I am not concerned about that quote. Effectively, like what he’s talking about is that Bruce Brown is not going to be your traditional point guard. Uh, Tim Hardaway Jr. not going to be your traditional point guard. Julian Straw, same thing. Denver doesn’t have the personnel. Um, and I don’t necessarily blame them for that either. There’s I don’t think they need the traditional point guard in order to be successful. It would be nice to have somebody else that can handle the responsibility, handle the basketball, but it’s not like the only thing. It’s not the beall endall for any NBA bench, especially when so much of Denver’s lineups are going to be about switchability, defense, and guarding. uh like in the playoffs, what what lineups are you actually throwing out there from a guard position standpoint? Well, when Joic is out there, if the starters are out there, then it’s Murray. If it’s not Murray, during the playoff run, Bruce Brown was the backup point guard for Denver, and he was not a traditional point guard, and it worked out fine. And then when Joic left the floor, Murray came back on. Murray would be your stagger. And I I kind of expect that to be the case going forward, especially without Michael Porter Jr., you’re gonna have a whole bunch of different guys out there, whether it’s Jamal Murray, whether it’s Bruce Brown, whether it’s Julian Strawther, Tim Hardaway Jr., Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, Don Holmes, Payton Watson. You’re going to have those kinds of guys around Yonas Valenunis. And the good thing about it is that they can all handle they can all handle the basketball. They’re not going to be perfect. Like, they’re not going to make perfect decisions. But one of the reasons why Denver is going with this internal development route, and one of the reasons why I don’t think they could bring back Russell Westbrook if they were going to do that, it’s Russell Westbrook needs the ball, man. Like, that’s his that’s his skill set. Like, he’s your traditional point guard. He’s somebody who like you want to put the ball in his hands because he can spray it out to everybody else and make their lives easier. But in order for those other guys to grow, especially like Julian Strather and Peyton Watson, they need to have the ball in their hands. That’s just how it works at the NBA level. So, uh, if they’re going to grow, you do not want another point guard out there that’s just going to take up all the touches, that’s going to take up all the possessions. And so, you could have Yonas initiate, you could have other guys initiate, whether it’s Bruce Brown, whether it’s Jamal Murray staggering. Like this is not the is not the quote that I think people should be getting mad at. It’s just not I’m I I I’m sorry. I refuse to I refuse to take the bait from people. Everybody is like looking for a reason to get mad. The stat that I also shared with Jeff who was panicky and and was going to talk about this and be like what what what are they doing? Um, among all 27 centers who played 1,500 minutes last year, Jonas Valenunis ranked seventh in assist rate. Seventh. Like, I don’t think he’s the seventh best passer at the center position in the NBA, but I think he’s in the top half. I think he’s capable of handling some stuff. And the thing is is that he does play a lot like Joic. He does play like from the same mechanisms with the DHO and with the the seals in the post and getting on the offensive glass and then setting picks and popping for jumpers, things like that. He does do a lot of those same things. So, is it crazy that Denver could operate in a similar way and that Yonas could see the floor in a similar way to Joic that guys like Zeke Naji and DeAndre Jordan couldn’t? those guys were never going to be able to handle that level of passing, that level of playmaking. Jonas can like it. He just can. It’s not It is not crazy to say that. And so I’m I am not going to get mad at David Adelman for like, oh my god, like they they said they don’t need a point guard. Holy cow, what are they gonna do? That that’s that’s not what this is. They’re they’re going to share playmaking responsibilities. And you know what? They’re probably going to be pretty good. So, the other thing is like what is the the point guard like the point center responsibility? Well, you enter the ball into the post with Yonas if especially if he’s got a mismatch. And then you see, okay, can you create offense whether it’s as a scorer or as a passer when they have to double team you? That’s all this is. It’s gonna be fine. He also was very excited, David Adaman was, about the Cam Johnson edition, the Tim Hardway edition, the Bruce Brown edition. He was talking about getting veterans in there that know what they’re doing and are very excited. This wasn’t a slight young guys. It’s just you, you know, you need vets. And coaches love to have veterans. They just do. they know because they they know they can trust those guys to uh work the offense the way that they need to. And he talked about Cam Johnson’s skill set a little bit in terms of his ability to be a a backside playmaker, somebody who can move off the ball and be creative and also just run the system. I think Denver’s system is going to get better with Cam Johnson in there than when Michael Porter was in there. Now, I did yesterday I talked about uh crediting Michael Porter and and the person and the player that he became for Denver. That stands true. But what I do think is that Denver is going to be able to be more diverse from an offensive perspective and run more interesting and creative and dynamic things because Cam Johnson can handle it in a way that Michael Porter really couldn’t. So, I I’m looking forward to the season. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Denver’s already got their foundation. Now, of course, they’re looking forward to Don Holmes maybe jumping into that equation. But again, even if he doesn’t, even if it’s just like a slow development process, Denver’s got a full roster that they can handle that they can handle some of those responsibilities. So, there’s not a lot of pressure. It’s just about getting out there, seeing what you can do. And I I’m excited for for this. Like again, Hunter Tyson’s probably the 14th guy on the roster right now. Uh Deron Holmes is probably 11th or 12th somewhere in that general range. So I’m not uh I’m I’m This is a low stakes thing for Denver. That’s the most important thing. We got a buzzer beater super chat from Mr. Exquisite Nugget with the 199. He says, “Are we going to be in a same or different tier than OKC?” I think they’re in the same tier now. I think they are in the same tier, especially from a playoff perspective. OKC didn’t really get better. Like you guys saw all of the extensions that they just did over the course of the last couple days, right? Like they are about the same. They’re about the same as they were. And I’m curious to see where their growth continues to come from. They’re still a young team, so they’re still like they’ll handle certain situations better. But in terms of the mechanisms that worked against Denver this last year, I’m not sure how much those are going to work still. Like does Denver have a great matchup guarding Shay Gildas Alexander or Jaylen Williams? No. Like I think that Aaron Gordon will get worse guarding Jaylen Williams. Christian Brown might get better. That that is something like that that will that will continue to help. But like Jamal Murray is going to get worse guarding those guys. Cam Johnson will be better than Michael Porter guarding those guys. Uh so Denver’s going to have to figure out the defense, but I think they will figure out the offense. I think they’ll figure some stuff out and I am very excited to see where it goes from here. Okay folks, that is going to do it for this episode of Pickax and Royal brought to our good friends here at Mile High Sports. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Uh, I had initially said that I was going to do three shows this week. I think that’s a lie. I think I’m probably not going to do a show until Monday or Tuesday. Uh, if something else pops up, if something else pops up over the weekend and and we have to talk about it, then I will. Uh, but for now, I I wouldn’t expect another episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. Hit that like button. Hit that subscribe button on the way out. I will talk to you guys very soon.

On the latest Pickaxe and Roll, Ryan Blackburn reacts to last night’s Summer League game featuring DaRon Holmes II and the Denver Nuggets. He shares thoughts on Holmes, Hunter Tyson, Tamar Bates, Spencer Jones, and more from Denver’s first game in Las Vegas.

Make sure to like, comment, and subscribe to stay up with all the latest Colorado sports content from Mile High Sports!
Subscribe to our page: https://www.youtube.com/c/MileHighSports
Follow us on social media: @MileHighSports
Check out our website: MileHighSports.com