Where Denver Nuggets RANK among NBA Contenders

Where Denver Nuggets RANK among NBA Contenders

All right, everybody. Welcome in to pickaxe and roll brought to you by our good friends here at Mile High Sports. I’m your host, Ryan Blackburn, NBA Blackburn on Twitter, part of the Mile High Sports podcast. NORC and I am here. I am ready to discuss the Denver Nuggets. We’re going to do a tier list later in this video for the the vast majority of this video. Very excited to kind of put the entire NBA into a tier list of who’s going to win the NBA championship this upcoming season. But before we get into that, we’ve got a couple of little points that I wanted to get into. First and foremost, uh this will be going up on Tuesday morning. There will be another show that goes up on Thursday morning. Uh again, as I mentioned in last week’s episodes, that’s going to be the more common schedule twice a week over the course of these next few weeks with uh Pickax and Roll. Uh also, I’ I’ve got a trip that I’m doing at the end of this week that I’m very excited to do and I’m am looking forward to kind of getting away for a little bit, get into a cabin in the middle, and just just like just get away for for a while. Very excited to do that. Um, also, uh, we’ve got some Nuggets news, got some interesting stuff that came out, including two things. The first and foremost is that Jonas Valunes committed to Denver verbata, like verbally for uh, the 202526 season this upcoming year. Said it in a statement to Basket News, to Donata Serbonus, who has been writing for Basket News. He’s one of the main guys over there. uh definitely covering a lot of important Euro League stories. He com he commented Jonas Valentunes commented to Basket News and said this verbatim quote I want to clear the air about my playing situation next season now that Denver has made their decision to keep me. The idea of playing for Panathanos closer to home was very exciting for me, but that will have to wait. I am fully committed to honoring my contract with the Nuggets this season and will give it my all to compete for a championship. First of all, great. That’s the most important thing that Nuggets fans could hear. Going to com like absolutely be committed for a season. We’ll see what happens beyond that for Denver for uh like they’ve got a team option on Valenunis’ contract in the upcoming season uh 2026 27. So, we’ll see what ultimately becomes of it. But huge victory for Denver that they get him. They traded Dario Sarich for Yonas Valenunis. And if that is not an upgrade, then I don’t know what upgrades are anymore. So hopefully Denver can get at least just some pretty consistent backup center play for the upcoming season. The other thing, uh, Curtis Jones, who was one of Denver’s stars at summer league, coming off the bench for them, doing a whole bunch of good things within their summer league team, he was signed to the third two-way spot. The other two guys, Spencer Jones, who was on the team last year, and Tamar Bates, who they got on draft night, Tamar Bates more of a kind of 3 and D guard, while Curtis Jones very much a scoring and spacing guard, somebody that you put the ball in his hands a little bit. Tamar Bates not as much that. Spencer Jones more of a defensive wing, defensive forward. So, Denver’s got a couple of different position guys that they can put out there. Not sure how much they’re going to be committed to playing Curtis Jones, but he earned the opportunity. It was very cool to see uh just the way that he performed. Uh Owen Phillips over at the F5 uh his substack that he does on NBA stats and uh really interesting data trends had Curtis Jones as one of the best performers in the entire summer league. So, credit to Denver for locking a guy up like that. And hopefully if he continues to develop, continues to show off his scoring skills, maybe he’s somebody that could develop into an NBA player. Who knows? But that would be very exciting to see for Denver if that was something they could get. And the hope is that Denver now, I think they’ve only got one open spot on their entire roster. They’ve got three two-ways filled. They’ve got 14 roster spots filled. The one that is not is the 15th roster spot. I reported on this one on this show. I’ve talked about this on Locked on Nuggets that I don’t expect Denver to fill that 15th roster spot. It’s not something that I think that they feel a lot of pressure to do uh based off of direct questions that I’ve asked to Ben Tenzer, John Wallace, guys like that. Uh, I would expect them to be patient. If something happens, if like they they ultimately get some interest from somebody in particular that they wouldn’t expect, then who knows? Maybe that’s something that they explore, but I don’t really think that that is in the cards. So, we’ll see what happens. We’ll see what it looks like going forward. But, I think you can be like you can let your guard down as a Nuggets fan in terms of expecting some major news for a while. I wouldn’t expect to hear anything until media day if I’m being honest. So, we’ll see what happens. Maybe that changes, but for now, I think Nuggets fans can relax. It’s going to It’s been a good off season. And next, we’re going to talk about why. Um, on this for the rest of this pod, we’re going to do a tier list. Uh, I have, as every good content creator has, uh, a tier maker tier list of all 30 NBA teams and am very excited to put the 30 teams into six tier uh, into six different categories. They’re all on the left side. For those that are listening on the audio side, it’s elite contender. You can win a title. you will make the playoffs, you’re playinbound, you’re lotto bound, or it’s going to be a really bad season. Um, all 30 teams are going to go into these tiers. We’re going to talk about each of them. I’m not going to spend a whole bunch of extensive time on each of these different conversations, but if you have any thoughts on where these teams should go, then let me know down in the comments below or when I post this on social tomorrow. So, without further ado, let’s get into it. We’re going to do the Eastern Conference first and then we’ll do the Western Conference after that for viewer retention because this is a Nuggets podcast, but we’ll go left to right on this particular tier um on this tier maker list. It’ll be good. First and foremost, the Milwaukee Bucks. Holy cow. Fall from grace for Milwaukee. They were long considered an elite contender year in year out with Giannis. Like always, like as long as you have a healthy roster, you’re going to be in a good place. It’s not that the East has gotten much better around them. It’s that Milwaukee’s just kind of gotten worse. And I do not think that they are a team that can win the title. I don’t think that they’re there. So, I think they will make the playoffs with like guys like Cole Anthony coming there, Gary Harris coming there. Uh, they’ve got a couple of other guards that they have added to the mix. Obviously, they got rid of Damen Lillard through Wave and Stretch. They signed Miles Turner with that cap space, but they’re still still relying on Kyle Koosma. It’s just not a very good team. So, with Giannis, you’re going to make the playoffs. that that I feel pretty good about, especially in the Eastern Conference. But ah, do I feel much better about it? Not really. Brooklyn, I think we’re going straight into it’s going to be real bad. I would be shocked if they were much better than this. They do not have that much extensive talent. Obviously, our guy Michael Porter Jr. is now over there and he deserves some credit. I’m curious to see what it looks like with him being the first option on a team. It’s the first time he’s going to be able to really uh spread those wings a little bit. So, we’ll see what it looks like, but I’m not really expecting much. I kind of think that uh with the amount of young decision makers and playmakers that they have on their roster, it’s going to be difficult for them to consistently uh make good plays, make good decisions. So, I would say it’s going to be a real bad season. Probably going to win about 20 games. The Knicks, a real question is, are they an elite contender or are they in the can win a title uh contending tier? They are like I think by most books the one of the favorites, if not the favorite in the Eastern Conference alongside the Cleveland Cavaliers. I think they I you know what I think they are in the elite contender tier. I think they are up there. They have enough from a talent perspective to justify being up there. They were in the Eastern Conference Finals this past season. They lost to the Indiana Pacers. There are reasons why. Uh I do think that they went a reasonable way to kind of improving upon that. Mike Brown should be a better coach for them than Tom Tibido was. And I just think that like Gershan Yabusle is now there as kind of a seventh man, eighth man, just giving a little bit more depth, but they’ve got one of the best starting fives in the entire NBA. And it’ll be interesting like like that’ll get them through to basically the Eastern Conference second round, no problem. The real question is, will they have learned enough about their team in order to become a better version this year? I think yes. I think that they will be okay. Toronto, this one is actually pretty easy. Like this one’s lottobound for me. They’re just a subpar team and they’re in that tier. I don’t think that they’re in the playin. I think that they are pretty clearly a lottobound team. They are one of those teams that definitely is going to benefit from being in the Eastern Conference. Like they were the I I don’t remember exactly where they finished in the standings this last year, but I know that they were ninth in the in the draft, I’m pretty sure. And so like they should have been worse. If they were in the Western Conference, they would have been worse. They would have been a team that was actively trying to tank and at times they were. So like will Brandon Ingram massively change their fortunes? not gonna say like that he that they will. I can’t imagine that they actually will. So, and we’ll see what happens with them, but Emanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, Yaka Purle, Scotty Barnes, Brandon Ingram, that’s your starting five. Like, each of those guys in a vacuum is good. Like, they’re they’re fine. Does it fit together? Does it make sense? Um, Ingram’s a pretty good decision maker when he wants to be. he just doesn’t want to be all the time. So curious to see whether they are like having RJ Barrett and Brandon Ingram on the same team is kind of wild. I I will say that. Um Chicago, man, they they’re the perfect play inbound team, aren’t they? Like they are not a good team. I don’t think that they are a bad team. While Nicole is there, they have stability at center. They’ve got some really good guards. They’re still adding some young talent at the forward spots. Noah Sanguay is somebody that somebody that they just added. Are we still on Patrick Williams Island? Probably not. Uh Mataz Bzelis will be good. He’ll be better than he was in his rookie season. The question is how much better and if that’s going to matter. I think they’re still just a playin team. That seems seems to be the common consensus around NBA circles. They’re just going to be in the middle. They’re going to be stuck in the middle and it’s not going to be fun. And I think their fans are kind of frustrated and sick of it. So like Chicago and Toronto are close in terms of just how good they actually are. I think I I actually kind of like Toronto’s players a little bit better in some ways, but Chicago’s just going to they’re going to be in the playin. They always will be. They’re going to be the nine seed or the 10 seed. It’s just a question of which all these are Western teams. Detroit. Can Detroit win a title? No. No. Detroit can’t win a title. They lost Tim Hardaway Jr. I mean, how could they? There’s there’s no way, right? No, there’s a there’s obviously a way. But I think that they are a perfect team that goes into the will make the playoffs tier. That’s a like for various reasons Milwaukee and Detroit are actually perfect to be next to each other, but one of those is just like you’ve got one of the best players in the world in Giannis and the other Kade is kind of in a similar situation where there’s a lot of pressure on him, but they’ve got a better supporting cast kind of marginally, not marginally, it’s actually pretty seriously better. Uh, and depending on what Jaden Ivy does and how they build around Cade continually, I think that there’s some desire there. Uh, they got Caris Levert in the offseason. I think that that was a pretty good addition. Lost Simone Fonteio among other people, but I I do think that they are like they’re a good team. If I’m actually going to put them ahead of Milwaukee, I think that that seems that seems like a pretty good order. Cleveland, they are in the elite contender tier. The question is whether they’ve learned enough of the lessons that they need to and if they’re going to stay healthy enough when the time comes. This last year they got hurt at the wrong time. You had DeAndre Hunter, Jared Allen, I think Evan Mobley and DeAndre uh I said DeAndre Hunter, Donovan Mitchell, certainly Darius Garland’s dealt with a lot of injuries. Like these teams can like those guys can be good. They’ve got a stacked rotation. It’s very clear that they have like I think I might take their rotation over Denver’s, but I just trust Denver in the playoffs more right now. And I think that there’s a reason for that. So, not sure exactly what that reason is, but if Evan Mobley continues to grow, he’ll be going into his fifth year. Could he become the best player on that team? That’s a pretty good pretty good conversation to be in if you’re pushing Donovan Mitchell to be the best player on that team. So, we’ll see what happens, but I think that they’ll be good. Boston. Boston’s an interesting one. I don’t think that there’s a lot of teams in the Eastern Conference that can win the title. Um, I think that they will just be like kind of like a lot of these. I think they’re gonna be here. Uh, just having Jaylen Brown, having Derek White, that should be good enough. Anthony Simons will score a lot of points for them. They’ve remade their team so much that like whoever is at center for them. I think is it is it Nemius Kada right now? Is he the the leading center for uh for Boston right now? That’s uh that is quite the quite the ordeal for sure. Um I’m not sure if that’s actually like a good sign at all. Uh let’s let’s look it up. Let’s see who’s on their roster on spot track. Um that’ll help me kind of make this determination. Okay, so they’ve got 16 players on their roster on spot track. They’ve got highest paid players are Jason Tatum who’s out, Jaylen Brown, Derek White, Anthony Simons, Sam Hower is their fifth highest paid player, George Niang, Payton Pritchard, Hugo Gonzalez, Baylor Shyman, Xavier Tilman, Luca Garza, who they signed. Luca Garza is not bad, but he’s not a starter. Josh Minina, Nimas Kada. Okay, that’s not a good team. Um, man, are they playing bound? Is that is that reasonable? Probably not reasonable, but like somebody’s going to have to be in the plan. We’ll leave them here for now. Um, Philly. Oh, and another really difficult one. Great. This is not easy at all. Um, let’s go. Let’s go play inbound for Philly right now. They seem to me like you got to kind of split the difference with them, right? I’ve described them as as such before. You they’re either going to win 55 games or 25 games. There’s no real in between, but we’re still going to split the difference. Like I don’t think you can expect them be to be fully healthy. Could you expect him to play 50 games? Could you expect him to play 60 games? What does your team look like in that case? You’ve got Tyrese Maxi. Paul George should hopefully be a little bit better than he was this past year or at least like fit in a little bit better than what he did. Uh Jared McCain if he doesn’t go out will be healthier. But they lost Yabelli. They added trended Watford instead. That’s okay. Like I’m going to stick here with play inbound. I’m cowardly here, but it’s not great. Um, Charlottes, is is it going to be real bad or are they going to be lottobound? It’s funny like every single year they should just be normal lottobound and then it ends up being really bad. So, I’m going to just say it’s going to be really bad and we’re going to default there for now. I actually think Washington going to be a little bit better than them and the Nets. Washington’s got enough talent. They did just agree to a buyout with Marcus Smart. So, I they could also do the same thing with Chris Middleton. And how many vets do they really have beyond that that are going to help their young guys be better? That’s a good question. I don’t know. Well, let’s just let’s keep Washington here for now. I actually do think that they can get out of that that purgatory that they’ve been in for a while. We’ll see whether that actually happens or not, but should be fine. Um, Orlando. We’re going to put Orlando in can win a title. They are the third best team in the Eastern Conference. And I actually don’t think that that’s very controversial at all. I think that that seems pretty reasonable based off of where they’ve been before. Um, they add Desmond Bane. That’s a great fit for them. They added a couple of other guys as well. Uh, let me just do my my live research here just to make sure that I’m figuring out exactly who I’m actually saying for them. Taius Jones. That’s right. They got Taius Jones is just a a standard backup point guard. So, they’ll play him and Anthony Black next to each other. They’ve got Jaylen Suggs and Desmond Bane. They’ll be in the back court together, but you need another ball handler there. So, Taius Jones will definitely help. Um, and then they they’ve just got a great defense. So, I do think that they’re actually in a really good spot just to stay right there. So, yeah, can win a title. And that’s kind of the the sarcastic thing. Like, I don’t consider them a team that will actually win the title, but they can win it. So, that’s a reasonable tier for them to be placed in. I think Atlanta, they’re going to make the playoffs. I don’t think I can put them in the can win a title, but I will actually put them above the Bucks. I think they’ll be below the Pistons, but I think they’re in that kind of four five mix. Uh really good offseason for the for the Hawks. They still have to be healthy. Ona Kongu still has to be healthy. Chris Sporzinga still has to be healthy. Jaylen Johnson coming off of a seasonl long injury, but they’re in a good spot. Like shouldn’t be that difficult for them to make it happen. And we’ll we’ll see whether they actually do. Uh, but I do think that they are in a good place. Miami perfect playinbound team and Indiana also a great play inbound or yeah, we’ll we’ll go play inbound for them. I think they’ll be a little bit elevated above some of those other spots, but like Pascal Seakum’s not going to just let them fold. But with the Tyresese Hallebertton injury, pretty simple why they are not in the can win a title or a league contender category. But Miami, like pretty reasonable why they’re here as well. They’ve always been in the plan. The Bulls always been in the plan. Philly playing. It’s just kind of how they are. So, we’ll see. Um, okay. So, I’ve got seven playin team. I’ve got seven playoff teams. got four playin teams. We got to bump one actually. Yeah, we’re going to bump um we’re going to bump the Celtics to play inbound and we are going to bump the Okay, we’re going to do it. We’re going to bump the Bulls. We’re going to bump the Bulls to Lottobound. I think that that’s a pretty decent list. Okay, elite contenders in the East, New York, and Cleveland. Orlando can win a title. Detroit, Atlanta, and Milwaukee will make the playoffs. Boston, Indiana, Philly, Miami. They’re the playinbound teams. And lotto bound. You’ve got Chicago, Toronto, and Washington. And then it’s going to be really bad for the Nets and the Hornets. When we come back, we are going to go through the Western Conference on the other side here on Pickax and Roll. All right, we are back. Pickax and roll. Ryan Blackburn here. Thank you so much for tuning in. Let’s go through the Western Conference now as we we continue to rank and again this is ranking every team on their chances of winning a championship. That’s kind of where I’m at. It’s going to be a balance between like regular season and playoff rankings, but the teams that are in the playoffs are often like and the teams that win the title in the top four seeds. That’s just how it works at this point. Indiana, I believe, was the four seed. I want to say Denver was a four seed. They pushed OKC to seven. OKC, of course, the best team in the NBA. Shocker. They won. They won in the the NBA finals. So, now let’s go to the rest of the NBA, the Western Conference here, the Nuggets Conference, and we will talk about where these teams are going to be. Starting with Utah. Utah’s going to be really bad. I don’t really have to explain that to anybody. They’ve traded a variety of people. They let go of John Collins for basically basically nothing. Um they actually let go of Colin Ston for was it Ysef Nerk? Did they trade for Nerkich? Is that Do I have that right? Yeah, they did. Traded Colin Ston for Ysef Nerkage. And I think they actually had to add something to that. Um, and then they agreed to a bio with Jordan Clarkson. So, they are not going to be good. Do not expect it. Now, the Rockets, are they in the elite contender tier? Yeah, you know what? We’re going to put them there. We’re going to put them there for now. Um, adding Kevin Durant is a big deal. People are going to argue and say like, uh, they should be lower. They should be Yeah, whatever. I think that they had one of the top defenses in the entire NBA and the people that were contributing to that were like, yes, Dylan Brooks was contributing to that, but he wasn’t the most important defender. Like, they still have their most important defenders. They have Almond Thompson. Uh they’ve got Tar Een on the perimeter. They have Jabari Smith on the perimeter and in the interior. They’ve got Fred Van Vleet getting steals. They’ve got a lot of depth. and now they’ve got Kevin Durant to kind of tie the room together as a leading scorer. So, we’ll see whether he can do it, but I do think that that’s going to be a pretty good setup for them. New Orleans, I think I was thinking, is going to be really bad for them, man. Like, I do think it’s going to be really bad. And it’s so funny that they they gave up a lot pick to the Atlanta Hawks in that trade that they made for Derek Queen, who’s already out for what, 12 weeks. like they’re already dealing with injuries. It was just a crazy deal when they made it. I think that New Orleans is going to be really bad. I I don’t see any reason why they actually would be better than than where they are. Um the Lakers, they’re going to make the playoffs. I don’t think that they are in the can win a title or elite contender tier. I don’t Yeah, I don’t think that they can win a title. I don’t think that they have the depth. I don’t think that they have the role players. I don’t think that they have the the mix to actually do it. They’re going to be good and I think anybody that says that they’re not going to be good is insane, but like I I don’t think they can win a title. I think Minnesota still can win a title. Uh I really like their mix still. I know that they lost to Alexander Walker. They re-uped Julius Randall. They re-uped Nas Reed. They still have Terrence Shannon who’s going to take over for Nquil Alexander Walker. Rob Dillingham is gonna be a very important piece for them and they’ve got the foundation that they had previously to help them get to the conference finals multiple times in a row. So if you get to the conference finals multiple times in a row, you can win the title. It’s just a question of whether you actually will at the end. I think that they are in the right rightful tier next to Orlando though. Like I don’t expect those teams to actually compete, but they can. Now, Portland is tough. Portland is tough. Let’s go to Let’s put them in lotto bound for now, but I reserve the right to bump them up based off of where we put the rest of the list. Denver is in the elite contender tier. That to me is pretty clear. We’ve talked about it at Nauseium on this show. Denver did everything that they needed to do. What were the goals that they had heading into the season? They wanted to improve their starting lineup. They I don’t know if that’s necessarily what they like the actual front office wanted to do, but they did their due diligence. They found a way to do so with Cam Johnson. And I think that they have also seriously improved on their bench as well. Getting a stable backup center is such a big deal. And then adding Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown on the fringes is going to be a big deal, too. So, I think they hit a home run here. I think they’ve put themselves back up at the top and saying anything else would be crazy. Thunder top tier. No questions about it. Uh they’re still going to be great. Anybody that thinks that they’re going to like fall off like crazy is crazy. But we are also in the era where I think of the last seven champions, none of them repeated and I don’t think any of them got past the second round. I believe you can quote me on that, but like all of those teams actually is it u so the the Warriors they got past the second round they got to the finals again in 2019. So, it was uh Warriors in 2018, Raptors 2019, uh Lakers 2020, Bucks 2021, Warriors again in 2022, uh Nuggets 2023, then Celtics 2024, Thunder 2025. Like, I don’t think any of those teams got past the second round outside of the Warriors back in 2019 following up their 2018. So, if you’re the Thunder, like teams are going to be adjusting to them. I think they show that they are not like perfect in a playoff context. Against the okay teams and the good teams, they’ll still dominate them, but against elite playoff teams, they might struggle. So, I think they’re okay to be in the same tier as Denver and Houston. Memphis, this one’s tough. We’re going to put them play inbound for now. uh trading Desmond Bane. There’s a lot of people that think there will be less ramifications for that than you would expect. I’m not sure if I agree with that. I I really like Desmond Bane as a player. I think that he took a lot of pressure off of John Marant and Jiren Jackson and now those guys don’t really have anywhere to go if things aren’t going well. So, we’ll see what happens. But for now, we’ll put them play inbound. We’ll also put the Mavericks play inbound, too. Cooper flag, he’s probably a power forward. They’ve got a lot of guys that are actually kind of playing out of position because of how stacked their front court is. Like Naji Marshall should be a small forward. He’s going to play a lot of shooting guard for them. Uh Klay Thompson honestly probably should be a small forward. He’s going to play a lot of shooting guard for them. Um Cooper Flag should be a power forward. He’s going to play a lot of small forward. Same thing for PJ Washington. So, we’ll see what it looks like, but because they want to play Anthony Davis at power forward, they’re probably going to play everybody else up a position. They’ll be a pretty good defense, but I don’t think their offense is going to be very good, especially without Kyrie Irving. Um, the Spurs, we’re also going to put them to play in tournament two. Like, that to me feels pretty good. It’s going to be interesting to see where they where they kind of fit in here, but I can I just think with WBY, with De’Arren Fox, as long as those guys stay healthy this time around, they’re going to be in that mix. The question is whether they like, can they go higher than that? How good is Webby going to be up front? Who are they starting at power forward next to him or are they starting him at power forward and then having somebody like Luke Cornet play next to him? Uh that’s who one of the guys that they signed this off seasonason. I think I’m going to put them at the playin level for now and that’ll be fine. Like that’s a a reasonable place for them to jump up into. Phoenix, they are a lot of bound. That seems pretty clear. I don’t think it’s going to be really bad. Like they’re probably going to win like 30 games, but they’re not going to be very good. Like that’s if you have to be careful against them because Devin Booker, Jaylen Green, those guys are still great scorers. But they don’t have Bradley Bill anymore. They don’t have Kevin Durant anymore. For KD, like I think they feel like that’s a major loss. For Bradley Bill, they probably don’t. But he was still soaking up a lot of reps. He was soaking up a lot of possessions, kind of helping them get through some things. the pressure was just very high on that because they made $50 million. So, I just don’t think they’re going to be able to reallocate that that well. Like, if they win 30 games, they win 35 games, like they’re still playing inbound because the West is it’s going to take being 500 in order to get out into the plan. It’s just how it’s going to go. Clippers, they can win a title. I I think the Clippers can win a title just based off of the the rotation that they’ve put together. Will they win a title is not like that’s a different question entirely because you have to trust James Harden. You have to trust Kawhi Leonard. Those guys have to be healthy at the right time, playing well, playing active at the right time, being their best selves. Will they? Probably not. But like I tend to think that Denver like they probably should have lost to the Clippers if the talent was equal. like the talent was equal. They probably should have lost, but Denver just had the intangible stuff. They had some of the things that make you a good team that make you a good competitive team late in the playoffs and Denver just had that extra gear. The Clippers didn’t. So, we’ll see if adding Brook Lopez and Chris Paul now like they have a lot of great vets. Whether those vets are going to be super helpful at the highest levels, that’s a fair question. Golden State. Okay. Well, so here’s the thing. I’ve got the Rockets. I’ve got the Nuggets. I’ve got the Thunder. I’ve got the Wolves. And I’ve got the Clippers. And I’ve got the Lakers all in the will make the playoffs tier. The The Warriors are a better team than the Pistons, maybe than the Hawks, maybe than the Bucks. But I don’t think they’re a better team than the Lakers. So I think that they have to go into this playinbound tier along with all these Southwest teams. I think that they’ll probably end up here. There will be some like they’re probably going to add Al Horford. They’re going to come to some sort of figuring out situation with Jonathan Kaminga. Um are they going to get DeAnthony Meltton? Sounds like he is on their radar. They have like nine players that they have signed to a roster spot right now. So, they’re they’re still in flux and we’ll see what ultimately happens with it. But, I tend to think that they are going to struggle uh in terms of reaching that top tier of teams, but they’ll be in the play inbound. Like, I think 48 wins is on the table for them, which is what they had last year. Do I think that they could stay healthy enough with Jimmy Butler, Steph Curry, Draymond Green? Can they stay healthy enough and active enough to do that again? Maybe. But like, I don’t know. Okay, I’m going to bump down the Grizzlies to the end of that tier, though. The Kings are also going into the lottobound tier. I don’t know what the Kings are doing. They seem to be spinning their wheels a little bit. They got tenn Dennis Shruder. Yes. Like they’re going to start Dennis Shruder, Zack Lavine, Demard Rosen, Keegan Murray, and Deamontto Sabonis. Like that offense is going to be pretty solid. The defense is not going to be good. Like they’ll they’ll figure out a way to cobble it together and be like 19th on the defensive end, but they also have some offensive flaws for obvious reasons. They’ve got threats, but they’re going to be a team that’s like 12th on the offensive end and 19th on the defensive end, maybe 20th, and that’s ultimately just going to make them about 40 wins. So, I think that they are in that same kind of group with the Grizzlies, but I think the Grizzlies will make it. I think the Kings do not. And we see some major change with the Kings into next year. But that’s my list. That’s my list. Hope you guys enjoyed that. U so we’ve got the Kings, the Cavs, the Rockets, the Nuggets, and the Thunder in that elite contender tier. That’s where I see it. And the rest of it. We’ll see whether that bears out itself. All right, everybody. I think that is going to do it for this episode of Pickaxe and Roll. Brett, good friends here at Mile High Sports. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Hit that like button. Hit that subscribe button all the way out. I will be back again on Thursday.

On the latest Pickaxe and Roll, Ryan Blackburn reacts to some Nuggets news about Jonas Valanciunas and Curtis Jones before breaking down his NBA Contenders Tier List. Where do the Nuggets rank among all NBA teams in their chance of winning an NBA title this year? Ryan gives his thoughts.

0:00 – Intro
1:30 – Jonas Valanciunas Update
3:10 – Curtis Jones signs + 15th Man
6:00 – Eastern Conference Tiers
23:25 – Western Conference Tiers

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