What NOBODY is telling you about the Denver Nuggets…

What NOBODY is telling you about the Denver Nuggets…

All [Music] right, Nuggets fans. Welcome into Pickax and Roll, brought to you by good friends here at Mile High Sports and at FanDuel. I’m your host, Ryan Blackburn at NBA Blackburn on Twitter, part of the Mile High Sports Podcast Network. And I am here, I am ready, I’m excited to ask some things about the Nuggets and to kind of wonder out loud, what are some things that nobody’s really talking about right now? That’s what August is for. Uh we are kind of in the dead period here for the off seasonason for the Denver Nuggets. And I wanted to address what I think are three things that nobody is really talking about right now. And then I’ve got some things about the NBA schedule and the Nugget schedule that I wanted to address before we are probably going to get some information about the Nugget schedule on uh maybe today, Tuesday, when you listen to this. I’m recording this on Monday night, the night prior. Uh, but I think that there will be some tidbits that will be released on Tuesday. There may be some tidbits that are released on Wednesday. And then I think the official schedule release for the NBA for the Nuggets will be on Thursday. We’ll of course react to it. I might have to change around the podcast recording for when I ultimately do that if that’s indeed the case, but we will see what happens. I am excited to see that for ourselves. But for now, let’s go. Gosh. For now, let’s go into three things that nobody is talking about with regard to the Denver Nuggets right now. And this kind of stems from an article that I did on mileh.com that you can go check out on Tim Hardaway Jr. who you think about the four major additions that the Nuggets had this offseason. I’m not not counting the two-way guys, but four major additions. The first thing that happened they s they traded Cam for Cam Johnson with Michael Porter Jr. in a first round pick. A wild deal. Nobody was expecting it. Denver breaks up the core four guys and then kind of opens up some things with the financial situation that they’re they’re ultimately in. Then they turn around immediately resign Bruce Brown. If the off season had stopped there would have been a good off season. They turn it into a great season by doing the following two things. They trade for Yonas Valenunis, although that uh entire saga was a little bit weird. He looks to be ready to go and will play a ma a major role for Denver heading into this year. And then they also add Tim Hardaway Jr. on a minimum contract. And that one of all of them was the most surprising to me. I I tried to outline this in my article. I did not value Tim Hardaway as a minimum contract guy. And the fact that he was willing to come to Denver on a minimum contract, it kind of represents a couple of things. The first is that money in the NBA, especially in the second apron era, very difficult to come by even for a player that last year played a starting role. was a a starter in 77 out of the 77 games that he played for the Detroit Pistons. Didn’t play a massive amount of minutes. Like I think it was about 28 per game, but still he played more minutes last year than all but 67 players in the entire NBA. And here’s a stat for you. Tim Hardway Jr. this year will make less money than all but two of those guys. you’re usually getting your LeBron James’s and uh not not even Kevin Durant because he’s not gonna play that much, but uh your stars, your high usage role players, your your guys that you trust, your your Michael Porter Juniors, even like your your Christian Browns and even Jamal Murray played just as much as that last year. But only two players that played at least 2,153 minutes will make um I think it’s 2,153 uh will make less money than Tim Hardaway Jr. That’s me is such a massive deal. It’s a such a massive value that Denver was able to get him for. And now I’m not saying that it’s like like should he be making 20 million? No. But should he have been making more than two? Absolutely. And so Denver getting him at two is such a big deal for their books and I think kind of undersold what I think is going to be a larger role for Tim Hardaway Jr. than a lot of people expect. He is going to be very good. Going back and looking at some of the shot making that he put together over the course of the season with the Detroit Pistons was very interesting. A lot of the shots that he’s getting are running shots in transition. He’s really like like timing things up really well, taking advantage of a defense that’s just one step too slow. And then when Kate Cunningham was creating good offense, occasionally the defense would lose him and he would get a wideopen shot and usually he converted those at a very high rate. But what’s great about Denver is that they have so many offensive threats and their center is their point guard in a lot of cases. Now Jamal Murray can pass. Cam Johnson he’s shown can pass. Christian Brown can pass. Aaron Gordon can pass. Bruce Brown can pass. Denver’s got a lot of guys that can pass. Jonas Valenunis is going to be able to pass. I I’m very interested to see whether Tim Hardaway is just going to get so much better shots in Denver that that three-point percentage is going to creep up. He shot about 36.8% I want to say from three last year, but I did some number crunching. He had to take pretty tough shots when he was out there. And in lineups where he was playing next to Tobias Harris, Osar Thompson, and Jaylen Duran, their primary starting trio in the front court, Tim Hardaway only shot 33%. Or somewhere close to it. You take away those guys and you put in guys that can space the floor a little bit better. smaller sample size of course, but his three-point percentage goes up because the pressure that’s applied to him specifically goes down. And to me, that is a big deal for shot quality, especially when you’re going to be talking about playing next to a guy like Jokic. He can operate in DHO. He can operate on kickouts. He’s a good relocation guy on the perimeter. He’s very smart in terms of the kind of threes that he generates. And then he can also go off the dribble every now and then, especially when the defense is in rotation. So, I think he’s going to be pretty good, or at least the the theory of the practice is going to be pretty good. He’s not a great defender. Not going to sit here and say that he is, but I also think that might be a little bit overblown in a regular season context where, yeah, guys will go at him, but not any more than anybody else on Denver’s roster. Like, is he a better defender than Jamal Murray? I don’t know. I don’t think the opposing team’s going to really be like, “Yeah, you know who we need to hunt right now?” Tim Hardaway Jr. like they might, but we’ll see. We’ll see what it actually looks like. But I think that he’s going to play a major role and I think it’s going to be a larger role than a lot of people expect. So, we’ll see what happens with it. But make sure to go check out that Tim Hardaway Jr. article. I thought I put it put together some good stuff there. And now for the second thing that nobody’s really talking about. I think that there is at least an outside chance that Denver has four different players that could be their sixth man next year. And a lot of people have pencileled in Bruce Brown into that role. And I understand why. is the role that he played when he was winning championships with the Nuggets, when he was such a massive force and a a massive value ad to Denver with his attitude, uh with his downhill ability, with his defensive uh presence, his aggressiveness, his positional versatility. Those things all mattered a lot. But now, two years later, I’m curious to see whether a he can replicate it and b whether that’s what the Nuggets need most this year. Think about the lineup that he was the sixth man for a lot of the time when he was with Denver. Jokic, Murray, Porter, Gordon, and then KCP was the fifth guy. Christian Brown, I would say, is a lot closer to who Bruce Brown is as a player than he is to KCP. And not having that outside shooting means that it’s a little bit more pressure on Bruce Brown to make some of those shots, to space the floor, to be a sniper. And that’s why I kind of think that there’s an outside chance that Tim Hardaway Jr. is the sixth man. I don’t know if that’s what ultimately will happen, but we think back to what was so difficult for Denver last year from an offensive standpoint. Now, defensively, they need to be better. Bruce Brown will help them there. That is a a factor that I think will not go understated, and it’s one of the reasons why I still think he would be the sixth man. But one of the problems that Denver had last year when Russell Westbrook, Christian Brown, Aaron Gordon, those Pton Watson, those guys all shared the floor at the same time or in combinations was when Joic was trying to get the ball in the middle of the floor. Oftent times opposing teams just decided, we’re going to ignore the outside guys. We’re going to pressure the middle of the paint defensively. We are going to see if Denver can punish us from the outside. And Denver took the fewest threes, made the or pretty close to the fewest threes in the entire NBA. And I think that added a lot of pressure, especially in the regular season to a player like Jokic. And this regular season should be all about making things not as easy as possible, but removing the annoying burdens during the regular season to the point where the things that Denver gets to work on are not just trying to survive. It’s about what can be better, what can like what can Denver develop during the regular season that make sense for the playoffs? What kind of mechanisms can they develop? It to me it felt like they developed zero mechanisms during the year last year. It was all about, hey, we’re just going to have to do this on the fly, man. We’ll see what happens. But OKC was able to develop the mechanisms that they needed in order to survive really tough playoff series against Denver, against Indiana. Indiana like throughout that entire regular season, they weren’t great at the beginning of the year, but they were still able to do well enough and develop a lot of these different ways that they could approach the playoffs as a result. And it just never felt to me like Denver was able to do that, especially in a very competitive Western Conference. So, as long as Denver’s winning, I hope that they can kind of experiment with different lineups and different rotations. And I don’t know if that means going with a definitive six-man or going with a variety of different guys. As I mentioned, Bruce Brown could be the guy, Tim Hardaway Jr. could be the guy. There is a chance that Pton Watson is the guy that plays the most minutes off the bench. I actually think it’s a pretty high chance or at least higher than a lot of people seem to think in part because of the next point that I’m going to make. But Jonas Valentunis is another one I think that has not really a great chance but at least an outside chance to be the six-man. If Denver does simply want to play Joic and Valenunis together, if that’s something that they decide they want to prioritize, then you have to find ways to play them together, which means like Jonas Valenunis’ minutes will go up as a result. He averaged about 20 minutes per game when he was with Washington, about 17 minutes per game when he was with Sacramento. So if he’s at about 18 for Denver, Joic is not going to be a 30. Let me tell you that right quick. He’ll be closer to 32 33. So, are those guys playing together on average about three minutes a game? If that’s the case, does he kind of creep up over that 20 minute per game threshold? And does that actually put him ahead of somebody like a Bruce Brown or Tim Hardaway Jr.? I don’t think so. But there’s at least a world where Denver’s bench is kind of even across the board and Jonas Valunis is actually the guy that plays the most time because he plays every game. There’s no question about what the role he’s going to play is and it’s just about how often is he going to play next to Joic, things like that. I don’t think that’s actually going to happen. But I think that there’s at least like certainly three guys that could be the sixman next year and maybe a fourth on the outside. By the way, according to FanDuel, Bruce Brown plus 5,000 to win sixth man of the year next year. The highest placing Nugget, only Tim Hardaway Jr. is another guy on the board at plus 7500. Payton Pritchard is the favorite to win it this year at plus 490. Kind of thought that he would start, but who knows? Maybe he maybe won’t start for Boston this year, but Bruce Brown plus 5,000. It’s not a bad thing to throw five bucks on. Finally, one thing that people are not talking about enough, the health of Cam Johnson and Aaron Gordon, just as concerning to me as Jamal Murray for different reasons. First, some numbers. Over the course of the last three seasons, basically ever since Murray came back from the ACL tear, the average number of minutes that Jamal Murray has played in each of those three seasons in total, 2,137. So 2100 minutes. Not the most minutes that anybody could play in the NBA, but still over 2,000. Still a pretty solid chunk for a starter. Aaron Gordon’s average minutes over the course of the last three seasons has been 1,933. lower. Not so much lower that it’s a big deal, but 200 minutes in total lower. He plays a very like high usage, not not high usage, but high effort role. Uh last year it kind of changed. He did not play as high effort of a role. He was more of a finesse player, more of a shooter on the outside, not as much of a banger in the middle. And then he he also had to deal with the injuries that he dealt with. uh played about I want to say 51 to 54 games somewhere around there. So missed a lot of time. Cam Johnson over the last three seasons has played an average of 1,500 in 32 minutes. So Murray is at 2100. Gordon’s at 1,900. Cam Johnson’s at 1500. And Cam Johnson obviously he had a pretty major issue in I want to say 22 23. He only played about 41 games that year. Since then, he’s been closer to the 1700, 18800 range, but he’s never actually crossed that threshold, whereas that’s like what Murray’s averaging, and then Murray’s averaging another 330 minutes. So, again, one of the reasons why I keep trying to kind of deflect some of this blame off of Murray is that it’s not actually born in reality. And a lot of the time, people are very concerned about health and conditioning, things like that. But he’s out there and he has been pretty good in much of that time. Maybe not all of that time, but much of that time. So for the forward depth, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, those guys are going to start, there is a significant chance that one or two of those guys miss time, and it might be at the same time. Forward depth might be more of a concern than I recently thought. Payton Watson is certainly going to play. He’s ready for that role. I think he’s going to play a pretty significant amount of time both at the three and the four. People keep telling me that he’s not a four. He’s going to play it. Like that’s it’s something that’s going to happen. Don Holmes will probably play some power forward. Zeke Naji will probably play some power forward. Maybe Joic and Valenunis are playing together and that takes away some of the power forward minute burden. But there’s at least a world where Aaron Gordon misses time. You’re probably sliding in Payton Watson. Maybe you move Cam Johnson to the power forward in that situation and you play a three guard lineup. Christian Brown moves to the three. He can do that. But like the more you do that, the more burden there is that’s placed on everybody else. And it’s one of those things that it could spiral. It may not. I actually don’t think it will. That could actually be a pretty good opportunity for somebody like Spencer Jones to come in off of a two-way contract and actually play a pretty significant role off the bench. Just give the team 10 to 15 minutes of pure hustle and then that’s somebody in that position that you feel can at least like give you some 3 and D stuff. And maybe that’s good enough. Maybe it’s not. Like we we’ll have to see. But Denver’s going to have to be ready for that that possibility if it does happen because Aaron Gordon, Cam Johnson have not been super healthy over the course of the past three seasons. And I do think that Denver is going to be up a creek if they do not have good answers for that. And Denver needs to be healthy heading to the playoffs. So, whatever happens that they need to get healthy, like if you have to rest those guys, just got to do what you got to do. All right, let’s take a break. When we come back, we are going to discuss the NBA schedule, which should drop this week. We’ll see what happens. We’ll be right back here on Pickax and Roll. All right, back at it. Pickax and all. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Hit the like button, hit the subscribe button. Would really, really appreciate it, folks. Uh trying to push on the YouTube side of things and uh up over 13,000 subscribers on MHS. It’s been awesome to see. We crossed 10,000 a little bit ago, but want to see if we can get to 15,000 there. That’ll be uh that’ll be super cool. Uh, obviously a lot of you guys coming here for the NBA, the Nuggets coverage, and obviously very much thankful for on a day like today, August 12th, when you’re hopefully watching this. Really nice to be able to know that there are people that care about this stuff in August. Uh, that’s I think a testament to what we’ve built over the course of the last few years. Okay, the Nugget schedule, as I mentioned prior to the break, it’s about to drop. The only game that is on the schedule, by the way, is the Christmas game that did drop at the end of last week. It was before uh I could talk or after I could talk about it on any of the MHS stuff. The Nuggets are going to face the Minnesota Timberwolves at home. They are going to play them on Christmas. According to FanDuel, they are already minus4.5 favorites against Minnesota in that home Christmas game. So, you can get it on the action if you want to. Um minus 4.5 is a pretty standard number. Basically, FanDuel’s pricing in that Denver’s about two points better on a neutral court and then they get a 2.5 uh home court. That’s 2.5 plus 4 point plus two is 4.5. So, it’s kind of how they get to that number. So schedule’s going to come out and the rest of the schedule will drop in very short order. And there is some sentiment that yes, it’s 82 games. It’s actually going to be 80 because they’ll release 80 of the games and then two of them will be made up after the NBA cup is basically done with their group stage and everybody figures out, okay, who’s going to play who during this upcoming stretch. Uh, but order of the schedule, schedule density, those kinds of things do matter to me and they should matter to Nuggets fans as you’re trying to like you want to have the perfect season. You want to have the the right outcome for your team that ends in a championship. It’s never going to be perfect, but here are some things that I think you should be looking for for what would be a perfect season. You want to see Nicole Yokic and company win a championship. Here’s what you should be looking for. The first thing you’re going to want to circle all of the games between Jokic and the big stars on national TV especially now because the Comcast situation has been taken care of. Altitudes provided a whole bunch of different resources. If you’re a a mainstream fan or if you’re a if you’re a hardcore fan, excuse me, then you’ve already had that taken care of. So you don’t necessarily need to search and like circle the top tier games, the national TV games for when they come out now, but it’s always interesting to see what the league prioritizes. And this year, I made this mistake last week. No TNT anymore. As should be mentioned, the places where games will be shown are Altitude, ESPN, NBC, and NBA TV will also be one. but also Prime. Prime will have some form of schedule drop that they will also be doing. And it’ll be interesting to see like what they value, what like which platform is going to get, which game. I’m curious to see what the viewership is going to be like for NBC again, what the viewership’s going to be like for Prime. All of them should like be pretty accessible to most fans at this point. But I do think that like I’ll be looking forward to seeing what kinds of games and and where some of those games are being aired like especially against the big stars. Like are the Nuggets and Lakers going to be a game that NBC fights for? Are they going to be a game that ESPN fights for? Uh Nuggets versus Thunder are is Prime going to really want to see that showcase game. So, it’ll be interesting to see which platform Denver shows up on the most and then what those broadcasts ultimately look like going forward. We’re very familiar with the ESPN broadcast, but NBC Prime, those are going to be new. Next, um, for Jokic versus the big stars, you want to see Joic versus Giannis. You want to see Joic versus Luca versus Wemi versus Sheay. Maybe versus Embiid. I mean, if he’s healthy, then we’ll see. Jokic versus Ants is already being showcased. Like that’s something that the league already knows about. Uh but you want to see Jokic versus all those guys. And if you’re a an NBA fan, you want to see Jokic. You want to see how your team stacks up against the best in the world. So that is a burden and a privilege that Nuggets fans, I’m sure, are privy to. Number two, you want to see if the Nuggets can limit the number of back-to-backs that they have in this upcoming season. Last year, I think the number was 16 that they had a high number of backto-backs relatively around the NBA. Sometimes like I think there it ranged from about 12 to 16. There were some teams that had 12, there were some teams that had 16, there were some teams that had 13, 14 or 15. Denver had a fair amount of back-to-backs and they ultimately had them at some odd times. They did not have as many of them early on in October, November, December. Not as many then. They had a lot in January. They had a lot in February. They had some in March. Um that was not great. And to me, that’s a big issue that the Nuggets are going to face in all likelihood. U something something that like you hope that the NBA is able to cut out. Like shouldn’t be that hard to be able to schedule the league relatively balanced, but something I’ll talk about in a little bit. Denver is going to be pushed later in the schedule because of the NFL. That’s something that’s going to happen. So just brace for you’re going to see a lot of schedule density for Denver in January, February, March, and April. Number three, you’re going to want to limit the amount of flights that the Nuggets are taking. And the way that you can do that is have more home stands. You can have more twoame series, things like that. I wanted to go back and look at this because I I said this anecdotally on lockdown to Matt Moore when we talked about it last night. basic like it felt like there was a stretch during the season last year where Denver was basically flying and taking a flight before every game. And the more you cover the league, the more you understand that that is the most difficult aspect. It’s the travel in between games. It’s not having to go like it’s not the actual flight itself. It’s the transition from hey, you’re going from your car to the uh to the team bus or you’re going from your car to the airport, the airplane, you’re going from the airplane to a bus that is late. You’re going to a hotel. You’re you’re being diverted. There’s a whole bunch of delays. There’s snow. There’s just a lot. Um from game 11 to game 30 of the season last year, the Nuggets took a flight basically every game. I’m not I’m not kidding when I say that. There was one time where they were in Memphis for a like a twoame stretch, but from game 11 to game 29, they basically took a flight before every game. And that is very difficult for a team. And if you’re wondering how Denver did during that stretch, they were like nine and eight, nine and nine somewhere around there. Maybe uh 10 and nine. So, it wasn’t a great stretch despite the fact that it was a pretty easy relative to the rest of their schedule, like strength of schedule stretch. They should have been better and they didn’t play that many backto-backs during that time. So, it should have been easier, but because they were on flights that entire time, they weren’t able to take advantage of it. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was one of the reasons. And so, I think that you can solve this if you’re the NBA. You can’t do it for everybody, but if you’re Denver, you have to find some more opportunities for home stands, especially early on in the season. It cannot just be all road games. Or if you’re going to come back home, it cannot just be coming back home for one game and then going back on the road because that doesn’t accomplish anything from a a settlement standpoint. You don’t want to get too comfortable, but you want to get comfortable at least a little bit on occasion. So, I hope that Denver can find something there. By the way, they did twoame stands uh both at home and on the road. Here were the ones that they did throughout the season. They were at that they’re at Memphis for that backtoback in November. They’re at Dallas on a back-toback in January. When I say back toback, it wasn’t just like it was like January 11th, January 13th. It wasn’t an actual backto-back, but they’re at Memphis twice in a row. They’re at Dallas twice in a row. Then there were home versus New Orleans and home versus Portland twice in a row during February leading up to the All-Star break. And then they took that uh OKC backto-back, which was an actual back-to-back in March. Uh that was a big deal. And like actually probably won SGA the MVP because of what he was able to do in that first game on national TV on ABC. By the way, ABC, another platform that will also house NBA games. So, for Denver, like you’re going to want more of those. I think I think those are good. I think whether they are hosting teams or teams are on the road and the Nuggets are on the road. I think you want more of those because it eliminates a flight in the middle no matter what. And that is a good thing for the Nuggets. The ones that don’t accomplish anything are when you go in Denver against San Antonio and then you travel to San Antonio the next night and play there. Like that didn’t do anything for those teams from a rest standpoint. You’re still taking a flight. So try to figure it out. Try to be better NBA. It shouldn’t be that hard. Although it is it is a very difficult thing to coordinate because you’ve already got concerts and NHL games and things like that because the Nuggets are sharing an arena with everybody and so like that’s a money thing. So not great. Not great. But here’s another thing that they could talk about. More games in October, November, and December than they already had. Fewer games in January, February, and March. I don’t actually think that this is going to happen, but if you think about the schedule that Denver had, there were multiple stretches in December and November, I believe, where they had like three days off, two days off, four days off, and the NBA was pissed, or not the NBA, but NBA teams were all pissed because all of these teams had these various schedule quirks and then in January, February, March, they’re dying because The NBA is playing such a such a scheduled dense section of their schedule like every single night and all of these teams are playing all the time. And it shouldn’t be like that. It just doesn’t have to be. Go against the go against the NFL. It’s going to be fine. Like if you want to do like Saturday matinea, Sunday matineese, it should be okay. It’s not going to ruin anything. and just like play games, play play the same number of games in October, November, and December that you do in January, February, March. It should not be that difficult. And yet, it often is. Uh obviously some of that from December is for the NBA Cup. And because the NBA is trying to feature that stretch, that is one of the reasons why November when the cup like regular like NBA group play games are being played and then in December when the bracket games are being played, the NBA is trying to give as much space for those as possible. But you just don’t want days on end where there are just no NBA games. That’s ridiculous. you you got to find ways to like early on in the season there should be some balance there. Like I’m sure the Nuggets if they were like if we’re talking about like because everybody complains but the Nuggets if they had their D brothers they would want more backtobacks in October, November, December than they had in January, February, March. That’s just how it goes. Now they didn’t have that many in March but that was because they were definitely playing every other game. There were no two days off during that stretch like they had during um during the beginning of the schedule. So, there’s an opportunity there for the NBA to change it, but they won’t. Number five, you want your toughest stretch of the season to be from January to the All-Star break. Like that six week stretch from January 10th to February 15th. That might be slightly less than six weeks. Um, you want that stretch to be your toughest. And here’s why. Um, Denver and a lot of teams are like some teams will be great. They’ll be amazing out of the gates, but in order to keep up a high level of play early on in the season, whether you’re going 20 and four, 21 and six, 22 and seven, somewhere in that general stretch for the first 25 to 30 games. It takes a lot out of you and so teams will eventually need to get their second win. Some of them do it pretty well. Some of them gas out and don’t necessarily like they get hurt because they’re trying to maintain really good play. Now, there is something to be said for starting the season as well as you can and then resting. You’ve earned it. You’ve earned the right. It’s okay if you lose a couple games in nove or in uh January if you have started the season 21 and four. So, if that’s a problem that the Nuggets have, oh no. But I do think that you want your tough stretch of the season to be from January to the All-Star break and then you want to easier after the All-Star break into March into April. Couple years ago, Denver had a really, really tough March and April. It was a gauntlet. They absolutely had to get it if they wanted to stay on track with the Minnesota Timberwolves and OKC Thunder to try to get the one seed. They failed. They worked so hard during that stretch and failed. You do not want to have to work that hard for those games. Denver did because they were facing some really tough opponents and it cost them in the playoffs. You have to find ways to ease up in March and April. Whether that is against the strength of schedule, whether that’s against with the number of games that you’re playing, whether that’s because you’ve already done so well that you can just rest, who cares? Denver needs to be prepared. March 15th hits, they need to be done. They need to not have to worry about much of anything beyond that. At that point, it’s just window dressing. You know, you’re going to get wins. It’s that’s not the question. The question is how you get wins at that point. And that’s how you have a great season. It’s not about the number of wins that you get. It’s about setting yourself up to the point where you feel comfortable with wherever you finish and then you take the last two to four weeks off. You just relax. You do everything you can yet. Yes, you guys can play. You don’t necessarily have to do anything crazy, but it doesn’t have to feel like there’s pressure behind those games. That’s what 2023 was like for Denver, and that’s how they won the title. So, that would be my stuff. That would be my my picks for what Denver should really be prioritizing. And I think that they’ll get some of it. They’ll probably not get all of it. But if you’re Denver, prioritize doing well at the beginning and then the middle of the schedule. You don’t necessarily have to do too crazy at the end. You don’t want to have to be playing catch-up. That’s the worst thing in the NBA because you’re already behind the eightball and then you’re putting more pressure on yourself than there should be. So, we’ll see if they can do it. But for now, that is going to do it for this episode of Pickax Roll, brought to you by our good friends here at Mile High Sports. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Hit that like button, hit that subscribe button on the way out. I will talk to you guys very soon.

On the latest episode of Pickaxe and Roll, Ryan Blackburn breaks down what nobody is mentioning about the Denver Nuggets this offseason, from Tim Hardaway Jr.’s role to the Sixth Man competition to health concerns for Cam Johnson and Aaron Gordon. Then, he goes over the NBA schedule that Nuggets fans should want.

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