Will Kessler Edwards Stick? | The Search For No. 15 | Nugget Alumnni

Will Kessler Edwards Stick? | The Search For No. 15 | Nugget Alumnni

Emergency podcast. Kesler Edwards signs with the de Denver Nuggets. Kesler’s pretty good. We’ll talk about Kesler. Is he gonna be the 15th guy? If not, who is going to be the 15th guy? Do we need a 15th guy? Okay, we’ll get a 15th guy. Maybe. Maybe we’ll talk about it. Plus, what former Nugget is going to have the best season next year? All that and more. No jinx. Locked on Nuggets. You are Locked on Nuggets, your daily Denver Nuggets podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to Locked On Nuggets, your daily Denver Nuggets podcast. Part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Thanks for joining us, making this party day, being with us Monday through Friday, hanging out with us, being part of our community. Whether you’re listening on podcast, we do appreciate all of our podcast listeners. Give us those us five star reviews. Click the little star button, I think on sub on uh Spotify, wherever you get podcasts, leave a review so you can push us up them old charts. If you’re listening to us on youtube.com/lockton nuggets, thanks for tuning in, especially those of us that join live as we do this show every Sunday and Tuesday night at 1000 PM Mountain time. My name is Matt Moore. I’m the senior NBA writer for the Action Network. I co-host Locked on NBA where we’re doing a bracket of the best signature moves in NBA history and I’ve had an unbelievable amount of fun doing that. So go check out that content. I’ve got uh something I’m writing up for my own Substack which you can also subscribe to. I’ve got a piece up over at the Denver Dig talking about Yonas Valenunis, the impact his post can moves can have as well as some more discussion of the G-League stuff we talked about the other day. His name’s Ryan Blackburn the other way. His name’s Ryan Blackburn. He’s a He’s the host of the Pickax and Roll podcast and he’s a writer for milehighsports.com. Appreciate you guys being with us here on a Tuesday night. Hey, are you gonna recreate the Travis Kelce GQ shoot? Uh, I might I could do that. We need to we need to do that for lock. Hey, you the shirt’s actually red, but the way that my lighting is done I’m wearing Broncos orange tonight. Oh, yeah. Hey, it’s uh it looks salmon to me, but but hey, we’ll we’ll go we’ll go with a burning Broncos sunset. That sounds pretty good. There you go. Uh all right, on today’s show, we will talk about uh I wanted to ask Ryan what former Nuggets going to have the best season next year, and I’ll give him some candidates as we get to that se that segment. Uh we’ll talk about the need. We were going to go ahead and talk about tonight whether Denver really needs that 15th spot filled, but they did fill it on what is it today? Today’s Tuesday. Tuesday. Not really, because they signed Kesler Edwards to what’s called an exhibit 10 contract. It’s a training camp contract. Kesler Edwards, NBA veteran, will come into camp and if he does well, they can then opt to sign him to a full roster spot, but these are basically training camp contracts. They signed Kesler Edwards. Uh he’s bounced around the league to a number of teams with the Dallas Mavericks last season. Ryan, I’m gonna ask I know that it wasn’t like a huge reaction deal, but just like what are your kind of thoughts on Kesler Edwards and his fit and what he can maybe accomplish in training camp? Well, shameless self-promotion here for pickaxe yesterday or that that came out this morning. There were three burning questions or three things that nobody nobody’s talking about with the Nuggets. The first one was Tim Hardway Jr. is going to play a larger role than people think. The second is Denver has three maybe even four candidates for the six-man for this upcoming season. But the third was that the underrated injury risk for both Aaron Gordon and Cam Johnson I think is a little bit underst uh around and like it’s probably more of a big deal than people have given it credit for given the depth behind those guys at that position. You’ve got Payton Watson who plays the three will play the four. Uh, you’ve got Don Holmes, you’ve got Zeke Naji, you’ve got some guy like Denver can obviously play small if they want to, but in terms of traditional forwards, there’s not a ton of candidates on Denver’s roster outside of their starting guys. So, I I think that Kessle Edwards is exactly the kind of player type that Denver should be looking for. Really good defender, good rotational defender, somebody who can both be on the ball and rotate over and contest at the rim against bigger players, things like that. uh he doesn’t need the ball in his hands in order to operate. And Denver doesn’t like to me Denver shouldn’t need those kinds of players at the end of their roster anyway. There’s been this clamoring for a point guard. I can understand why, but I just don’t think that that’s a massive deal for somebody that’s just going to come in, play five or 10 minutes, and hopefully hit a spot-up shot here or there. That’s that’s their role. They’re going to play defense, things like that. So Kesler Edwards, I think he could do that. So played in the NBA for four years, last with Dallas. We’ll see what transi like what kind of translates into camp this year. But if he shoots the ball really well, if he shows that he can do some good things, then maybe he can win that spot. It wouldn’t surprise me. The numbers are really good. They’re all just in like very small minutes. So last season with Dallas, Kesler’s at 66% at the rim. That’s 63rd percentile. He’s at 40.7% from three. That’s 88th percentile. Let’s go a little bit deeper because it’s August and we need some Kesler Edwards deep dive here. But I do I do genuinely I make those jokes, but it’s also like look man, these are guys that you need to hit. The problem again I want to kind of return to this. The problem was that it felt like last year and we all kind of came to the same same agreement on this which shows you how desperate it was because like Ryan and I don’t agree on the old versus young thing very often but like last year it was like we need all of these guys to hit long shots. We need all of these long shot plays to work out and they’re gonna because we’re that good at drafting. Me Calvin Booth actually is that good at drafting. Sure. And you know, now it’s like, okay, again, like we talked about with the G-League, it’s to me, this is the same kind of deal where it’s like, look, you have an NBA veteran rotation now. You have an NBA veteran rotation. Like, this is going to be Payton’s third year, right? Like these guys are are all orth all have been in the league, right? So, you can take some shots here on guys to see if they can kind of pan out. And I think Castler Edwards is a great candidate for this. Uh spot-up shots last season via Synergy Sports. It’s 42 shots. It’s 42 shots. But to me, 42 shots is not nothing. That’s 42 game shots, which I care about. Sure, Ryan. He had a 70% EFG on no on no dribble jumpers out of spot up situations. I I want to see if he could do that again. That sounds like a great idea. And I I do love the fact that Tenzer and Wallace, attorneys at large, are going out there and being like, Calvin said he was going to fix the shooting. We’re actually going to do it. Like Cam Johnson, Tim Hardaway Jr., and maybe Kesler Edwards if he could stick in training camp. You know, there’s no risk here with him going into training camp if he shows up and he absolutely busts everybody. Like if he shows up and just dem like I think the the person that’s most at riskier is Hunter Tyson. Sure. Right. And that’s like hey Hunter only plays in garbage time anyway. But like that’s not true. There were times last season to Ryan’s point when the injury situations got bad enough it was like get on out there Hunter cuz we need some forward minutes. He was their 10th man for a bunch of those minutes in November, December. It was honestly like we were talking about this yesterday why the or Sunday why the schedule was so tough for them at that early point of the season. why it didn’t work. It’s because like guys like Hunter Tyson were playing extended minutes. They they had to really kind of de dig deep into the bag and those guys just weren’t ready to be good winning players yet. Yeah. Uh so I like the I like the move. I think it’s a good addition. It doesn’t have to be their only one and it doesn’t have to be their solve at the 15 spot. They can go ahead and still sign somebody else and just like bring Kesler in for a cup of coffee and then you know keep his name around if they want to bring him back later for on a deal if they open up a roster spot. So, they do go and they add somebody. Who do we think they should be? And do they need it? Do they need to fill out that 15th roster spot? Fans are going to want them because fans are not only greedy, but they’re also they feel that um it’s it there it feels very urgent. Urgency, that’s the word I was looking for. Sure. Okay. But do they need it? Is it absolutely imperative they fill the 15th? And if so, with who? We’ll talk about that next here on Lock on Nuggets. August 26 is officially FanDuel Futures Day, a brand new holiday for football fans who live for bold predictions and preseason hunches. For just 24 hours, FanDuel is giving you deals on NFL season predictions. So whether you’re calling your MVP, eyeing a longot division winner, or ready to crown your Super Bowl champ before week one even kicks off, this is your moment. You’ll get a great price on Broncos to win the division. I think it’s gonna be open. I think it’s gonna be available this year. I think the Chargers and the Broncos both have a very good shot at getting the division this year. You can take a flyer on the MVP race. How about Saquon Barkley? What if Saquon just like runs through everybody again? Just absolutely trucks everybody again. Eventually, a non-quarterback’s going to win it. Why not Saquon this year? Joe Burrow. People like them. I’m not as sold. Another one I’m really big on as far as like a win total. How about I’m I’m looking at a lot of ways on the New England Patriots. I just think that they’re going to be I think that with Brabel another year Drake May that roster is really good now. I really do think that the Patriots are going to make some noise. 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I had no idea what that abbreviation was going to be and and then I had to spell it out of my head and was like, “Okay, I get it now.” So anyway, um let’s talk about about about number 15. Uh not Nicole Joic, but instead the 15th man on the Denver Nuggets roster. So they currently have 14 guys on their contract. So there’s one extra roster spot open, and there’s a lot of ways that they could theoretically go with this. I haven’t heard anything about Malcolm Brogden. Nobody’s really talked about Malcolm Brogden. I looked this up and like Ryan, we talked about this like a month ago. There’s still good guys out on the market. Like Al Horford, I think, is down to like Warriors or retirement, I think, is kind of where he’s at. Yeah. Um Gary Payton the second is going back to back there. DeAndre Melton’s going to Golden State. Um but Malcolm Brogden, Trey Lyles, I have a really hilarious suggestion for you. And I know that people want a point guard. I’m just saying it’d be a really hilarious suggestion. Okay. Um, do you know who Pedathanikos pivoted to after Yonas fell through? Yeah, it was uh it was Rashan Holmes, right? And then Precious Aua, who is still available. I kind of love the idea of them going out and snatching precious acha off of the market and just furthering. Sure. I mean, hey, these are the kinds of underlying stories that like this is James Dolan versus Adam Silver level. Just levels of petty uh just trying to take a player out from under that, hey, we we we’re gonna keep you in the NBA. Come on, Precious. We we love you, man. Let’s uh let’s see what happens. Uh we we’re not sure what the opportunity is going to look like, but we know you want to be here rather than, you know, in Greece. Um well, here’s the point guard list. So, Brogden, which would make everybody happy. Russ, which would not make everybody happy. It is funny like I was I was wondering whether you’re going to actually say would that make everybody happy. It’s it’s still just so controversial at this point. Like he’s still so polarizing to everybody involved. Yeah. I think I think casual fans enjoyed the Russ experience. I think hardcore fans did not. I think that’s the best way to do it because I think casual fans are able to do things like move on past the Wolves game. And if you’re like a diehard, that one’s going to stick with you. Like that one’s just going to going to hurt you. Yeah. Um and everybody’s got preconceived notions with with him too. Like sometimes I think those are actually better because it sets a lower bar, right? If it’s a preconceived bad notion, it like I think Russ honestly to a certain degree impressed you last year. I think he was better than you thought he was going to be. He won me over for a while and then it just like it just wears eventually and and I think that there were too many there were just too many turnovers at the end of the day for me. That was that was the key. Dylan Wright being on the market does not make any sense to me. I do not understand this. I mean I can because just looking at the numbers and the opportunities that he’s had over the course of the last couple years, I get it. Um Cameron Payne perfectly serviceable backup point guard. Sure. Monte Morris still perfectly serviceable. Delano Banton turns into Batman in the fourth quarter. How? Wait. Okay. How is he not signed? He was so good last year for Portland. I don’t know. He was really good. I don’t know. Uh I have no interest in Ben Simmons. Let the Celtics sign him. Uh it’s not rather Tesla Edwards than Ben Simmons. Well, for me it’s not even about his skill set. I think the skill set’s like a really interesting idea because Adam when back in the heyday really liked the idea of of Simmons with Yoke. Of course he did. But I’m at more of the position of just like Ben hasn’t changed his attitude at all. Like Ben still hasn’t been humbled. Yeah. And until that happens like I just don’t I think you want to keep the vibes pretty good in the locker room. Um hey air coffee is my guy. That’s not bad. Still a great one. Markeel Folultz kick the tires on that. Alfred Peyton actually played really well for the Pelicans on two 10-day contracts last season. I’m not kidding. I’m worried about the shooting at the point guard position. We already saw what happened when you didn’t have a guy who could really genuinely space and shoot off the dribble and like you just named a couple of guys that I think would be problematic there. So, we talked about all these guys kind of we we listed who and and how. I want to ask you this. Do they need 15 to start the season? No. And here’s why. Um, I still don’t know what the best positional fit is. A lot of people have mentioned point guard. Like that’s still something. I’ve also mentioned the power forward and the the small forward position is still something that they could absolutely use. Suddenly, like after last year when they had two shooting guards on the roster for the entire year, they now have like four. And it feels like they are in a pretty good position there. But I do think that at this point, like you could even justify a third center. Like that’s something that they they don’t have. And if Yonas or Nicola, god forbid, would miss any portion of time, then you’re suddenly playing Zeke Naji at the five, Don Holmes at the five again. And that might be fine, or it also might not be. So I think you could justify any one of those numbers of positions. The question is, how pressing are those right now before any of those injuries have actually happened? So much can change a month into the season after you’ve gone through some of these things. Different uh guys have played really well, different guys have played really poorly and you get a better feel, a better hold on kind of who your roster is and then you add somebody at that point. The other thing is it’s the the luxury tax and the first apron situation that they are also trying to duck under and I understand that too. So it’s tough like this is a this is like every fan wants a 15th man but that 15th man in an ideal world is not going to play. So I I think if you believe in your current group you don’t necessarily need one right now if you are willing to commit to your two-way guys in some way shape or form. Isn’t a good idea maybe to see if we identify as like hey the depth and making it through the season and redundancy is important but with the way that the positional field is kind of stacked now and I agree point guard’s a little weak. I I agree. Yeah. But outside of that it’s like well you know if Joic gets hurt they’ll just go to JV and then Aaron is the small ball um and I guess Zeke and or Don right? Yeah. And if Jamal gets hurt, it’ll be Bruce. Christian will bring the ball up more. And Cam. Yeah. And Cam will do a little bit too. You know, if Christian were to miss games, you’ve got Cam Thomas who can play a little bit of small forward. You got Bruce Brown. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s just like you’re going to you’re going to play like Bruce comes in and then Cam takes over maybe more of the defensive assignments. Sure. Um, power forward. It’s Aaron and then you can go Don. You can theoretically play play Peyton there. I don’t like it, but you can do it. It’s gonna happen. I’m just I’m here to tell you that that is what their default lineup is going to be. Interesting. Yeah. Um, and so like you do have this kind of redundancy. Isn’t maybe the better thing to be like, hey, if we do suffer an injury that’s going to require a roster rebalance, let’s wait until that happens as opposed to trying to predict it and then add it. Like I don’t think that I don’t think you’re going to run out of time to add most of these guys. So if Jamal gets banged up in game two and is going to miss three weeks with an injury, okay, we’re going to know need to go pick up a point guard. Let’s pick up the phone and let’s call who whomsoever. Yeah. Right. Well, the other side of that coin is that you would like somebody to be integrated into what you’re doing and having having a training camp with that person is valuable, right? Yeah. Yeah, but if you’re just trying to get through like three weeks, isn’t it okay if you’re just like, “Hey, we just need you for the three weeks.” What if you’re playing three like like six really talented teams during that time and you go one and five? It’s November and then you just turn the calendar page and have a better December. Maybe like I remember being behind Well, so here’s the thing. I remember Denver being behind the eightball this entire past season, having to play catch-up, having to like fly by the seat of their pants, just trying to catch up for missed opportunities that they had early in the season and they just never were able to do it. I’m factchecking you on that. Um because by the way the uh that stretch from about game 11 to game 30 of the season like basically where they had the double header in Memphis after that they took a flight after every single game. Um so like they got to 11 and nine they were 11 and 10 after the Wizards lost before the Hawks win. But they were there’s a there’s a Portland loss in there. There’s some losses. They were never under 500 and it’s so early. You’ve still got so much time. You know, the the only way that you really get behind the eightball is like you got to start off like you’re five and 10. Okay. You know, I just just from the flow of the season, I think that that’s important. Is that is that the same in the West when you are like theoretically facing like potentially six or seven teams that are going to crack 50 this year? Yeah, because none of those teams are are that are that every night night to night. Okay. And also just like I want to just dip into this and you and I should come back to this on Sunday. Who are you really scared of night to night? Okay. It’s It’s not about being scared, Matt. Like that’s that’s never the thing. It’s just about the baseline level that you have to bring every single night. Okay. Every single night, no matter what. Yeah. that we all know that these teams these teams still lose to random because you have to try hard. Is it or is it just like it’s a long se I just I don’t think that it’s like I don’t think the 15th guy is going to decide whether or not Oh, we’re we’re in agreement on that. Like that’s that’s not the question. I think more of what I’m saying like with regard to like you just have to consistently bring your best in the west like or 90th percentile of what you’re capable of on a on a pretty consistent basis in order to get these wins win like in and out for your schedule and like to overcome some of the especially like during January and February where you’re trying to overcome holy crap we’re playing 17 games in 31 days we just have to grind it out there is no but that grind is not like you better bring your best. I don’t think it’s that at all. I just don’t think the NBA regular season is that at all. And I think that it’s not happen stance that the West is has so many better records than the East or that the teams are so much stronger. But I do think that that it’s very overstated how tough the Western Conference is. You can go into LA and you can beat the Clippers on a Tuesday and not have bring your best. You can just beat them. Um the Lakers, same deal. The Wolves, same deal. Like it’s just you better bring your best versus OKC or you’re going home. Like that’s it. Like OKC is like the one team in the West where I’m like, “Yeah, if you do not bring your best, their Seale game will destroy you.” We should definitely revisit this, but I’m curious like what level of Denver’s best they would have to bring in order to get through an Eastern Conference schedule versus a Western Conference schedule and what that would actually translate to from a wins perspective. B to C is my kind of like baseline, but we’ll talk about a little bit more on Sunday night. Um, on the other side, let us know what you think about who they should sign with the 15 spot if they need to sign somebody with a 15 spot. But let’s talk about some players that definitely will not be filling that 15 spot. I’m going to ask Ryan what former Nugget is going to have the best season next year. We’ll tell you that coming up on Lock on Nuggets. Final segment here on Lock on Nugget. Thanks for joining us here on a Wednesday. I hope you guys are having a good week. No swipe for the rest of the week. He is on vacation in the tropics somewhere. I guess I guess we should make up some of those episodes. Like we’ll we’ll we’ll I’ll probably do a solo episode on Friday uh for for that reason. But like we’ll we’ll have to cover the schedule drop, right? Yeah. We’ll have we’ll have a Oh, yeah. We’ll have an announcement. We’ll we’ll have a show on Thursday going over the the Nugget schedule in detail. Make sure to tune in for that. Cool. Um Okay. So, here’s my question for you. Okay. any Nugget, anyone that that has that has put on the the Nuggets uniform for more than like 500 minutes in a season, it’s got to be like a guy that was actually like a rotation guy. The best season next year. Some candidates for you are Michael Porter Jr., which is going to be the heavy heavy favorite. Okay. Jeremy Grant. Uh Russell Westbrook. Okay. Gary Harris for the Milwaukee Bucks. Oh, love Gary is a candidate. Um, Monte Morris. Okay. Colin down in Phoenix. Jared Vanderbilt. Jared Vanderbilt. He’s got a three-point shot this year. Um, I don’t think it’s going to be Malik Beasley. We’ll just move along there. Ysef Nerkage. Do what? And Ysef Nerk. Okay. Who what what former Nuggets going to have the best season next year? Easy answer at this point is to say Michael Porter Jr. just because Hartinstein is actually a pretty good one. He didn’t play a lot, but that’s a very good pull. That counts. I I would I would Man. Okay, that’s So that’s that’s an interesting debate there. Um, I can’t remember whether I had Isaiah Hartinstein or Michael Porter higher in my rankings for Locked on 100. I think I had Hartinstein, but I could be wrong. Um, I I will go ahead right now and say Porter, but that is I think pretty safe. Uh, it’s a it’s a pretty blah pick. Um, he’s going to get the opportunity. There’s no question about that. They’re going to want to see what he can do. It’s really like I I described this to Cam. I think it really is a low like risk high ceiling kind of opportunity for Brooklyn because of the position that they are in. They want to lose games. It’s a desire for them. They’ve draft they drafted five first round picks in the draft this year. They brought back a whole bunch of the the second draft guys that they had with like Dron Sharp, Zyra Williams. They might bring back Cam Thomas. Who knows? But Michael Porter is going to get a bunch of opportunities and Jordi Fernandez is a coach who was with Denver is now head coach in Brooklyn wanted him there very like he definitely vouched for him and I think that they’re going to try to drop some plays and drop some opportunities for him to become the best version of himself in this upcoming season because it helps their organization whether he’s there or not if he’s playing really well. So, we’ll see what happens, but I think it’s going to be Mike. I want to see Mike just have like a Carmela Anthony season. Just jab steps and threes. Just bombing. That’d be cool. Just D G D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D Af energy the entire season in terms of his like offensive discipline. That guy’s earned the right to have a much looser trigger finger. In Brooklyn, um I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna go off the wall here. Colin Gillespie. He played a big role for Phoenix down the stretch. The numbers are shockingly good. And I actually think that this Phoenix team is going to be we’re going to look up and be like, are the Suns like not bad? Because there’s actually some talent there and really developed. I’m going to make the case. I I think that there is a case here is the case. Um Devin Booker is gonna play point guard for them for a lot of the season, right? Like he’s he’s probably going to start at points. He’s going to play next to Jaylen Green. I saw the clip of you talking to Wes. If he could wrestle the ball away from Jaylen Green, he’s going to get a lot of playmaking opportunities. That’s for sure. U but if you want to rotate in some sort of playmaker for other people, Gillespie is going to get some opportunities. And if he pops, if they’re okay kind of surviving some of the defensive deficiencies, the size deficiencies, then I think that there’s at least a world, hey, shoot 40% from three, have a a really strong playmaking season, like eight, nine, 10 assists per 100 possessions, and you just in the opportunities that you get, you shine, and you drive good offense. I think there’s a world where that happens. Is it better than what Michael Porter does in Brooklyn? I don’t know. it’s probably not going to be that much more valuable from a winning perspective. Uh but like neither of those like I don’t think that Phoenix is going to win. I think they’re probably going to be 12th or 13th in the West again, but who knows? Sean does not like the Suns. He’s heranging me about this right currently in the comment section. Booker has never been good as the lone lead ball handler. I will I will argue against that for sure. He he has been very good for a long time. I’m not sure he’s ever been truly great, but he’s never been like he’s always been very good. But he’s saying as the as the lone lead ball handler, which is okay, fair. Like the drop off after CP3 left was pretty pretty dramatic. Can’t argue there. I I love Dragon Bender back in the day. It was really hard to win with Dragon Bender and Josh Jackson. But Sean, he doesn’t have to be the lonely ball handler. He’s got Colin Gillespie now. He’s got Hey, Jaylen Green’s gonna get it up, man. Uh Jeremy Selby, what about Thomas Bryant with Miles Gone? That’s not bad. Jeremy Sy’s killing it here. Thomas Bryant’s pretty good one, too. Here. These these are good polls from These are good polls. Like, I actually really like that, huh? Yeah. Um, KCP is an interesting one. Mention KCP. That’s wild. It’s It’s an interesting question of it’s either going to be like, “Oh, that’s right. KCP’s really good.” Or it’s going to be like, “Oh, no, the expiration date has passed.” I I will make the comparison. I’m going to make the comparison to West Matthews in Milwaukee. Like kind of that level of season where because West Matthews had some really good really valuable seasons in Milwaukee towards the end of his career. Like that’s that’s not a crazy thing to say. Like at one point like 2021 22 like he was amazing in some of those years. I I get it. It’s my my the reason I’m laughing is because he did that after he tore his Achilles in his 30s. Ryan, right? But like he was still really good and really valuable for a team like just coming in as a as a a shooting guard and offg guard. Somebody who can still defend, can still do some things, but like like I I think KCP will be solid as the starter there. Like the question is whether they’re going to want to like I just don’t know what direction Memphis is going. It’s still it still feels very like they could go any way. This is this is just like a fun test. What age do you think KCP is? Uh he’s like 31 32. Okay, you got it. Yeah, but like Wes was like 35 when he was with Milwaukee in 2022. I It’s different because KCP started like he came into the league when he was really young. Like he was he was a in 2013 was when he was drafted. So like he’s got 12 years of mileage and a whole bunch of playoff minutes and things like that. Like he really just has played a lot of minutes. That’s not crazy. That’s not That’s not a crazy thing to say. I think about these things from a mileage perspective and how much they’ve given to the game and the effort that he plays with night in night out. It is a hard game to play. You and I have argued about this before. Who has it harder defensively, KCP or Nicole Joic? You’re like, KCP, what are you a And like the answer, you right. Well, I mean, I don’t I don’t know if it’s I don’t know if it’s correct, but like KCP certainly works harder than Jokic does on a consistent basis. So like I I get that. JB Ben never sports Jay Huff for the best. I you missed it when I when I dropped. So we’re not talking about Jay Huff, huh? You guys are never gonna let go of the Jay Huff thing. They they just do it to get a dig at you because it’s really funny to watch you see over there. And it does work. I like Jay. Who doesn’t like Jay? But let’s be serious. Okay. You see Do you see some of the ducks he was putting on in the in the the runs? It was He’s a really fun player. It was sick. All right, that’s gonna do it for No Jinx. Appreciate you guys being with us. Follow Ryan over on Twitter and check out his work at Mile High Sports and on the Pickax and Roll podcast. I’m unlocked on NBA Daily. Hope you guys have yourselves a great Wednesday. We’ll be back on Thursday. We’ll tell you about the schedule, the ins and outs, the good stretches, the bad stretches. Um, we will have things we will complain about the schedule. Let’s be real. We’ll complain about the schedule and what’s irritated us about it. Um, or and here I will let you I here’s I will not shy to you for complaining. I’m just going to be like totally get it, man. It’s really frustrating. Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s what we need. We we need a supportive Matt over here. It’s your right as a fan to complain about this. Hell yeah. Have yourselves a great Wednesday. Appreciate you guys being with us. We’ll see you guys again next time on Lock on Nuggets.

Matt Moore and Ryan Blackburn would never, ever jinx anyone, which is why this show is called “No Jinx.” On today’s show, the two talk about the Nuggets adding Kessler Edwards on a training camp deal and how he could be a sneaky value contributor to Denver if they keep him. But if not Kessler, who is the 15th man? Do they even need one before training camp? Plus, an interesting discussion of which former Nugget will have the best season next year, and Matt once again falls of Phoenix’s nonsense.

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