Why Denver Nuggets will FAIL in Free Agency

Why Denver Nuggets will FAIL in Free Agency

[Music] All right, welcome into Pickax and Roll, brought to you by our good friends here at Mile High Sports. I am your host Ryan Blackburn at NBA Blackburn on Twitter, part of the Mile High Sports Podcast Network. and I am here. I am ready to break down uh the title of this podcast which I think is going to be why the Nuggets will fail in free agency and maybe in the trade market, things like that. Uh there’s a lot to get into there. Uh this podcast is going up on Wednesday morning. Uh David Adelman is going to have a press conference in the afternoon. I may or may not do uh some content after that on whether it’s Mile High Sports or on the Pickax and Roll podcast here at Mile High YouTube. Make sure to hit the like button, hit the subscribe button. Would really appreciate it. Uh we’ll we’ll see what happens and whether I can I can get to something like that. But first and foremost, I wanted to talk about free agency and trades. Uh, I’m not going to give you a whole bunch of names right now, but I am going to kind of lay out Denver’s situation and some things that I have been thinking about and just a lot of questions that I get from people and a lot of wondering why can’t Denver do this, why can’t Denver do that? What’s the problem? Why are you being such a Debbie Downer, Ryan? Things like that. I’m going to lay out the case. I’m going to lay out previous episode I was very optimistic. I did my best to bring a better tone. This is the internal development strategy. This was my I think belief or at least my attempt at believing what Denver could do in that regard and trying to figure out exactly how they could uh become a better team and become continue to be championship caliber with the current mix that they have. Hypothetically, let’s say that doesn’t happen. Let’s say I’m giving a too muchium to the situation and Denver falls into the injury trap. Let’s say not everything goes according to plan. Usually things don’t during a season. This is my layout. Uh first segment we’re going to talk about the full resource list that Denver has at their disposal this offseason to try to make their team better as well as uh the issues that kind of pertain to that. And then the second segment will be sort of how do you create a valuable off season for Denver? What can you actually do and what could Denver explore and trying to make themselves better? Especially if things aren’t perfect, especially if things aren’t ideal and the Nuggets have to pivot. One of the reasons why this came around, I want to start with two graphics here real quick. Let’s go to this view. This is Denver’s upcoming salary cap sheet that they have. If you’re listening to the audio side, sorry. I’ll do my best to describe things. Basically, Denver has 13 roster spots that are committed to over the course of the 2025 26 season if Dario Sarich opts into his player option, which is 5.4 million. I don’t see why he wouldn’t. and Russell Westbrook, who came out earlier today, I I’m recording this on Tuesday, that Russell Westbrook had surgery on his hand to try to repair a couple of ligaments in his non-shooting hand. Uh I would expect him to opt in to that player option now as well just to guarantee well maybe maybe there is an opt out and and he decides you know what I’ll try to see if I could get a couple hund extra hundred thousand for another minimum contract things like that but with the potential issue that comes with hey I’ve got surgery want to guarantee that I’m getting some cash unless there’s a team that’s able to line up a deal with him. I don’t think that he’s going to get a big raise from Denver and so they’re going to have to kind of navigate that. It’s going to be very difficult. So Denver has 13 guys that they are committed to for the 202526 season. You can only carry a roster spot full of 15 people and you get three two-way contracts after that. Notice I did not include any of the two-way guys. Trey Alexander, Spencer Jones, PJ Hall on this particular sheet. But the long and short of it for people that are watching along right now, Denver does not have a lot of room. They have four different guys, mostly three right now that have a whole bunch of money committed to them. And Nicole Yokic 55 million next year. Jamal Murray 46.4 million next year. and Michael Porter Jr. 38.3 million next year as well. Aaron Gordon’s only got 22.8 million. He’s got a great contract, especially for this next season. It’ll get more pricey and more expensive in the following years, but for now, I think it’s going to be very interesting to see uh just whether Denver can take advantage of the fact that he took a hometown discount in order to give Denver some flexibility. But beyond that, it’s a very cheap roster. The only guys that are kind of making too much money, you could argue, are Zeke Naji and Dario Sarge. Uh they are not factors for Denver, but they will be impeded because of where Denver is at. If you pay your top four guys what is effectively a combined 155 million, it’s really difficult to do anything else. Um, that’s the long and short of it. Like that’s actually is it 15? No, it’s 160 million. If you pay your top four guys 160 million, it’s going to be very very difficult to have any other flexibility because Denver’s committed only about like they’ve 199.4 million in in salary over the course of next season. And so they have problems and the big reason why they have problems is because the salary cap is 154 million. So they are 45 million over the salary cap. they cannot sign major free agents. And what used to be the case was that if you were within kind of the the first apron, you could at least use the non-taxpayer mid-level exception. It was a large number. Even if you were above the first apron, the taxpayer mid-level exception used to be a larger chunk. But because we are in the first apron and second apron era, the ownership groups screwed Denver. They effectively made it impossible for Denver to add to their roster with good players. And so Denver, when they first signed Bruce Brown back in 2022, gave him a contract that was worth $6.4 million. And then the NBA changed the terms of what those midlevel exceptions and taxpayer mid-level exceptions were. And they can’t even give this next player that they could sign the t the same taxpayer mid mid-level exception is going to be a million less despite the fact that it’s 3 years after when they gave Bruce Brown that contract. Keep in mind they’ll probably still give it to Bruce Brown. That’s my expectation is that Bruce Brown is probably going to be a Denver Nugget with that particular exception. If he is not, if they decide to go a different direction, the kinds of players that they are going to be able to get for 5.4 5.5 in that general range million dollars, it’s not a lot. It’s just there’s not a lot of guys that you’re going to get that are impactful enough. And how that really has borne across over the course of these last two seasons is that Denver gave the first one to Reggie Jackson on their own team. It’s a horrible deal, horrible decision. It was one of the reasons they did it was because it was promised to him and ultimately it didn’t work out. the next season they gave it to Daario Sarich. And so at least with Reggie Jackson, he played during the playoffs during the 2024 year. He wasn’t great, but he had a moment or two. With Daario, he just it was just such a fail. And now he’s on the hook for another 5.4 million for next season. And I don’t know, like Denver could get out of it. There’s a couple of different ways that they could. One is to trade him somewhere. want us to buy out his contract, want us to wave and stretch him. Uh, that’s a that’s a different conversation for a different day. But the long and short and the reason why I wanted this up here for so long was because everybody has this this feeling this assumption that and like I I am I think there are things that I would have done differently than Calvin Booth. Of course, I thought that he did a pretty bad job in terms of managing Denver’s assets, but I also kind of understand why he struggled. Denver was in a really tough position to begin with, and unfortunately, Calvin Booth’s decisions made that worse. Some of the guys that he picked, some of the decisions that he made made things more challenging for himself rather than easier. Uh, but now I look at the situation that the Nuggets are in. looking at what they have to work with and am mostly at a loss for words in terms of what they can do to make their team better if not through internal development. Now one of the biggest reasons why that is is because of this graph. This comes from uh Owen Phillips who does a Substack that’s very datacentric that does a lot of good visualizations but the idea was originally from Tom Habertstro. It is a visualization of the number of allNBA allstar and all defense teammates that an MVP has played with during the first 10 seasons of their career. And so MVPs, of course, uh there there haven’t been that many throughout history, but there have been enough that you can look at guys like Magic Johnson who’s had over 30 in in the first 10 seasons. He’s played for with Kareem Abdul Jabbar, James Worthy, guys like like stars. Larry Bird has played with stars. Steph Curry of course has played with stars. Carl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Shaq, Russell Westbrook, even LeBron James and Michael Jordan. Not nearly as many as some of those other guys, but certainly enough. And then you get all the way down to Nicole Yokic, who has never once in the first 10 seasons of his career played with an all-star, an allNBA, or an alldefense player. And it’s a little bit misleading, and I’ll tell you why. Because Jamal Murray has stepped up in the playoffs on multiple occasions and become an all-star AllNBA caliber playoff performer at times. Now, it’s not consistent enough. He’s done it two out of the last five seasons. So, he signed a five-year max contract with the Nuggets and then signed this four-year max contract extension that I’ll get to in a little bit. But during those five years, he had two great playoff years. one fine playoff year this season, one bad playoff year in um uh in 2024 and then he was hurt for another two actually the bubble year he was still under his rookie contract. So that one can’t even count. So he’s had one great year, he’s had one bad year, he’s had one good year. I think this year counts as good. And then two injury missed years. Michael Porter Jr. never really developed into an all-star. There’s a reason for that. I think Michael Malone is actually a big reason why he never did, but also because Michael Porter, just the injuries, I think had to reshape who he was in the NBA. Aaron Gordon, somebody they traded for, never really was close to an all-star in the Eastern Conference, was very close back in 2023 to making it for Denver. It was either him or Jiren Jackson. Jiren Jackson ultimately got the nod. But outside of those three guys, the only other players that I think you could say were ever close were maybe like Galinari back in 2017. And that’s it. like there’s there’s nobody else that I think you could really say justified anywhere close to being an all-star. And the fact that Denver’s never had an alldefense guy during this entire stretch, I think is also problematic. Denver’s had a whole bunch of guys that are offensive centric. They have brought in role players to try to fill in the gaps, but for the most part, they have never had a they’ve never had a guy who could fundamentally change the defense next to Joic. Some of that is to do with Joic, his weaknesses, his overall like involvement in everything because the opposing team wants to involve him in everything. Other guys can’t be involved in everything because they’re just not out there enough or not involved enough. Uh, but Denver needs to change this. First 10 seasons of an MV MVP’s career, Joic is the only player, the only MVP that has never once had an all-star, all NBA or alldefense guy. And so when you’re talking about a talent deficit, that is one of the things that you talk about. You talk about how much guys make in comparison to other players and and why Denver is paying Jamal Murray as much as they are. He’s just signed a 4-year $28 million extension. It’s a lot. Michael Porter Jr. towards the tail end of a rookie extension that was very pricey, but like he hasn’t manifested into the talent that Denver needed him to be. Aaron Gordon, I think, has done exactly what Denver asked him to do, but they never asked him to be an all-star. They asked him to buy into his role, and he’s done that, and now he’s being paid like the elite role player that he is, he’s not being paid like an all-star. Um, but what I will say is that while Denver has so much money tied up in Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., those guys need to be great. It just has to happen because there is no way the Nuggets will ever generate enough value from the the rest of their roster. Joic can do whatever he wants. Like he already has. He’s been the best player in the world for five years. Nobody in the world can account for the fact if Murray is not going to be all-star caliber in the playoffs if Porter is not going to be an elite starter like kind of in the top 10 at their position kind of mold. If they’re not going to be at that level, it’s just impossible for Denver to make things happen anymore because they lost KCP and didn’t really replace him talentwise. They lost Bruce Brown, never really replaced him talent-wise, and Denver’s just up a creek at this point. They’ve got, I would say, Christian Brown, Payton Watson, Russell Westbrook, Julian Strawther, all outperforming their contract value per number, like per dollar. Aaron Gordon, I think he’s outperforming his contract value. Nicole Joic might even be outperforming his contract value. But in the modern NBA, the second apron era, where you need everybody to be in lock step, where you need everything on board and everything has to be valuable. Murray’s contract and Porter’s contract are almost debilitating unless they rise to the level. And so I’m very curious to see how Denver handles this. Whoever the new general manager is, whoever, like what David Adam ultimately does with those guys, can he help turn Jamal Murray into an all-star? Can he help get the best out of Michael Porter Jr. kind of felt like they got the best out of Michael Porter Jr.? And I’m not sure we’re ever going to see a better version of Jamal Murray. We might, we might not. Who knows? Uh, but I think Denver’s at a very, very dangerous place financially and with their cap sheet that they now have to get creative and there’s not a lot of assets that they have left to get creative with. When we come back, we’re going to chat about that list of assets, what Denver can do, what they have at their disposal, and then how they can create this ever so valuable offseason. We’ll be right back here on Pickax and Roll. All right, we are back. Pickax and roll. Ryan Blackburn here. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Hit that like button. Hit that subscribe button. Would really, really appreciate it. Let’s go over the asset list really quick. It’s very short. It’s It is very short. Denver during this draft, the 2025 draft, will have access to one first round pick that they can trade. That is the 2031 first round pick. They will have access to zero second round picks that they can trade. That is because over the course of the last calendar year, they gave up six second round picks. Three to move up and select Don Holmes, three to get off of Reggie Jackson’s salary. I’m going to criticize it every time it comes up. It is horrible. Just a despicable deal. And the fact that Denver made it has actually really set them back. And if they had just had Reggie Jackson’s salary, they could have traded for Jonas Valenunis or Larry Nance Jr. or somebody to be a better backup center. I digress. So, Denver doesn’t have any second round picks that they can trade. They have one first round pick they can trade. They have to unprotect every other pick in 2027, in 2029. I think if the right deal came along, they would do that. But I got to be honest, I’m I’m not sure if there’s a great situation for Denver uh to actually generate the the deal that you’re talking about. Uh maybe maybe there’s a couple of names I can throw out there in the future, but I’ve done some of this on socials if you want to ping me there, but there will be plenty of time to talk specific names. This is not what this is about. Once the draft is over, 2025 draft, Denver will gain access to trading their actually they can’t trade their 2026 first round pick until draft night. Uh but they will have access to trade their 2032 first and second round picks. The problem is the Steppian rule. So if Denver trades 2031, they obviously can’t trade 2032. If they trade 2032, they obviously can’t trade 2031. So, Denver can only still trade one first round pick until the draft in 2026, which is over a year from now. Kind of think that if if Denver is stuck right now, if there’s actually nothing that they can do, a 2026 draft day trade that includes the expiring contract of Michael Porter Jr. for $40 million as well as a 2026 firstrounder and a 2031 first round pick. It’s a pretty valuable deal for the right situation. Think about it from uh like Indiana for example. Remember when they traded Bruce Brown and three sec and three first round picks for Pascal Seakum? Think about it like that. Like that might be the right time to do it and you might have to bite the bullet right now in order to make a deal like that happen. Uh, but I digress. So, that’s the list of assets that they have. They don’t have a whole bunch of extra draft capital. They’ve sold off everything else. This last trade deadline, they tried to float out the idea of different swaps where, hey, you want to swap 2030 second round picks, you want to swap 2031 first round picks, you want to swap in 2026 or 2020, something like that. The answer in most of those cases was no. Most teams just thought that purely getting second rounders, maybe even a first round pick from a team was more valuable than the idea of a swap with Denver. The longer out that Denver goes, let’s say it’s 2031 or even let’s say it’s 2032, they might get more takers for something like that. Um, I remember when Boston traded for Derek White, they traded multiple I was it two first? I I think it was one first, but it was a 2028 first round pick swap. Top one protected. And as it turns out, based off of Jason Tatum tearing his Achilles and uh different situations that might force Boston to pivot, maybe that becomes valuable for San Antonio in 2028, you know, 3 years from now when Victor Webbyama is an absolute monster. You just don’t know in these situations with Boston. So, we we’ll see what happens. But that’s really all Denver can do from a or offer from a trade standpoint. It’s why when people ask me, hey, why can’t they get involved in the Kevin Durant sweep stakes? Well, maybe they can, but as somebody who’s kind of going through a couple of different exercises trying to figure out the right deal, it’s very hard to figure out how to give up enough value for Kevin Durant without trading multiple starters and multiple bench players. Oh, and by the way, every asset you have. And then can you field a team even after you do that? The answer may be no. Um, other details like could Denver get involved for somebody like Desmond Bane? Could they like who’s who’s another good name that’s out there that that might make a degree of sense? Um, I don’t know. Like obviously Giannis, they can’t get involved in Giannis because they don’t have enough assets to to throw out there. uh if they wanted to trade for um Larry Markin like they can’t really do that. Larry Markin is way more valuable than anything than Denver can throw Utah’s way. Uh unless they decide they also want to get in on the same sweep stakes that OKC has done and decide you know what we would love to give Larry Markin for Michael Porter Jr. uh Julian Strawther a 2031 first round pick and swaps in 2030 and 2032. Maybe they just make that bet and Denver gets a somebody who’s made an all-star team. Maybe it could do that again in Denver. I don’t know. But the long and short of it is that Denver cannot do that much. There are some minor things that they can do from a free agency standpoint, but again, because they’re over the first apron, that’s the rule. They only have access to the taxpayer mid-level exception, which is a 5.35.4 million contract offer. And a lot of other teams can just offer more than what Denver can. So, a lot of these guys that like I’ll pull up my my free agency list here. top free agents by position like Malik Beasley is the top shooting guard on the market which is insane by the way. Cam Thomas, Nquille Alexander Walker, Ty Jerome, Quinton Grimes. I think all those guys are clearly out of Denver’s price range. Think Tim Hardaway Jr. probably out of Denver’s price range even though Denver could have traded for him back during this last offseason and had him under contract. Um even guys like Gary Trent Jr. Luke Canard. Keon Ellis is a team option. Uh, a guy who I I would keep my eye on, Caris Levert. Does he get the money that he wants from Atlanta? Would he rather play for a contender? Could Caris Levert come play a bench scoring role for a team like the Nuggets for a cheap contract? He could probably do it for a slightly more expensive contract with another contender, which is why Denver runs into this problem in the first place. So, that’s the problem that Denver has and it’s why, as the title says, I think Denver will fail in free agency and trade talks this particular season. And it sucks. Like, I think that that is an unfortunate reality for Denver. But it’s also why the Nuggets front office ownership uh vice chairman uh Josh Kroni of KSC has really started putting forth this idea of internal development. And I’m calling Cap because I do not think that Denver would be discussing internal development with this group if they had assets that they could throw out there. I think Josh Grunkkey looks at the situation, understands that it’s going to be very hard for Denver to trade guys like Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. for value. I think it’s going to be hard for them to combine Dario Sarich and Zeke Naji with assets to get a better player because they don’t have assets to trade. And I think he’s realizing this and that was one of the reasons why he put out the phrase internal development for Denver because they can’t develop externally. There’s no way that they can do it. They don’t have a draft pick. They don’t have free agency options. They don’t have trade options. So what do you do? Well, you don’t lie to people, but you kind of like any good politician, you finagle the truth a little bit and you say, “Yeah, we’re going to focus on our internal development.” I mean, look at how like valuable Christian Brown was. Look at how awesome Payton Watson is, Julian Strawther, guys like that. Look at how much value you can do and get from these guys. We’re gonna focus on them. And it’s not that crazy. As I as I mentioned in my optimism show on Monday, it’s not that crazy for Denver to basically say, “Yeah, we’re going to commit to those guys because we think that they could be valuable.” Christian Brown, I think, has a case. He’s already earned it. Um, by the way, let me pull up the screenshot here again real quick. The salary cap sheet. Everybody is scared of the 30 million that Christian Brown will be making. The projected salary cap for 2026 27 is 170 million. So as I do the math here really quick, what is 30 divided by 170? 17.6% of the salary cap right now. Like Michael Porter Jr. makes 38 and the salary cap this year will be 154. So he makes 24.6. If Christian Brown is making 17, that’s fine. Like it’s not it’s not that crazy. Um Emanuel Quickley will make the same amount of money. Jaylen Suggs will make maybe slightly more. Those guys are still in the general ballpark of what you’re talking about for Christian Brown. So that’s not crazy. Now, if Peyton Watson’s making 20, if Julian Strawther ends up making 15 million, if you have to give the full taxpayer MLE to Russell Westbrook, or else he’s going to walk away in free agency and you don’t have a way to replace him, then that could also be a problem, too. like you you start to get very expensive very quickly and so you have to make you have to find some value somewhere. So we’ll see what Christian Brown ultimately makes. I kind of don’t think he’s going to get that 30 million mark in at least the first year of his deal. So I wouldn’t be that like it’s it’s not that crazy. Uh but just keep in mind that the number 30 million is not that crazy anymore. It’s when you start getting 40 million and 50 million and guys are now starting to make 60 and maybe even closing in on 70 million that you really start to have an issue. And 30 million is only a problem for Christian Brown if those other numbers are also happening. Um so that would be I think the concern. But yeah, this is the this is the problem. How do you create a valuable off season for this Nuggets team? How can you possibly do that with what I have just shown? Well, you have to hit on everything and you have to get creative and you probably have to make a trade. I am not of the opinion that Denver should run it back. I want to make that perfectly clear. I know there’s a lot of people that think I’m I’m caping for the organization when I’m trying to lay out the path, when I’m trying to lay out the the vision that they are showing. I’m just trying to show you what they’re saying. But I have been pretty negative overall and I think pretty straightforward that I don’t think the plan is going to work. And so if they run back the same plan, yeah, there’s a marginal benefit I think that you could get from David Adelman being the guy that helps you like it can help the young guys especially. But is it going to help Jamal Murray become the best version of himself? Probably not. It’s going to help Michael Porter, I don’t know. Aaron Gordon, we’ll see. Nicole Joic, he’s I don’t think he’s going to be super enthused if Denver brings back basically the exact same group. I don’t think he will be. So, I think you got to bring back somebody different, something different. So, can you get a new seventh man or eighth man in a trade? If you don’t believe in Pton Watson, and I know that a lot of folks are a little bit tepid on him, especially after the playoffs, he only averaged about 14 minutes per game and was shaky. I thought he shot the ball reasonably well from the outside, but when they asked him to do anything more, he kind of turtled a little bit. and I think that there’s still some development that needs to happen there. Um, if you believe that you need to upgrade on him, a deal that I’ve thrown out is the idea of Chicago moving AO Dumu for Payton Watson and Daario Sarge. They get another cheap option for Payton Watson. He’s at a better uh position for them. They’ve got a whole bunch of guards and Kobe White and Josh Giddy and some other guys that they’ve got going on. Uh they commit to those different players and they get a flyer at a different position and the Nuggets get a guard that they can trust to defend, playmake, shoot off the ball, things like that uh for shorter team control. But then that’s why the the Bulls might do that. So, could you justify making Aayodumu maybe your sixth man? Maybe he replaces Russell Westbrook, maybe you just add him to the mix and he’s with Russell Westbrook. Um, can you add somebody in free agency with the taxpayer MLE? Uh, let’s say it’s um, let me just go to my list real quick. Um, say it’s Torian Prince. Can you get Tarian Prince for the taxpayer MLE? Probably. I don’t see why not. He gets to play next to Joic gets to play next to Murray. Uh he’s a good replacement in certain lineups for Michael Porter Jr. things like that. Um okay. So that’s you’ve got your same core five. You’ve got Tarian Prince. You’ve got Aodumu. And you didn’t even give up a first round pick. You’re holding on to that bad boy for dear life. you’ve got Don Holmes coming back. Let’s say you add a veteran kind of mid minimum contract backup center uh as as somebody that you you can add to that mix. And then that’s your team. You’ve got, let’s say, Russell Westbrook also comes back. So you’ve got Russell Westbrook, you’ve got Aayodou, you’ve got Julian Strawther, you’ve got Tarian Prince, you’ve got Don Holmes, you’ve got some other minimum contract backup center. That team’s marginally better. Is it that much better? Maybe, maybe not. But could somebody like Aayoduma be your Bruce Brown for this year? Of course. Absolutely. So, that’s the way that you got to be thinking. Now, if you believe in Payton Watson, you don’t want to give up on him and you’d rather trade somebody else. Maybe you trade Julian Strawther, maybe you trade hell, you could trade Christian Brown and go try to get another starter back. Uh, that deal is harder to do because of the money because Christian only makes about 4.9 million next year. So finding a matching salary value for somebody like that really really difficult especially like somebody that’s actually good that other teams are willing to part with. So I don’t necessarily think that that’s likely. Also I think Christians earned the right to be a nugget on his next contract. So we’ll see what happens there. But it’s why those options are so limited. you’re either like trading Payton Watson or Julian Strather or somebody like that along with maybe your 2031 first round pick if you really want to get valuable or you’re trying to get some upgrade at sixth or seventh man. Uh maybe getting somebody as an eighth man for your taxpayer MLE and that’s that’s about all you got. Um, so that I think would be a pretty good off seasonason if Denver was to do that to maybe upgrade those fringe positions and then try to get some like you got to hit on a minimum contract guy. You’ve got to hit on maybe a college free agent, somebody that you add as a two-way contract. Maybe they try to manipulate their way to Denver, say, “We don’t want to be drafted. We’d rather just go to your organization.” But you have to find the right guy to do that. I just don’t think that Denver’s in a good position to make that happen. But who knows, maybe that’s a way to do it. That would be a fine off season. Would it be perfect? No. Can Denver win a championship with that? Yes. Are their odds good? No. Would their odds get better if you trade Jamal Murray or Michael Border? That is up for debate. So, this is why I think when Denver, and I I said it a little bit earlier, this is why when Denver hits the off season and starts making moves in free agency and everybody starts to wonder, why aren’t they doing anything? What are they doing? What’s what’s or are they just not going to do anything? This is why. It’s because they don’t have the flexibility that people are looking for. and maybe they can generate it, but the only way to do so, and I repeat, the only way to do so is to make a trade for one of Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Jr. Trading Zeke Naji is fine. That’s not real flexibility. He’s making $7.5 million next year. It’s not that crazy. Maybe he even plays a role for the team next season. Who knows? Like maybe he’s better than Dron Holmes next year. There’s at least a world where that’s true. But if you are the Nuggets, the only way to generate actual change would be to break up your core four. Straight up. That’s that’s as simple as it is. And so if Denver’s willing to do that, then maybe we’ll see some some creativity here. They’re probably not going to have a lot of suitors. That’s what I’ll say. Um, but who knows, maybe the right deal comes along and you’re surprised and Denver gets a little bit better. And I can talk about some of those teams. I’ll talk about specific suitors for Jamal Murray or Michael Porter in a future episode, but right now I just wanted to lay out the problems. It’s why internal development is such a big deal. It’s why they are focused on it. Focused on it because they don’t have an alternative. They can’t do anything else. If they do, they’ll just be lying to themselves unless they’re willing to kind of make a trade that does not benefit them for this season. So, we’ll talk about that in a future episode. But for now, that is going to do it for this episode of Pickax and Roll, brought to our good friends here at Mile High Sports. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Hit the like button, hit the subscribe button on the way out. Would really, really appreciate it. Uh, next episode will be on Friday morning as I react to what David Adam says on Wednesday and just anything else that potentially pops up. Thank you so much everybody. Have a good one. We’ll talk to you guys very soon.

On the latest episode of Pickaxe and Roll, Ryan Blackburn breaks down the challenges the Denver Nuggets will face in Free Agency and why fans will feel like this summer will be a failure. He shares Denver’s salary cap situation, free agency objectives, and why he’s concerned that fans will feel like the team isn’t doing enough to help Nikola Jokic this summer.

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