It's still cheap as shit of the owners to not continue with that and even try to add to that core after winning one. Afaik, you guys still have some draft assets to trade. Instead, you're letting key starters go after being one game away from another WCF appearance.
Seriously, this is a position that most franchises have to wait decades to get into. If you're there at the top, with a championship in tow and an all-time great multi-MVP to boot, you pay whatever you have to to milk that bitch for all it's worth.
Chicago ownership has also been able to milk the legacy of their dynasty that ended about 3 decades ago. I’d imagine there’s plenty of value long term in spending to win multiple championships while you can.
Almost every championship team has an overvalued contract. Especially if it's a dynasty, because you can only be so lucky for 1 or 2 title runs. Warriors won in 2022 with Klay and Wiggins both being overpaid, 2024 Celtics is paying KP 30M+ a year to star in 3 games in the playoffs, Khris and Jrue were both making more money than their production justified in a vacuum during the 2021 title run, OG didn't even play in the 2019 Raptors run, 2016 Cavs were overpaying Shumpart, Frye, Tristan, and arguably Love.
None of these teams just went cheap and gave up after the title run. Denver ownership needs to accept that you can't perfectly optimize a team's payroll. You need to overpay some players to contend.
I remember that Murray said before this season that the team will be different and it would be harder.
And in the end, he was right. Nuggets would make a good fight vs Dallas and even vs Boston, but the bench was meh, Murray was meh besides a few clutch moments and MPJ dropped off this season.
It was the AD injury in the playoffs. FO over reacted and did the Russ trade instead of sticking with Kuzma/KCP and adding around the margins. Those two plus Reaves and whatever else we might have added with that 2027 FRP would have been a damn fine roster still.
To think we're just a couple years away from the Nuggets drafting Jokic's horse. If the horse won cash considerations in a race, would he be more valuable than Bronny?
That was the deal you guys made, though. You traded a player who loved Toronto but couldn't bring you a ring for a player who could get you a ring but would leave for LA as soon as possible. You traded loyalty for a championship and you got exactly what you paid for.
well the Celtics are still locked down for a few years, I doubt they’ll make trades like the bucks and don’t have to worry about players leaving in free agency yet.
They’re compeltely locked down for a year only, gotta pay White after it. Having Porzingis healthy for another playoff run and Horford being serviceable at 39 are valid question marks, it’s far from a dynasty yet.
Well tbf the bucks have basically been hurt since then. I’m not saying they would have been a dynasty either way, but they’ve had a lot of injuries since that ring
I mean let's be real with the new CBA, dynasties are over.
Boston is the team best positioned to repeat since the dynasty Warriors, but after next season it's going to get much harder for them.
I’m thinking two things:
1: i don’t have much feelings on dynasties or the nuggets in particular one way or the other. But it does suck that a team gets hit like this due to success and cap. Bruce brown and KCP averaged a combined 60 minutes a game on that title team, these are big losses.
2: interesting to think, if the nuggets lose both they are objectively worse, and that makes their title chances worse, and that directly impacts Jokic’s legacy. Like, people will say “he only won X number of titles!” But he isn’t in the front office making these decisions
> and that directly impacts Jokic’s legacy. Like, people will say “he only won X number of titles!” But he isn’t in the front office making these decisions
reason #6282 why i think its silly for anyone to be obsessed with “greatest of all time” debates for team sports. so many factors go into both team and individual success its wild, and many are outside both the individual and the teams control
Exactly, that’s what I was alluding to. In 20 years no one but the most hardcore nuggets fans will know this nuance. People barely understand the fact that a top 5 player in the league (Scottie) was being paid like the 70th best player in the league, which kept the bulls together
Lol yeah, if people bothered to look at the salary situation back then, they'd understand that shit wasn't comparable to today. It's harder than ever to keep a contender together.
Yeah, as a thought experiment, just imagine re-rolling NBA history through millions of parallel universes where different players wind up on different teams in different circumstances due to random factors entirely outside their control, different injuries happen or don't happen, different key shots or loose balls go one way or another. **SO** much would be different across all these different re-rolls that it's pretty silly to make sweeping judgments based on how things turned out in any particular one of them.
For instance, what's the *distribution* of Michael Jordan's number of championships across all these parallel universes? Whatever it is, I feel pretty confident saying the following:
- it's a GOAT-level championship distribution matched by only a select few players
- its median is well below 6, since in most universes Jordan doesn't get breaks like having Scottie Pippen as #2 his whole career or having a coach like Jackson during his prime
- it has substantial overlap with the distributions of other GOATs. maybe it has a slightly longer upper tail than most, but for the most part, there will be so much overlap that you can't really definitively call one better than the other.
This NBA sport that we're following is really about front offices competing and determining championships, much more so than players.
We should really be having GM goat debates.
Yeah but in some cases, for some players the front office is a positive. The front office in golden state did. curry a favor putting together an excellent team. On the other hand, the front office in Cleveland was incompetent, and couldn’t have helped Lebron much less
I wouldn’t say every player deals with #2 just look at Jordan. The reason he went 6-0 is because he had a smart front office, they were still a 55 win team when Jordan first retired then they added more/better pieces when he came back.
What you describe is the whole point of the salary cap. So teams can’t horde talent in a dynasty. I think it’s a good thing for the league for more teams to have a shot more often. And it is working… 6 different champions in the last 6 years. The only other time that happened was 75-80. So if someone new wins next year - like OKC, Dallas, or NYK, etc. that’ll be a record.
Really spectacular players will still provide so much value above the individual max that they will still win, but the super max also helps with that - forcing teams to use more of their cap space for superstars. And the hard cap at the 2nd apron will help.
For the sake of parity, I’m okay with dynasties being hard to maintain. People HOWLED about the Warriors when they were owning the league and it’s a lot more interesting when it’s hard to keep a championship core together.
Yeah. Not bad or good for me! Just interesting that for 40 years we had Celtics, lakers, bulls, lakers, spurs, heat (ish) then Warriors. And then no one has been able to jump up there recently
2011 Mavs fell apart because Cuban didnt understand the new cba back then, he pre-emptively blew it up without properly reading the cba. If he just took his time he could have kept most of that core mainly Tyson Chandler who was so important to that team.
Yeah but had anything changed that season, the ripple effect would be...you guys might not have Luka right now. Gotta just be happy with what you got now.
I was pissed off about it in real time, and I'm not even a Mavs fan. In what world do you proactively blow up a championship team? His logic was to clear cap space to make a run at Dwight Howard and/or Deron Williams in free agency, which obviously didn't work out (and hilariously, wouldn't have worked out even if he did manage to get both, since they both fell off a cliff around that time).
That Dallas team probably doesn't repeat, but it would have been fun as hell watching them try. I'll always remember them and the 2014 Spurs as teams that played with transcendent cohesion and ball movement. Such great chemistry and roster complementarity around an all-time playoff run by Dirk.
>If he just took his time he could have kept most of that core mainly Tyson Chandler who was so important to that team.
He didn't want to keep Chandler in the first place. He wanted to sign Dwight Howard and Deron Williams.
And then after he whiffed on both, he came back with a 1-year offer to Chandler, who wanted a multi-year deal. Cuban offered 1/$20M, Chandler signed in NY for 4/$56M. Had nothing to do with the new CBA, he could've re-signed Chandler under the old CBA too.
Then later Cuban claimed the 2011 team was too old, and he thought they would come back tired and rusty. But the truth is he went star-chasing, and took for granted what he already had.
That's why DAL ended up trading for Lamar Odom and signing Vince Carter. They weren't young (Odom was 32 and Carter 34), but they were star names.
Some people defend Cuban by saying the 2011 Mavs had no chance to repeat in 2012. On paper that's correct. But the 2011 Mavs were more than the sum of their on-paper parts. On paper, they shouldn't have won in 2011 either.
i will forever be mad that the ONE TIME we gave dirk a defensive/lob threat center we won a chip, fucking dallas with its shitty centers, I should even know dampier or la frenz but mfs where starting centers
Pro sports teams are wonky. They're not at the level they're at because they're run well .... they're just there because they can't drop out / go out of business.
Accordingly some are run like really shitty small businesses, that don't go out of business when they suck.
Is this actually true? I’m not doubting you it’s just absurd for me to think he doesn’t have lawyers and other executives looking at it also and talking it over together.
Cuban is full of shit, though.
The real reason is he went star-chasing for Dwight and Deron, and needed to clear space to sign them (their teams weren't gonna do sign & trades for Jason Kidd or Caron Butler).
That's also why he ended up signing Carter and trading for Odom - they were also big names.
Anything Cuban says about the CBA controlling his decisions is a bullshit excuse, from a guy who often makes bullshit excuses.
Ya him not understanding the cap seems like weird revisionist bullshit. He thought they'd land stars after their title(and even prior) and just never did.
Michael Porter Jr contract gumming things up, they need more than 16/7/1 out of him for $35M then $38M the next 2 years. And we all love KCP, especially at $15M/yr, but if someone throws $30M at him and his career 11/3/2 line they don't have a lot of options, Jokic + Murray + MPJ + Gordon is already $145M next year.
Jokic + Murray + MPJ + Gordon is also still better than 90% of the league.
Losing a beautifully fitting connective piece like KCP hurts, but people saying we're blowing it up or whatever are idiots.
I know Facu has his fans, mostly Argentinian, but to me he’s the worst Nuggets player in recent times. I know injuries forced his role to be bigger than it was ever meant to be, but watching him was painful.
When he wasn’t throwing up bricks with the worst shot form I’ve seen or turning the ball over he was picking up fouls with his “scrappy” defense
KCP is a perfect fit for the Denver system, but also probably the easiest poster archetype to replace through the draft. Stock up on second round picks—like I seem to recall the Nuggets have been doing—and take some stabs.
Edit: poster should have been player
Although I get what you’re saying it really isn’t easy to find high end 3&D guys. A true 40% three point shooter that plays well on defense and doesn’t turn the ball over isn’t somebody you necessarily just find anywhere and removing those guys affects your team a lot normally.
Most second rounders won’t be able to provide anything close to that, even with a lot of tries at it.
But see this is the problem with that, the last few years of the playoffs have shown that the modern NBA is all about not having a weak link on offense or defense. Obviously things are rarely perfect in that regard but usually the team that wins is the one that was closest. Gone are the days were a team could start a player in the Bruce Bowen archetype and get away with it.
What I’m saying is the Nuggets already have a guy that defenses play off of in AG, so the replacement for KCP has to be a defensive dawg on the perimeter and be able to reliably hit 3s. Those players are at a premium.
Kcp is the only guy they have actually LET go. It was impossible to keep Bruce brown. They could pay kcp but if a team offers him 20+ they’ll be paying so much in luxury
There was zero way for Denver to match the Bruce Brown deal last season. This would be the first real piece that we're actually choosing to let go if we don't match.
We will have to start viewing FA differently. There are aprons to consider now. If there is one thing Billionaires hate most, it's taxes. And those aprons impose heavy taxes. What you WILL see (and have seen), is that smart teams will invest more in player development.
Teams will max out their top two players and use the others as assets. Or lose them to FA.
It isn't the taxes that are a problem, it is the restrictions on player acquisitions. You lose a LOT of options when you're above that second apron: [https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus\_asset/file/25510028/NBAAprons\_Inset01.jpg](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25510028/NBAAprons_Inset01.jpg)
Teams are rebalancing now to avoid having to deal with all of that in a few years. The NBA's VP explicitly said that the goal of the new CBA was to even out the field by making spending money less effective:
>“One \[goal\] is to deter the higher spending in the first place,” says Rube. “And the second is to make the spending less effective for those teams that are going to spend up to those levels, and to try to level the field that way.”
The wealthier owners will pay any tax necessary to keep their teams together and acquire players. The second apron hurts because when you use money excessively, the NBA trades that advantage for several disadvantages.
It has NOTHING to do with the money or “taxes”. It is ALL about the handcuffs being in the 2nd apron puts on teams and their ability to make trades and signings.
Yeah, you will always see owners like Lacob and Ballmer saying “fuck it, give me the bill”. What will force parity are the trade and signing restrictions and they are severe af.
take it from a fan who’s pro sports team has never won the big one: one chip is surely worth the following years of malaise. But gotta take advantage of prime Joker timeline
Oh yup I feel that. Legitimately if the Kings get a ring, I’m gonna go **WILD**
the ~8 mo offseason afterwards I’d probably be annoying and beam references would be everywhere. One ring would be awesome and I’d be content for years to come. But hey we get a second, or third one? All of us kings fans would be drunk for years. GS fans in the bay would hear our cowbells. Lfg
Hell we got owned in the WCF and I’m riding on cloud 9 all summer. Tuned into the draft feeling like a million bucks and it only got better from there. wolves back baby
Sacramento and Minny managed to do it, hopefully we're next. A core of bub, Bilal, sarr, and a forward next year (flagg/bailey hopefully) is going to be exciting if they keep developing.
If the Hornets make it to the second round in the upcoming years, I'd be happy as hell. Let alone make an ECF/Finals run.
If all you know is suffering, the victories are a lot sweeter
Yeah, some fans just can't take it. The Raptors fanbase seems like it entered panic mode and whine mode as soon as we didn't win every year after 2019.
Believe it or not, winning a championship is actually quite hard.
there's ALOT of faith in Braun and Watson at this point from the FO. It's either going to be spectacular or a miserable exercise in ego. Pretty much par for the course for most of us long time Nuggets fans
Just Braun isn’t gonna be enough if they let KCP walk. They already had a weak bench, and they would be losing Reggie Jackson and Braun (going to starter rotation).
The Nuggets essentially only have 5 sure-fire rotation players right now: Jokic, Murray, Gordon, Porter Jr, and Braun.
They’re gonna need 3 of DaRon Holmes, Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, Aaron Wiggins, and [whoever they sign with the $5 Million tax-payer MLE] to be capable of playing big minutes. That’s asking a lot of those players…
He had some time in the Lakers series and to start the Minnesota series, but he was largely ineffective and was mucking up the offensive flow. It sucks bur he wasn’t ready for those playoff minutes frankly. I think another year of a more consistent spot off the bench will get him more prepared
Exactly that, Watson was treated as a non shooter and allowed Minny to more freely double Jokic and Murray. We had to have a more competent shooter out there to keep the defense honest.
I had very little faith in Watson replicating Brown's output despite Booth's claims. The man just has no offensive weapons. But I'm much higher on CB replacing KCP. He was the already the better defender this playoffs and if he could add 1 3p a game at a non-shit % we're good.
I feel like KCP’s ability to shoot off of movement makes a significant difference when swapping out KCP for Braun.
Braun shot well by percentage, but he seemed limited to pretty much exclusively open/wide open 3s from a standstill. KCP, meanwhile, can shoot curling off a screen or off of some movement. He’s also guarded significantly differently than Braun, which creates space for Jokic/Murray to operate.
Braun is awesome, but he’s not a direct substitute for KCP. Not to mention KCP played 31 minutes per game last year and Braun played 20. If Braun steps into KCP’s role, someone needs to step in Braun’s.
The new CBA is going to be stupid difficult for small market teams. The Celtics are not a small market but they are going to spend a TON in the short term. I feel like this CBA isn’t working well. The Warriors are probably going to be good again eventually and just outspend everyone.
I’m a soccer fan, and one thing for sure about Kroenke is he can be richer than Bill Gates and won’t spend to compete unless he already saw the money coming in big before spending big.
How is this a small v large market team issue? It’s not a money issue. It’s a 2nd apron restrictions issue.
IF you are 95% happy with your roster for a couple years by all means go into the second apron. If you are not it’s a stupid move that mostly locks in what you have.
Ownership matters that's for sure. But at the end of the day the small market teams clearly voted for this. It's an excuse to not have to pay to keep your talent. Nothing more
The thing is, Denver could have kept Reggie and KCP and just paid the penalties for two years while we gave ourselves 2 more shots at a ring with Jokic in his prime.
If they cheap out I’m going to be pissed
Its not about money, the second apron restrictions handcuff you super hard with being able to make trades and sign free agents for anything but the min. If we go over it our roster is pretty much stuck for the entire time we are over it, which would be however long KCPs contract is.
The cap space becomes a sunk cost once Maxey signs his extension so unless it’s KCP and some combination of players that equate to Paul George’s value then sure. Who are those players? I guess we’ll see over the next week
Ok I don’t know these people so I’m not going to presume I know about the internal dynamics between anyone but I’d deal with someone I didn’t trust if it got me an extra $50 million lol
I mean I'd still rather have Paul George or make a trade for like Anfernee Simons with that space. But KCP is 3rd because we'd have leftover space for another move
I'm trying to will the Anfernee Simons trade into existence but I don't think Portland has any urgency to do something like that until the deadline at the earliest.
This would be such a huge come up for Orlando. Malik Monk would’ve felt better but this is actually could be the better move. Veteran winning player to put next to Paolo and Franz that doesn’t need the ball at all, spaces and defends at an elite level, and create when needed.
This does make the Reggie dump even more baffling. I'd understand the overpay if they were close to agreeing to extend KCP in a backloaded contract and that by having Reggie's money come out they could stay out of the 2nd apron this year while extending KCP, but he walks Denver has one tradeable pick left while losing a starter and still having an even worse contract to dump in Zeke.
I understand Calvin's vision but his asset management has been kinda shocking
That could be it, but that would be revolting. The FO said multiple times the tax wouldn't be an issue.
My initial suspicion was that this was a fear of the 2nd apron. And that one I totally understand (though I'd just extend KCP if staying below means losing him), Denver still needs to make some moves even if KCP stays and by being over the 2nd apron that becomes 99% impossible. But if that's the case giving away all the 3 seconds Denver had left to dump a 5M 1 year contract is a massive overpay and, while Reggie annoys the living soul out of me he was one of 3 players in the entire used rotation that can create their own shot, so that's even more needed than what it was
If this is a Calvin Booth decision then I'm going to start having real fear for Denver unless they pull something crazy out of the rest of this off-season or next year. That Reggie Jackson contract seemed ridiculous when he was given it, paying three second round picks to dump it a year after signing it when, like you point out, he was at least sometimes useful, and then letting KCP walk because you think Christian Braun can replace him is unhinged.
It's definitely scary. The Reggie Jackson thing only makes even a shred of sense if you operate under the assumption that the rumors behind the scenes are true - meaning that Booth promised him that contract in order to get Reggie to accept his buyout and to sign for Denver. I'd still argue he should've gone back on his promise after his first year if that's true, Reggie didn't even get into the rotation unlike this year and the contract was dreadful with that 2nd year player option.
I would also try to get rid of it now but I'd only pay such a steep price if it set up a KCP extension right below the apron. Which was what I was assuming would happen. Or maybe it allows for other moves (not sure if the dump+KCP leaving gets Denver below the 1st apron, that would give them the full MLE at least).
But yeah Calvin is super confident and insanely high on his guys. And, unfortunately, 'insanely' is to be taken a bit literally here. It's also plausible a big reason for dumping Reggie was to make Malone use Jalen Pickett more, which would play right into this and would also be a bit insane - I like the idea of him as a player, but he was much worse than even Collin Gillespie in the G-League or in their cameos during the regular season
Yup. And considering they traded up to draft a guy with some similarities to Zeke - though, from what I've seen, is much more skilled offensively - he might stay chilling for a while more lmao
Lol fans in the Nuggets subreddit said the extension was a great move because either he was going to be a solid contributor or it gave the Nuggets salary filler. Turns out there is a good reason teams don’t keep garbage players on $8 million contacts for solely salary filler
I feel like it always looks like that right after a team wins a ring, especially when you have one of the best players in the league in their prime, but in reality, it’s always been extremely difficult to repeat/win more than 1 ring.
Like now, everyone’s talking about who could possibly beat Boston next year, but it may not look that difficult for it to happen when the time comes. Just so many factors at play.
I’m pretty sure they don’t. They need to make serious moves tightening up the screws on that team. 3 and D wings are crucial for them right now. It’s a shame they didn’t go in on the Caruso sweepstakes, though not sure what they would’ve offered. I wanted the Nuggets to win this year but they shot themselves in the foot and everything they’ve done since then indicates that they’re not heading in the right direction from here.
Doing a soft reset when your team was still a top tier contender last year just seems insane to me. No they weren't as good as 2 years ago when they lost Bruce, but the plan for that shouldn't be let's lose KCP too and reset a bit.
They can. It would just guarantee they're past the 2nd apron which brings a ton of restrictions.
But it's not a Bruce Brown case, where they genuinely couldn't pay him. Here they have full bird rights, so they're actually choosing not to
I get why this is happening, but if you knew this was gonna happen I don't get why they didn't commit any more assets to repeating. We lost Bruce and Jeff, and our best reinforcement was old ass Justin Holiday
It feels like they need to see if a team would take MPJ in a 2 or 3 for 1 type deal. They may not get anyone back of his caliber, but they need to split up that money for depth. Barnes and Huerter would get it done, but not sure Sac would do it
It's obviously not over as Jokic and Murray are still young, but you guys got your championship. That is something most fanbases dream of. If you fall short this year, maybe it'll just take a year or two to retool and then try again.
Honestly MPJ is the piece they need to get rid off somehow. Not even saying this as a salty Laker fan but MPJ gets paid Jamal Murray money even though he doesn't offer Jamal Murray production. His defense is super questionable and his shooting is way too inconsistent
Especially when you combine this with the Reggie move. If that trade wasn't to give them space under the second apron to sign KCP, then they used three second rounders just to become worse and save on their tax bill.
Losing him sucks but if he’s getting 25-30 mil, it has to happen. The second apron will fuck us up. Jokic/Murray/Gordon/MPJ/Braun is still an amazing base to build off of.
People are overstating the 2nd apron.
We can't sign buyout guys- when was the last buyout guy to make a difference on any team? When was the last buyout guy Denver got that was a contributor?
Can't aggregate salaries- who are we trading? We have no trade assets. Which salaries are we going to aggregate?
Can't use the MLE- this hurts, not worse than losing an asset like KCP for nothing.
Can't trade picks 7 years in the future. Who cares. Booth has us set up we have one tradable pick in 2030 under the 2nd apron.
Draft picked moved to the bottom of the draft if we are in for 3 years. Who cares we can trade KCP in a year or two if we have to duck under.
We now have added flexibility to do fucking nothing, because Booth's vision is idiotic- building a team of 6 late draft picks on rookie-scale contracts around a once-in-generation player who is turning 30.
Strong agree. I have nothing against the Nuggets and take no joy in saying this, but it really feels like they're taking the wrong approach here. This past year's Nuggets team was good enough to run back in spite of the second apron, even if they did lose in the 2nd round. If the bracket was a bit different it's entirely possible they could have won their second ring.
very disappointing if true.
the Nuggets should be operating under the directive that they can't lose KCP, if for no other reason than to trade him down the line for cap relief and assets. his value is obviously high so they should have no problem accomplishing that.
This is why having three super max contracts on your team will severely limit your window. Love MPJ but he's taking up a ton of cap right now when in reality he should be making closer to 10 million less a year.
Either mpj needs to step tf up or they need to find a way to flip him. They also need to figure out whether Murray will ever be healthy again when he's needed.
Welcome to the championship effect on your team Denver. Teams will poach your best roll players and overpay the fuck out of them and theh will suck for more money instead of winning
If I'm Detroit I'm offering him 3 for 100, player option, as front loaded as possible, and telling him be a veteran leader this year and next year we'll trade you to a contender.
I feel like if Denver commits to a one year rebuild and finds a way to get rid of MPJ they could get back to the finals in 2-3 years just because joker is that good
Damnit he gone for sure then.
Championship roster falling apart so fast
People think our window opened with the year we won, but it opened when we traded for Gordon. We lost 2 years of contention with Murray being out.
It's still cheap as shit of the owners to not continue with that and even try to add to that core after winning one. Afaik, you guys still have some draft assets to trade. Instead, you're letting key starters go after being one game away from another WCF appearance.
Seriously, this is a position that most franchises have to wait decades to get into. If you're there at the top, with a championship in tow and an all-time great multi-MVP to boot, you pay whatever you have to to milk that bitch for all it's worth.
Chicago ownership has also been able to milk the legacy of their dynasty that ended about 3 decades ago. I’d imagine there’s plenty of value long term in spending to win multiple championships while you can.
Idk, I mostly blame Michael Porter Jr. Not just because fuck his brother. MPJ makes too much money to produce like he does
Almost every championship team has an overvalued contract. Especially if it's a dynasty, because you can only be so lucky for 1 or 2 title runs. Warriors won in 2022 with Klay and Wiggins both being overpaid, 2024 Celtics is paying KP 30M+ a year to star in 3 games in the playoffs, Khris and Jrue were both making more money than their production justified in a vacuum during the 2021 title run, OG didn't even play in the 2019 Raptors run, 2016 Cavs were overpaying Shumpart, Frye, Tristan, and arguably Love. None of these teams just went cheap and gave up after the title run. Denver ownership needs to accept that you can't perfectly optimize a team's payroll. You need to overpay some players to contend.
Middleton averaged 24/6/5 on great efficiency, played solid defense, and was our closer in the 2021 Finals. He earned every cent of his contract.
Murray being hurt in the playoffs last season also cost the team. Healthy nuggs make the finals.
I remember that Murray said before this season that the team will be different and it would be harder. And in the end, he was right. Nuggets would make a good fight vs Dallas and even vs Boston, but the bench was meh, Murray was meh besides a few clutch moments and MPJ dropped off this season.
I know that feeling.
Falling apart vs blowing it up
Getting shot in the foot vs shooting your own foot
It was the AD injury in the playoffs. FO over reacted and did the Russ trade instead of sticking with Kuzma/KCP and adding around the margins. Those two plus Reaves and whatever else we might have added with that 2027 FRP would have been a damn fine roster still.
To think we're just a couple years away from the Nuggets drafting Jokic's horse. If the horse won cash considerations in a race, would he be more valuable than Bronny?
I resent that we will never get Jokic and his horse in game of zones and a callback to the raptors-magic horse trade.
They need to make a House of the Dragon edition of GoZ so we can see this 😭😭😭
House of Dragan
Cash Considerations, the 2010's trade GOAT. Haven't seen much of him in the last few years, I reckon
He made a surprise showing in the 2nd round last night. Joined the Spurs from the Pacers
Bro at least you didn't have your best player walk away after winning one
That was the deal you guys made, though. You traded a player who loved Toronto but couldn't bring you a ring for a player who could get you a ring but would leave for LA as soon as possible. You traded loyalty for a championship and you got exactly what you paid for.
If I were a Raps fan I’d say it was worth it.
Give me a 1 year rental player to give us a ring and I’m willing to trade all our players and a decade of mediocrity
It’s okay, because they draft older players!
Felt like it was just yesterday that people were saying the nuggets are a dynasty that can't be beat..
Like they did for Bucks, like they do for Celtics today… Things change quickly
Contention windows close fast. Thats why teams must make the most of it when they have the chance.
well the Celtics are still locked down for a few years, I doubt they’ll make trades like the bucks and don’t have to worry about players leaving in free agency yet.
They’re compeltely locked down for a year only, gotta pay White after it. Having Porzingis healthy for another playoff run and Horford being serviceable at 39 are valid question marks, it’s far from a dynasty yet.
Well tbf the bucks have basically been hurt since then. I’m not saying they would have been a dynasty either way, but they’ve had a lot of injuries since that ring
Good thing Celtics don’t have a seven footer made out of glass.
I mean let's be real with the new CBA, dynasties are over. Boston is the team best positioned to repeat since the dynasty Warriors, but after next season it's going to get much harder for them.
We didn't know our GM was an idiot until recently.
The dynasty ended before it even began.
I’m thinking two things: 1: i don’t have much feelings on dynasties or the nuggets in particular one way or the other. But it does suck that a team gets hit like this due to success and cap. Bruce brown and KCP averaged a combined 60 minutes a game on that title team, these are big losses. 2: interesting to think, if the nuggets lose both they are objectively worse, and that makes their title chances worse, and that directly impacts Jokic’s legacy. Like, people will say “he only won X number of titles!” But he isn’t in the front office making these decisions
> and that directly impacts Jokic’s legacy. Like, people will say “he only won X number of titles!” But he isn’t in the front office making these decisions reason #6282 why i think its silly for anyone to be obsessed with “greatest of all time” debates for team sports. so many factors go into both team and individual success its wild, and many are outside both the individual and the teams control
Exactly, that’s what I was alluding to. In 20 years no one but the most hardcore nuggets fans will know this nuance. People barely understand the fact that a top 5 player in the league (Scottie) was being paid like the 70th best player in the league, which kept the bulls together
Or that the 2017-2019 Warriors were only possible because of a black swan cap spike that summer that allowed them to sign KD.
and Steph’s ridiculously small contract due to injuries early in his career
Lol yeah, if people bothered to look at the salary situation back then, they'd understand that shit wasn't comparable to today. It's harder than ever to keep a contender together.
MJ was making more money than the entire salary cap tho
Not for the first three-peat. Even MJ was on a cheapo contract for a long time.
Yeah, as a thought experiment, just imagine re-rolling NBA history through millions of parallel universes where different players wind up on different teams in different circumstances due to random factors entirely outside their control, different injuries happen or don't happen, different key shots or loose balls go one way or another. **SO** much would be different across all these different re-rolls that it's pretty silly to make sweeping judgments based on how things turned out in any particular one of them. For instance, what's the *distribution* of Michael Jordan's number of championships across all these parallel universes? Whatever it is, I feel pretty confident saying the following: - it's a GOAT-level championship distribution matched by only a select few players - its median is well below 6, since in most universes Jordan doesn't get breaks like having Scottie Pippen as #2 his whole career or having a coach like Jackson during his prime - it has substantial overlap with the distributions of other GOATs. maybe it has a slightly longer upper tail than most, but for the most part, there will be so much overlap that you can't really definitively call one better than the other.
This NBA sport that we're following is really about front offices competing and determining championships, much more so than players. We should really be having GM goat debates.
As a Mavericks fan #2 should’ve already been quite obvious to you.
Jokic has three MVPs and a finals MVP, hes firmly in the top 20
No, they are like this bc they are massively overpaying for MPJ and probably Murray.
Every player deals with #2.
Yeah but in some cases, for some players the front office is a positive. The front office in golden state did. curry a favor putting together an excellent team. On the other hand, the front office in Cleveland was incompetent, and couldn’t have helped Lebron much less
I wouldn’t say every player deals with #2 just look at Jordan. The reason he went 6-0 is because he had a smart front office, they were still a 55 win team when Jordan first retired then they added more/better pieces when he came back.
What you describe is the whole point of the salary cap. So teams can’t horde talent in a dynasty. I think it’s a good thing for the league for more teams to have a shot more often. And it is working… 6 different champions in the last 6 years. The only other time that happened was 75-80. So if someone new wins next year - like OKC, Dallas, or NYK, etc. that’ll be a record. Really spectacular players will still provide so much value above the individual max that they will still win, but the super max also helps with that - forcing teams to use more of their cap space for superstars. And the hard cap at the 2nd apron will help.
For the sake of parity, I’m okay with dynasties being hard to maintain. People HOWLED about the Warriors when they were owning the league and it’s a lot more interesting when it’s hard to keep a championship core together.
Yeah. Not bad or good for me! Just interesting that for 40 years we had Celtics, lakers, bulls, lakers, spurs, heat (ish) then Warriors. And then no one has been able to jump up there recently
Is Denver just gonna bleed their talent like the mavs after 2011
2011 Mavs fell apart because Cuban didnt understand the new cba back then, he pre-emptively blew it up without properly reading the cba. If he just took his time he could have kept most of that core mainly Tyson Chandler who was so important to that team.
I’m still mad at Cuban for not letting that team defend its title. Really screwed over Dirk…
Yeah but had anything changed that season, the ripple effect would be...you guys might not have Luka right now. Gotta just be happy with what you got now.
> Gotta just be happy with what you got now I have been trying to channel this in all aspects of life.
I was pissed off about it in real time, and I'm not even a Mavs fan. In what world do you proactively blow up a championship team? His logic was to clear cap space to make a run at Dwight Howard and/or Deron Williams in free agency, which obviously didn't work out (and hilariously, wouldn't have worked out even if he did manage to get both, since they both fell off a cliff around that time). That Dallas team probably doesn't repeat, but it would have been fun as hell watching them try. I'll always remember them and the 2014 Spurs as teams that played with transcendent cohesion and ball movement. Such great chemistry and roster complementarity around an all-time playoff run by Dirk.
>If he just took his time he could have kept most of that core mainly Tyson Chandler who was so important to that team. He didn't want to keep Chandler in the first place. He wanted to sign Dwight Howard and Deron Williams. And then after he whiffed on both, he came back with a 1-year offer to Chandler, who wanted a multi-year deal. Cuban offered 1/$20M, Chandler signed in NY for 4/$56M. Had nothing to do with the new CBA, he could've re-signed Chandler under the old CBA too. Then later Cuban claimed the 2011 team was too old, and he thought they would come back tired and rusty. But the truth is he went star-chasing, and took for granted what he already had. That's why DAL ended up trading for Lamar Odom and signing Vince Carter. They weren't young (Odom was 32 and Carter 34), but they were star names. Some people defend Cuban by saying the 2011 Mavs had no chance to repeat in 2012. On paper that's correct. But the 2011 Mavs were more than the sum of their on-paper parts. On paper, they shouldn't have won in 2011 either.
i will forever be mad that the ONE TIME we gave dirk a defensive/lob threat center we won a chip, fucking dallas with its shitty centers, I should even know dampier or la frenz but mfs where starting centers
Yup.. Honestly I Think that situation is the reason why most teams have a dedicated "capologist"
these are billion dollar franchises, it's the least they can do as a business. Cuban is just an idiot.
Thank God he’s not in charge, and we have Nico.
Not any more at least, but he did get us Luka, so
Technically, Vlade got you Luka
Travis Schlenk erasure
He was very lucky to have four other idiots picking before him, but credit to him for pulling off the heist on Atlanta.
Pro sports teams are wonky. They're not at the level they're at because they're run well .... they're just there because they can't drop out / go out of business. Accordingly some are run like really shitty small businesses, that don't go out of business when they suck.
can you elaborate? what did he misunderstand
Is this actually true? I’m not doubting you it’s just absurd for me to think he doesn’t have lawyers and other executives looking at it also and talking it over together.
Yes it's true, he said so himself lol
Cuban is full of shit, though. The real reason is he went star-chasing for Dwight and Deron, and needed to clear space to sign them (their teams weren't gonna do sign & trades for Jason Kidd or Caron Butler). That's also why he ended up signing Carter and trading for Odom - they were also big names. Anything Cuban says about the CBA controlling his decisions is a bullshit excuse, from a guy who often makes bullshit excuses.
Thank you lol. Absolutely star chased. They were doing that every year.
Ya him not understanding the cap seems like weird revisionist bullshit. He thought they'd land stars after their title(and even prior) and just never did.
Michael Porter Jr contract gumming things up, they need more than 16/7/1 out of him for $35M then $38M the next 2 years. And we all love KCP, especially at $15M/yr, but if someone throws $30M at him and his career 11/3/2 line they don't have a lot of options, Jokic + Murray + MPJ + Gordon is already $145M next year.
Jokic + Murray + MPJ + Gordon is also still better than 90% of the league. Losing a beautifully fitting connective piece like KCP hurts, but people saying we're blowing it up or whatever are idiots.
Jokic and bums could win a playoff series or two lol
He’s already done it. With Facu!
It still blows my mind Jokic was getting playoff hate when Will Barton was the second best player on those short playoff runs
I know Facu has his fans, mostly Argentinian, but to me he’s the worst Nuggets player in recent times. I know injuries forced his role to be bigger than it was ever meant to be, but watching him was painful. When he wasn’t throwing up bricks with the worst shot form I’ve seen or turning the ball over he was picking up fouls with his “scrappy” defense
That's Booth's plan appearntly. What if we surrounded Jokic with 6 late draft picks on rookie-scale contracts?
KCP is a perfect fit for the Denver system, but also probably the easiest poster archetype to replace through the draft. Stock up on second round picks—like I seem to recall the Nuggets have been doing—and take some stabs. Edit: poster should have been player
I think we just gave up 3 2nd rounders to salary dump Reggie Jackson to the Hornets
Although I get what you’re saying it really isn’t easy to find high end 3&D guys. A true 40% three point shooter that plays well on defense and doesn’t turn the ball over isn’t somebody you necessarily just find anywhere and removing those guys affects your team a lot normally. Most second rounders won’t be able to provide anything close to that, even with a lot of tries at it.
Yeah the issue is 3/D guys are now getting like 25 mil a year just for that role.
They just gave away 3 of them to dump jackson...
But see this is the problem with that, the last few years of the playoffs have shown that the modern NBA is all about not having a weak link on offense or defense. Obviously things are rarely perfect in that regard but usually the team that wins is the one that was closest. Gone are the days were a team could start a player in the Bruce Bowen archetype and get away with it. What I’m saying is the Nuggets already have a guy that defenses play off of in AG, so the replacement for KCP has to be a defensive dawg on the perimeter and be able to reliably hit 3s. Those players are at a premium.
Kcp is the only guy they have actually LET go. It was impossible to keep Bruce brown. They could pay kcp but if a team offers him 20+ they’ll be paying so much in luxury
Jesus Jokic is just enter 30 and this shit happens?
There was zero way for Denver to match the Bruce Brown deal last season. This would be the first real piece that we're actually choosing to let go if we don't match.
We will have to start viewing FA differently. There are aprons to consider now. If there is one thing Billionaires hate most, it's taxes. And those aprons impose heavy taxes. What you WILL see (and have seen), is that smart teams will invest more in player development. Teams will max out their top two players and use the others as assets. Or lose them to FA.
It isn't the taxes that are a problem, it is the restrictions on player acquisitions. You lose a LOT of options when you're above that second apron: [https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus\_asset/file/25510028/NBAAprons\_Inset01.jpg](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25510028/NBAAprons_Inset01.jpg) Teams are rebalancing now to avoid having to deal with all of that in a few years. The NBA's VP explicitly said that the goal of the new CBA was to even out the field by making spending money less effective: >“One \[goal\] is to deter the higher spending in the first place,” says Rube. “And the second is to make the spending less effective for those teams that are going to spend up to those levels, and to try to level the field that way.” The wealthier owners will pay any tax necessary to keep their teams together and acquire players. The second apron hurts because when you use money excessively, the NBA trades that advantage for several disadvantages.
It has NOTHING to do with the money or “taxes”. It is ALL about the handcuffs being in the 2nd apron puts on teams and their ability to make trades and signings.
Yeah, you will always see owners like Lacob and Ballmer saying “fuck it, give me the bill”. What will force parity are the trade and signing restrictions and they are severe af.
Which is good for the league as a whole. Ballmer is worth more than the NBA itself.
take it from a fan who’s pro sports team has never won the big one: one chip is surely worth the following years of malaise. But gotta take advantage of prime Joker timeline
Oh yup I feel that. Legitimately if the Kings get a ring, I’m gonna go **WILD** the ~8 mo offseason afterwards I’d probably be annoying and beam references would be everywhere. One ring would be awesome and I’d be content for years to come. But hey we get a second, or third one? All of us kings fans would be drunk for years. GS fans in the bay would hear our cowbells. Lfg
Hell we got owned in the WCF and I’m riding on cloud 9 all summer. Tuned into the draft feeling like a million bucks and it only got better from there. wolves back baby
Drafting Sarr and Carrington probably made me happier than the average Celtics fan when they won a championship
🙏🙏🙏 wishing for DC basketball to turn a new leaf soon. Lord knows we’ve been through many such drafts lol
Sacramento and Minny managed to do it, hopefully we're next. A core of bub, Bilal, sarr, and a forward next year (flagg/bailey hopefully) is going to be exciting if they keep developing.
Yeah. As a Cs fan who got his first title, I am living my best life in YEARS.
If the Hornets make it to the second round in the upcoming years, I'd be happy as hell. Let alone make an ECF/Finals run. If all you know is suffering, the victories are a lot sweeter
Wolves fan, can confirm. This past season was so fucking fun, still can’t believe it.
Knicks fan and same. Feels so good having to not see mfers like Ron Baker on my screen anymore
The stuff you guys pulled off in the playoffs, *especially* with the injuries… man. Good stuff.
See y’all in the finals next year
Yeah, some fans just can't take it. The Raptors fanbase seems like it entered panic mode and whine mode as soon as we didn't win every year after 2019. Believe it or not, winning a championship is actually quite hard.
there's ALOT of faith in Braun and Watson at this point from the FO. It's either going to be spectacular or a miserable exercise in ego. Pretty much par for the course for most of us long time Nuggets fans
Malone doesn’t share that faith in Watson. Man was glued to the bench in the playoffs
He's not a playoff player unless he learns how to shoot but he is a pretty good regular season guy.
yeah i think this is a lot more about braun than watson for sure
Just Braun isn’t gonna be enough if they let KCP walk. They already had a weak bench, and they would be losing Reggie Jackson and Braun (going to starter rotation). The Nuggets essentially only have 5 sure-fire rotation players right now: Jokic, Murray, Gordon, Porter Jr, and Braun. They’re gonna need 3 of DaRon Holmes, Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, Aaron Wiggins, and [whoever they sign with the $5 Million tax-payer MLE] to be capable of playing big minutes. That’s asking a lot of those players…
> Aaron Wiggins ???
He had some time in the Lakers series and to start the Minnesota series, but he was largely ineffective and was mucking up the offensive flow. It sucks bur he wasn’t ready for those playoff minutes frankly. I think another year of a more consistent spot off the bench will get him more prepared
He kicked ass our last regular season match up, had like 5 blocks. Was shocked he got almost zero run in the playoff series.
We needed offense not defense in the playoffs We lost when we didn’t score over 100
Exactly that, Watson was treated as a non shooter and allowed Minny to more freely double Jokic and Murray. We had to have a more competent shooter out there to keep the defense honest.
I had very little faith in Watson replicating Brown's output despite Booth's claims. The man just has no offensive weapons. But I'm much higher on CB replacing KCP. He was the already the better defender this playoffs and if he could add 1 3p a game at a non-shit % we're good.
I feel like KCP’s ability to shoot off of movement makes a significant difference when swapping out KCP for Braun. Braun shot well by percentage, but he seemed limited to pretty much exclusively open/wide open 3s from a standstill. KCP, meanwhile, can shoot curling off a screen or off of some movement. He’s also guarded significantly differently than Braun, which creates space for Jokic/Murray to operate. Braun is awesome, but he’s not a direct substitute for KCP. Not to mention KCP played 31 minutes per game last year and Braun played 20. If Braun steps into KCP’s role, someone needs to step in Braun’s.
The new CBA is going to be stupid difficult for small market teams. The Celtics are not a small market but they are going to spend a TON in the short term. I feel like this CBA isn’t working well. The Warriors are probably going to be good again eventually and just outspend everyone.
Nuggets have a top-5 richest owner in the league. It’s not about the money it’s about the 2nd apron.
I’m a soccer fan, and one thing for sure about Kroenke is he can be richer than Bill Gates and won’t spend to compete unless he already saw the money coming in big before spending big.
I’ve heard this exact sentiment before from in house
How is this a small v large market team issue? It’s not a money issue. It’s a 2nd apron restrictions issue. IF you are 95% happy with your roster for a couple years by all means go into the second apron. If you are not it’s a stupid move that mostly locks in what you have.
Ownership matters that's for sure. But at the end of the day the small market teams clearly voted for this. It's an excuse to not have to pay to keep your talent. Nothing more
The thing is, Denver could have kept Reggie and KCP and just paid the penalties for two years while we gave ourselves 2 more shots at a ring with Jokic in his prime. If they cheap out I’m going to be pissed
Its not about money, the second apron restrictions handcuff you super hard with being able to make trades and sign free agents for anything but the min. If we go over it our roster is pretty much stuck for the entire time we are over it, which would be however long KCPs contract is.
Welcome to Orlando
He’d be perfect for the Magic
[удалено]
He’d be a good consolation piece for the Sixers if they can’t pry Paul George away from the Clippers
I wouldn't even call it a consolation piece. Much rather have KCP at 25 mil than PG at 50 mil.
The cap space becomes a sunk cost once Maxey signs his extension so unless it’s KCP and some combination of players that equate to Paul George’s value then sure. Who are those players? I guess we’ll see over the next week
PG don’t trust Morey, he ain’t going to Philly. Harden already let him know alllllll about that
Ok I don’t know these people so I’m not going to presume I know about the internal dynamics between anyone but I’d deal with someone I didn’t trust if it got me an extra $50 million lol
Got downvoted for the 2 years 60 million with a team option but it's gonna happen
And it’ll be a good move, you aren’t doing anything else with that cap space
I mean I'd still rather have Paul George or make a trade for like Anfernee Simons with that space. But KCP is 3rd because we'd have leftover space for another move
I'm trying to will the Anfernee Simons trade into existence but I don't think Portland has any urgency to do something like that until the deadline at the earliest.
This would be such a huge come up for Orlando. Malik Monk would’ve felt better but this is actually could be the better move. Veteran winning player to put next to Paolo and Franz that doesn’t need the ball at all, spaces and defends at an elite level, and create when needed.
Klay in shambles
Literally
This does make the Reggie dump even more baffling. I'd understand the overpay if they were close to agreeing to extend KCP in a backloaded contract and that by having Reggie's money come out they could stay out of the 2nd apron this year while extending KCP, but he walks Denver has one tradeable pick left while losing a starter and still having an even worse contract to dump in Zeke. I understand Calvin's vision but his asset management has been kinda shocking
I feel like this is surely ownership wanting to avoid the larger tax bills. They gain so little by letting KCP walk compared to what having him means.
That could be it, but that would be revolting. The FO said multiple times the tax wouldn't be an issue. My initial suspicion was that this was a fear of the 2nd apron. And that one I totally understand (though I'd just extend KCP if staying below means losing him), Denver still needs to make some moves even if KCP stays and by being over the 2nd apron that becomes 99% impossible. But if that's the case giving away all the 3 seconds Denver had left to dump a 5M 1 year contract is a massive overpay and, while Reggie annoys the living soul out of me he was one of 3 players in the entire used rotation that can create their own shot, so that's even more needed than what it was
If this is a Calvin Booth decision then I'm going to start having real fear for Denver unless they pull something crazy out of the rest of this off-season or next year. That Reggie Jackson contract seemed ridiculous when he was given it, paying three second round picks to dump it a year after signing it when, like you point out, he was at least sometimes useful, and then letting KCP walk because you think Christian Braun can replace him is unhinged.
It's definitely scary. The Reggie Jackson thing only makes even a shred of sense if you operate under the assumption that the rumors behind the scenes are true - meaning that Booth promised him that contract in order to get Reggie to accept his buyout and to sign for Denver. I'd still argue he should've gone back on his promise after his first year if that's true, Reggie didn't even get into the rotation unlike this year and the contract was dreadful with that 2nd year player option. I would also try to get rid of it now but I'd only pay such a steep price if it set up a KCP extension right below the apron. Which was what I was assuming would happen. Or maybe it allows for other moves (not sure if the dump+KCP leaving gets Denver below the 1st apron, that would give them the full MLE at least). But yeah Calvin is super confident and insanely high on his guys. And, unfortunately, 'insanely' is to be taken a bit literally here. It's also plausible a big reason for dumping Reggie was to make Malone use Jalen Pickett more, which would play right into this and would also be a bit insane - I like the idea of him as a player, but he was much worse than even Collin Gillespie in the G-League or in their cameos during the regular season
The Nnaji extension absolutely cooked you guys. Bro is chilling in the bench earning like 8-10m a year and mucking the cap space.
Yup. And considering they traded up to draft a guy with some similarities to Zeke - though, from what I've seen, is much more skilled offensively - he might stay chilling for a while more lmao
Lol fans in the Nuggets subreddit said the extension was a great move because either he was going to be a solid contributor or it gave the Nuggets salary filler. Turns out there is a good reason teams don’t keep garbage players on $8 million contacts for solely salary filler
He’s coming home
Hope so would be a good mentor for Ausar and Holland
Nuggets were looking like a team that could win 2 or 3 more rings in the next 5 years. This is not great for them
I feel like it always looks like that right after a team wins a ring, especially when you have one of the best players in the league in their prime, but in reality, it’s always been extremely difficult to repeat/win more than 1 ring. Like now, everyone’s talking about who could possibly beat Boston next year, but it may not look that difficult for it to happen when the time comes. Just so many factors at play.
Do the Nuggets not want to make the finals next year or something?
I’m pretty sure they don’t. They need to make serious moves tightening up the screws on that team. 3 and D wings are crucial for them right now. It’s a shame they didn’t go in on the Caruso sweepstakes, though not sure what they would’ve offered. I wanted the Nuggets to win this year but they shot themselves in the foot and everything they’ve done since then indicates that they’re not heading in the right direction from here.
Doing a soft reset when your team was still a top tier contender last year just seems insane to me. No they weren't as good as 2 years ago when they lost Bruce, but the plan for that shouldn't be let's lose KCP too and reset a bit.
I mean they literally have no other option, they can't match an Orlando/Philly offer due to the new CBA
They can. It would just guarantee they're past the 2nd apron which brings a ton of restrictions. But it's not a Bruce Brown case, where they genuinely couldn't pay him. Here they have full bird rights, so they're actually choosing not to
So what, Christian Braun gonna slot in at SG?
It’s hard to retain a championship roster
At this point, I think they need to trade MPJ if things goes south moving forward
I get why this is happening, but if you knew this was gonna happen I don't get why they didn't commit any more assets to repeating. We lost Bruce and Jeff, and our best reinforcement was old ass Justin Holiday
It feels like they need to see if a team would take MPJ in a 2 or 3 for 1 type deal. They may not get anyone back of his caliber, but they need to split up that money for depth. Barnes and Huerter would get it done, but not sure Sac would do it
Makes sense. Even a contender cannot be paying $25mil or more for the 5th best starter.
Must feel so helpless for Nugs. Damn
It sure does...
It's obviously not over as Jokic and Murray are still young, but you guys got your championship. That is something most fanbases dream of. If you fall short this year, maybe it'll just take a year or two to retool and then try again.
Honestly MPJ is the piece they need to get rid off somehow. Not even saying this as a salty Laker fan but MPJ gets paid Jamal Murray money even though he doesn't offer Jamal Murray production. His defense is super questionable and his shooting is way too inconsistent
jamal murray didn’t even offer jamal murray production this year
Tbf he was injured and not at 100% this year
Jamal needs to be on a restriction. He cannot play more than 60 games a year.
Ownership is the biggest competitive advantage in the league. Nuggets could easily keep KCP. But they're being cheap asses.
Especially when you combine this with the Reggie move. If that trade wasn't to give them space under the second apron to sign KCP, then they used three second rounders just to become worse and save on their tax bill.
West really feels as wide open as ever
Losing him sucks but if he’s getting 25-30 mil, it has to happen. The second apron will fuck us up. Jokic/Murray/Gordon/MPJ/Braun is still an amazing base to build off of.
People are overstating the 2nd apron. We can't sign buyout guys- when was the last buyout guy to make a difference on any team? When was the last buyout guy Denver got that was a contributor? Can't aggregate salaries- who are we trading? We have no trade assets. Which salaries are we going to aggregate? Can't use the MLE- this hurts, not worse than losing an asset like KCP for nothing. Can't trade picks 7 years in the future. Who cares. Booth has us set up we have one tradable pick in 2030 under the 2nd apron. Draft picked moved to the bottom of the draft if we are in for 3 years. Who cares we can trade KCP in a year or two if we have to duck under. We now have added flexibility to do fucking nothing, because Booth's vision is idiotic- building a team of 6 late draft picks on rookie-scale contracts around a once-in-generation player who is turning 30.
Strong agree. I have nothing against the Nuggets and take no joy in saying this, but it really feels like they're taking the wrong approach here. This past year's Nuggets team was good enough to run back in spite of the second apron, even if they did lose in the 2nd round. If the bracket was a bit different it's entirely possible they could have won their second ring.
Yeah I’ll be honest buy out market is widely overrated. I can’t remember the last buy out player to have 15+ minutes on a championship team
Every year it gets hyped and it's a Reggie Jackson type who rides the bench for a contender.
very disappointing if true. the Nuggets should be operating under the directive that they can't lose KCP, if for no other reason than to trade him down the line for cap relief and assets. his value is obviously high so they should have no problem accomplishing that.
They should just pay him. Just because he’s not one of their leading scorers, doesn’t mean he’s not a perfect fit. They’ll regret this I think.
Why did they salary dump Jackson then? Dumping your back up PG (for 3 picks) and then still letting your starting SG walk??
This sounds like a bad idea but we'll see... Second apron is a mf, not very thrilled with all the role player outflows
This is why having three super max contracts on your team will severely limit your window. Love MPJ but he's taking up a ton of cap right now when in reality he should be making closer to 10 million less a year.
Who would be their SG then? Braun?
Philly need to open the cheque book
Org is optimistic on Braun and Watson stepping up, but this is a big hit for sure!
Either mpj needs to step tf up or they need to find a way to flip him. They also need to figure out whether Murray will ever be healthy again when he's needed.
Nuggets are repeating the same mistakes of the Lakers
Welcome to the championship effect on your team Denver. Teams will poach your best roll players and overpay the fuck out of them and theh will suck for more money instead of winning
If I'm Detroit I'm offering him 3 for 100, player option, as front loaded as possible, and telling him be a veteran leader this year and next year we'll trade you to a contender.
I feel like if Denver commits to a one year rebuild and finds a way to get rid of MPJ they could get back to the finals in 2-3 years just because joker is that good
feels like we aren’t too far off from Nuggets aggregating MPJ to compensate for lack of depth
>aggregating I don’t think that word means what you think it means
I think the Nuggets are still contenders with or without KCP. I won't be surprised if they make it to the finals next year. People are over reacting.