DeMar DeRozan valued highly by Nuggets veterans

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1:05Ask your prescriber about Wigovie, some Maglatide Injection 2.4 mg, a GLP 1. Call 1-8-334-Wigovie or visit Wigovie.com to view the Medication Guide and to learn more about Wigovie. Why wait? We go, we go. All right, everybody, I'm back. Welcome into Pickaxe and Roll, Brats, everybody. Good friends here at Mile High Sports. I'm your host, Ryan Blackburn at NBA Blackburn on Twitter. Part of the Mile High Sports podcast network and I am here.

2:07I am ready to discuss the Denver Nuggets, my own sort of coming back to the fold and very excited to get into the swing of things and get back into the swing of things. Media day is in like 11 days, holy cow. It's in 11 days and things are coming back into focus here for the Nuggets season. The Nuggets first game is in a little over a month. Their first preseason game is in like two and a half weeks. Things are going to be moving quickly and I am excited to get back into the fold as I have said. So, going to be fun. For those that don't know, you could see the setup here. Probably you could see it a little bit if you were tuned into Locked On during the show on Tuesday. I got back in on Monday night from a wedding. I attended my cousins wedding in Tennessee.

3:08She is now in Florence, Italy. So congratulations to Emerson and congratulations to Matthew. Both of them are hopefully happily just away from family for a little bit and just get to enjoy life and be very excited about that. I was doing that and then as you can tell, new setup, new space, very different, very interesting situation. There is going to eventually be a couch behind me but as somebody who moved in without a couch and then had to go do things for a couple of weeks, it has just been a lot. It has been a lot to figure out but my brother and I had been living together for four years. Four years we had been living together and let me tell you, he doesn't know that I am going to say this. That is my best friend. That is the only person, not the only person but the most important person in my life over

4:11the course of the last decade or so has been my brother. Our ability to work together and as he was going through life and going through trials and tribulations, I was obviously going through trials and tribulations in life. We were able to survive and enjoy and thrive until we didn't need to rely on each other as much. That was more of a me thing than a him thing for sure but I needed that and we finally separated, finally moved away, not out of any problems but I wanted to move downtown. I was finally in a situation with MHS and with Locked On and some of the stuff that I'm doing that I could afford it and could do it and he's still in the general DTC area. He's got a nice cushy fun job that he was stressing about on our trip because they're

5:19working him to the bone of course because he's extremely reliable as something that I've been very clearly known. He and I have lived together for four years, I don't know where I would be without him. I'm very glad that he is happy that he is doing what he's doing at this point and I'm excited to see how he continues to grow with all of some of the choices that he's making and I'm excited about what is in store for me. I may not look at, might look at, I'm the lowest weight that I have weighed. I think in seven years, seven years around the eight years, somewhere in that general vicinity and that step for me has been a really big deal. I'm still obviously working, I'm working very hard to try to drop and get to a better place for myself but between weight loss, moving downtown, taking steps in my job and doing

6:21all these different things. Life has been very interesting over the course of these last few weeks, few months and I feel like I've taken a lot of the right steps in order to do so. Thank you to everybody who has been so supportive and I'm very excited to kind of get back and do the swing of things now. We can talk about some of the nugget stuff but first we got to check in with Jeff who's in the comments having a good time. We may all think we are having bad days but we must all thank our lucky stars. We aren't Alex Singleton right now. Strong agree. When I got back on Monday night, it was in the middle of that game basically about half time or so and the Broncos were still in position where they could potentially have won that game and then the second half happened. It was just an embarrassing performance for sure. Broncos have some work to do. We'll be talking about that throughout the season.

7:24Obviously, I'm a Broncos fan. I don't want to see them struggle. I'm going to laugh and joke when it happens if it's a miserable thing like what they just did because they were so high of expectations. It's just a brutal thing to come back to. I turn on my TV and I was, oh, things were not going well. It's just how it goes sometimes. But good to see you, Jeff. We'll check in here soon. Let's get into some nugget stuff. Let's talk about this. I'm going to be a pretty, I'll call this an informal nugget podcast today just because we're getting back into the swing of things. Nothing crazy has happened. There's a couple of things I want to discuss but not anything too crazy here. First thing we should discuss though, there's a rumor that Denver is going for Cam Whitmore interested in bringing Cam Whitmore into the fold. He hasn't officially come to place yet but on, I think it was on Monday night, same night

8:27as the Broncos game, that Cam Whitmore rumor surfaced. Nothing's happened from it quite yet. There are other teams I'm sure that are going to check in and show some interest and the nuggets have one roster spot remaining that we think they've probably promised to Lonnie Walker but there's no guarantee of that. There's no promise of that at least from my understanding. I could just be surprising to me for Lonnie Walker to come over from his spot on a professional team for a training camp deal only. Maybe he just hated it there and I get it, I understand it. Also, there's lots of things to figure out. There's that and there's stuff for nuggets fans to figure out on the Cam Whitmore side of things. Cam Whitmore better fits for Denver than Lonnie Walker. On Tuesday, I said that Lonnie Walker was a better fit.

9:28He's somebody who's a little bit older, has gone through the life lessons, has understood both the being a, because I think it was the 15th overall pick back in 2018 or something like that. Maybe it was a little bit later than that but that's a dude who had high expectations for sure. It'll be interesting, I think, for me to see if he can learn some of those lessons when he's coming back to Denver. He's a very specific skill set. He's going to shoot, he's going to score, he's going to take on a higher usage for sure. He's got some athleticism, although it's lesser than where he was at the beginning of his career obviously. But there's stuff that he can do with the ball in his hands and as an off-ball threat that the nuggets might need, especially if Julian Strother is either hurt or is not the factor that I think he's going to be. I guess we'll find out. He's heading into year four.

10:29We'll see whether he can latch on. I think that he can but I might be in the minority on that one as it comes to what the nuggets opinions are. So, we'll see about that. But Cam Whitmore, kind of the same story if I'm being honest. Cam Whitmore was the 20th overall pick in 2023 and he's somebody who has clearly not latched on to a variety of places that he's been around the NBA at this point and the couple of years that he spent in Houston and then one year that he spent with Washington before. He got deep vein thrombosis. It's really difficult. You've got to have a procedure, you've got to have a recovery process for that. That was announced on January 15th, I believe. He had played just 21 games up until that point. So he had played in about half the games and average about 17 minutes and nights. So it wasn't really that successful for what the Wizards were trying to accomplish.

11:32And I'm looking at some of the play by play data and some of the net rating stuff. The Wizards were bad when he was on the floor. They were bad. So is this a situation like and he's never made a team better while he's been out there despite the fact that he is a very talented player. So is he somebody that can make the nuggets better? Is he somebody that can prop up things for Denver in a situation where they're just looking for stabilizers. They're just looking for players that they can trust. They're looking for those kinds of guys. I don't know. I don't think the answer is Cam Whitmore from being honest. I think he's somebody that it might work. He might surprise people. There's no question that he could surprise people. But would it definitely work? Absolutely not. This would be a big chance for Denver to take and we'll see where that ends up going. Martin says we needed a plug and play bench scorer for years.

12:33That was Tim Hardaway, Jr. And that's exactly the role that he filled. And it was a very successful role. It wasn't perfect. I kind of, by the end of that season, I was trusting Spencer Jones a lot more than I was trusting Tim Hardaway, Jr. And that's kind of the way that the minutes went at the end of that playoff run. Cody says who's cheaper, Whitmore or Strother? I could see Denver trading Strother if they sign Whitmore. It's an interesting point. And one that I think, if they didn't find the things that they're looking for with Strother, then yes, Cam Whitmore would be a cheaper option. Julian Strother is making 4.8 million in this year four of his contract. And that's the thing about being on a rookie deal. Cam Whitmore won't be on a rookie deal because he didn't complete those four years. This is even though he's from the same draft class. Julian Strother, the thing that happens at the end of the fourth year or with the fourth

13:33year of a rookie deal is you get a larger bonus than that that goes from basically a $2 million contract, a $2.5 million contract, $2.75 million contract to now a $4.8 million deal. It kind of gets accelerated based off of that final year. So it is something where if you're looking to fit in a couple of different players, maybe replacing Julian Strother and trading him might be one of the ways that Denver gets under the second day. So that's something to consider. It's not what I would do personally because I think the Julian Strother is a better player and somebody that the Nuggets should trust, but maybe they don't trust. And so that's something to consider for sure. But yeah, like with Demar to Rosen being there already adding Lonnie Walker on a training camp deal already being in a situation where you're thinking, okay, maybe Cam Whitmore's a guy that you consider, those guys are all kind of fun house versions of each other.

14:37That's what the closest brother with more Lonnie Walker. They don't really fill the other roles that you need for your team. So I'll be curious to see whether Denver values one of those guys over the other. Obviously Julian Strother is the only one that's under contract right now. So we will see where it goes from here. Maybe it's a thing that they decide in training camp. That's another possibility for sure. All right, coming up. We are going to talk about Demar to Rosen. We're going to talk about an article that I saw from Mirin Fader of the Athletic, something that you should definitely check out. And I've linked in the description below. We'll talk about that. And we will talk about Aaron Gordon's leadership. We're going to talk about next year on Pickaxe and Rollbeth first. Folks, this podcast is brought to you by number 38. Actually, is it at number 38? No, it's not. It might be. Would be nice if, no, we're, okay, we've got a different spot.

15:40Different spot for this upcoming starts. I'm a little bit rusty. A little bit rusty. I wish there was a graphic that I could point to in this particular window, but there's not. Game two of the season for the Broncos. You go back home to mile high. You're looking for answers against Trevor Lawrence and Liam Cohen. Not going to the game. Join us for all the action with Game Sound, a live DJ during commercial breaks and plenty of food, drinks and giveaways, brought to you all season long by our friends at Surfside Vodka Ice Teas and Lemonade and Montucky Cold Snacks. There's going to be some other fun things during this game. You're going to want to make sure to check out the MHS Studio. So this is at number 38. There's going to be a pre-game show at 1.30 pm. Great pizza, delicious burger options, phenomenal smoked wings. I can attest to all of these things. Number 38, really fun place to be for these games.

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18:44We're back. Pickaxon, Ryan Black. We're here. Thank you so much for tuning in. I got a little bit confused. It's been a little bit since I've been in this window. So there was something here that I wasn't seen. But it's OK. Meer and Fader of the Athletic wrote a very interesting article about DeMar de Rosen. This was earlier today. It was released at 3.22 AM mountain times. So you can check it out. It's over at the Athletic. The link is in the description. It's actually because the New York Times bought the Athletic. It's under at NewYorkTimes.com hyperlink. But it's there. You'll be able to see it. Article is talking about DeMar de Rosen and his mental health conversations. And some of the things that he has done and will continue to do throughout his career. And I thought that this was really interesting. And just one of those stories, like, Meer and does a great job of, yeah,

19:48Meer and does a great job of telling personal stories and getting to the heart of certain topics. And I have always had a really strong admiration of the way that she tells stories in her articles and how she connects with people, how she gets people to open up about different situations. And so it's not something that I could necessarily do. So glad that she's able to do it. But it was a really interesting article. And DeMar de Rosen, over the course of these last few years, has become one of the voices, one of the faces of the mental health revolution that has come to professional sports. It's him and Kevin Love are the two that I think of, that I, that stand out to me when hearing about their stories and hearing about, like, how this matters in the modern sports space. And throughout all that, they're getting called soft, they're getting called different things,

20:50like, just not necessarily as into, like, oh, you're not, it's this masculine urge to be the strongest and to hold things in and not necessarily talk about emotions and feelings and things like that. And it was stupid, it was stupid then. It's stupid now to think about things that way. Every business, every profession has its own trials and tribulations. And one of the things that really comes from being a professional athlete is just the emotional pressure that you face all the time. And so I thought that this was an interesting thing. And it's not like, it was very interesting to hear DeMar de Rosen address this. Mirren's talking about the YouTube series that he's doing dinners with DeMar, is talking about one with Lonzo Ball. And Lonzo opened up to him and talked to him about the stroke that his mother had in

21:51their time and just getting very vulnerable in these situations, having real conversations. And that's one of the things that you hear about De Rosen. So he's just very real. He's a real person. He's not going to front for anybody. He's just understanding of all these life situations and is willing to cut through the mess and cut through the front that you put on in some of these different situations. And so it was very interesting to hear. And I'm glad that the nuggets are getting somebody like that to be on their team. And somebody who cares about these kinds of conversations. Because of somebody who has dealt with mental health of my own. And I think everybody has whether they admit it to themselves or not. Not everybody's life is perfect. You go through these different situations and these different thoughts and feelings. And you have to either you can either compartmentalize them and it often makes it worse.

22:54Or you face a head on and figure out what's exactly the matter and how you can survive and how you can advance, how you can get better. And so I really like hearing some of these stories about that from DeMar. And I think that he's going to be somebody that will definitely help that out for the nuggets. But one of the points and one of the things I wanted to bring up in this article is that I'm just going to read this blurb from it. This is directly from the story from Aaron Fader. DeRosan likes the tranquility of Denver and he's currently searching for a home within the city. Being in a new environment is a cause for reflection. This is a quote. It's easy to get content with what you're comfortable with and sometimes you got to get out of your comfort zone and grow even more. He says, Nicole Yokic, Aaron Gordon, Jamal Murray, all called him before he signed with the team, which meant a lot to DeRosan. That played a part in him wanting to sign with the nuggets. These new teammates like him understand what it means to be a veteran to be conscious of

23:59the window getting smaller. There's another quote from DeRosan. When I came into the league, I never would have imagined or thought I'd be playing that long. It says DeRosan, who's 37 years old, quote, and when you get in, you don't realize how fast and how much time goes by, it's a blessing to be able to play this long. DeRosan is seemingly, like in part of the earlier part of this article, was about him understanding that basketball is not going to be forever, that he has to figure out things that he's going to do after the game ends. It kind of feels to me like Denver is one of those places that veterans go at the end of their careers. And it seems like Yokic, Murray, and Gordon like having guys like that around, whether it was Deandre Jordan and Jeff Green, Ish Smith, Justin Holiday, played his final year in Denver, Reggie Jackson, I think did basically the same thing.

25:04You had Russell Westbrook play his last meaningful basketball in Denver. You just had Tim Hardaway Jr. Go through this process, though he's parlayed that into another contract. He's not really at the end. He's nearing there. And now you get DeRosan. Now you get another guy who is entering, I think it was year 18. That's a long time. It's a long time in the NBA, but it's pretty clear to me that the nuggets and their group feel pretty comfortable with guys in these situations and these parts of their life and these parts of their career. As they already have a formula in place with Yokic, Murray, and Gordon, and it's pretty easy for a lot of those guys to be adaptive around Denver's main group. So for me, I just find that fascinating. I find that to be an interesting concept where not every team is like that, not every team.

26:05Like a lot of teams you want young guys on the end of your bench who can kind of prop things up and make sure that you get a little bit more energy and variety and a little bit of variability with some of the ways that they're trying to go. But with the nuggets, it's sort of the opposite. Yokic, Murray, Gordon, it's pretty clear that what they want from some at least one to two of the players on the maybe not the end of their bench, but in the mix off of their bench is somebody that's been doing this for a long time that they can rely upon and know exactly what they're getting out of these out of those minutes and just the stability of that. Now I don't know if that's a good thing. I don't know if that's right for what the nuggets should be wanting. I think that they should be opening up the bench. I actually put out a short last night that basically said, hey, David Adam, and it's time to open up the bench.

27:06It's time to play more guys. It's time to do a little bit more in terms of the searching of combinations off of the bench and not necessarily rely too heavily on the starters. Maybe derosing could be a part of that. I don't know if he's going to be the biggest part of that. He probably will be just based off of the way that his career is and what the expectations are for the usage that he's going to have coming off of the bench and the kind of role that he's going to play. It's probably going to be a relatively clunky fit when he's playing next to the other stars, but when he's playing off of the bench and kind of is the focal point, that'll be pretty easy to figure out. But I'm very curious to see what that looks like. It's pretty clear that derosing is just a good guy and somebody that has been in the league for a long time. He's got weaknesses. Yes, he's got things that you don't necessarily want to add into the mix. He's not a good defender. He's probably not going to work.

28:08I will say some of the defensive numbers that he put out with Sacramento, I expect those to get better in Denver because there's a reason for them to get better in Denver. Why would he have played hard in Sacramento defensively? There's just no real justification for him to expend energy in that situation. Now, there is in Denver. So we'll see if that changes. But I do think that as his role gets a little bit more clarity and he's going to have to adjust to it because the first time he's coming off the bench in a long time, like since his rookie year, again, 17, 18 years ago. Because of that, it's going to take a little bit for him to adjust, for him to figure some stuff out. But I'll be interested to see how that goes. And it'll be fun to maybe this is just kind of who Denver is. Maybe this is just the kind of team that they are, the kinds of players that they recruit. It is the guys who are like, yeah, they're clearly at a different stage of their careers.

29:11They're not going to be the prime versions of themselves because that would be ridiculous. And then they would be playing, they'd be paid a whole heck of a lot more. But the nuggets are getting these guys for cheap and it is something that they can benefit from for sure. And they did with Tim Hardaway Jr. last year. Now, there's no guarantee that it's going to happen with Demarder Rosen. But they have shown a propensity to be able to get that done. And to at least as long as they have the main formula in place, it should be okay. So see how it goes. But the last thing I kind of wanted to mention and I'll lead into the next segment with this, Aaron Gordon. Aaron Gordon's value. And I said this on a show that isn't coming out until a few days from now for somebody else's platform. Aaron Gordon's ability and willingness to become the leader of this nuggets team, I think

30:14shouldn't go understated. And it's probably something that will prevent Denver from ever really breaking up this group unless they want to make some major changes. Aaron led the training camp that they had in Puerto Rico. He is just a mini camp. It wasn't anything crazy. I don't think that Murray was down there. I don't think the Yokech was down there. I think basically everybody else other than Christian Brown was down there. So Cam Johnson was there. I could be wrong about that. You guys can correct me in the comments if you want to. So that's going on. And he talked about that at his camp, which sorry, I was at a wedding. I would have gone to go get that interview from him on Sunday. But other guys were able to do so. I know that Vinny Benedetto was there. Benedetto Rando was there. Some other guys were there. They're Harrison was there. He talked about that.

31:15He talked about what DeMar de Rosas is going to bring, what the nuggets are expecting, what white paint and Watson that bond is deeper than just being a good teammate and and being a friend. Those guys and their families are very connected for sure. But Gordon mentioned that he thought that the value of bringing everybody together for that Puerto Rico trip was very high. And wanted to get everybody out there and get everybody out of their comfort zone. And clearly that was accomplished. They were able to link up and hang out together. It's a cool thing. It is a cool thing to see how that goes. And then Gordon kind of taking on what Jamal Murray did the previous year because Murray did the same thing. He held a training camp. I don't remember exactly where it was. But he was the one that kind of organized a lot of those team activities. And this time it is Gordon.

32:16And for Denver in their particular situation as a team, Yokech just isn't going to be that guy. Yokech, he, I think, has a large commitment mentally and just personally to team Serbia right now. And if I had to kind of weigh what I think his priorities are, I think that especially during the summer, team Serbia is his largest priority. It is not the nuggets. He tries to disconnect from the nuggets during the summer. As a result, some of those leadership activities, some of those things that you need to connect people together, like, Yokech just can't do those because he is doing other things. And so you need somebody else to step up. And for Gordon, like, he's already called Mr. Nugget for a reason. He's already clearly the glue that holds the group together. It's clear to me that he has to be that guy. It's really hard to lead when you are struggling. It's really hard to lead when you're injured.

33:18And that will probably manifest if he does get hurt again. And Denver will probably really struggle if he gets hurt again because they just don't have the infrastructure to hold on to things mentally and emotionally. Like they could put together a pretty decent team. There's no question. Like I think that if Gordon missed the entire season, Denver probably still wins about 48-49 games. Like they probably have enough that they could still be pretty consistent, even without him. But in terms of how it goes, in terms of the emotional difficulty of it, in terms of how the players are responding to those adverse situations, I don't think it would go very well. And then I think they get bounced in the first round pretty quickly. Gordon clearly is somebody that allows Denver to kind of rise above that. And he's there guy that, when the going gets tough, you look to Aaron Gordon a lot of the time. So, it'll be very interesting to see what he brings to the table this year.

34:20Can you stay healthy? Can you be on the floor? Can he take some of that emotional and mental baggage off of the plate of Yokech and Murray? In these past couple of years, he wasn't able to for so many reasons, many of which kind of stem from the death of his brother, Drew. And I think everybody in the organization is completely empathetic and understanding of that. They're like, look, you got to deal with you. And you have so many reasons and so many emotional heartstrings. They're being pulled away from the team itself. And so he's had to go through that. He's had to figure that out and navigate that. Before the nuggets and what they're, what they're needing now, I think they're hoping that Gordon can kind of get himself back into the fold and be that person, be that shoulder for people to lean on for this nuggets team. I think he is the, he really is the shoulder for people to lean on for a lot of the nuggets,

35:23whether it's Murray, whether it's Yokech, whether it's Cam Johnson, it was Peyton Watson, Christian Brown, I think is mostly tied to Yokech and a lot of this, but a lot of these guys, they will take their cues, their emotional cues. Their designs, what they, what they want to do in life, they'll take those cues from Aaron Gordon. And he's a great role model and somebody who's responsible for the nuggets figuring some stuff out. And that just shows the value of what he would bring and also what you would lose if you didn't have him on the team. So, if Gordon gets hurt again and it becomes very difficult to see what Denver can do or what they should do without him there, you probably have to move him. But what that means for Denver from a leadership perspective, from an emotion perspective, you could lose Yokech in that.

36:23You could lose a lot of people. You could, like the team could crumble. It absolutely could. So, I don't know how they would respond. Like, they'll probably be professionals about it. They'll try. At first sign of trouble, I think it would be pretty difficult. So, Gordon just is a super, super important piece to what this nuggets team is doing. And I'll be curious to see how he handles it and how the nuggets handle it. All right, coming up. We're going to talk about something I'm thinking, we'll wrap up very quickly and cleanly on this. The nuggets are waiting for the right time when it comes to disposing their assets and making the next big move. We'll talk about that next year on. Pick AXONOR. Let's go! Let's go! Yeah! Let's go! Yeah! Get the excitement of Game Day any day with the new Broncos Blitz scratch from the Colorado

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38:54In the deal from a player perspective, because of the rules involving the second apron and because of the things like they they were hard capped at the second apron. If they were going to use Peyton Watson in a sign in trade, they could not take anybody back unless they made another move. They weren't ready to do that. And it would have cost too much. They wouldn't have gotten what they needed to get. So so they took back two picks. The first was a 2031 first round pick unprotected from the Cleveland Cavaliers. The second is a 2032 second round pick I believe from the Sacramento Kings. I could be wrong about that by the way. But between that and trading down from the first round of the NBA draft back in June, when they select the Trevon Brazil at the 35th overall pick, they also added another couple of second round picks. And one of the things that I talked about at the time is that and actually this was

39:56one of the the shorts that I did recently is that they're spending a lot of time trying to fix Calvin Booth's mistakes and how he drained the assets that the nuggets had. He traded future assets and the way that he did it was just not a very effective and efficient way to go because then Denver didn't bring back some of the players that he traded those assets for. The 2027 first round pick that he spent in order to trade and acquire Peyton Watson was also used to get off of Jim Michael Green salary. They really need to do that, but they did it anyway. And as a result, they got Peyton Watson and now they've turned him into a first round pick and a second round pick down the line. The trading away Reggie Jackson's contract for along with three second round picks trading away to Ron Holmes's contract or no acquiring to Ron Holmes, excuse me, at the cost of three second round picks. Denver just exhausted all of the draft capital that they had.

40:58Oh, and by the way, the trade that he made at the 2023 draft to kind of take, he basically doubled down on the strategy, thinking that it helped Denver win the title. He doubled down on the strategy of young draft picks or like older draft picks basically guys that he believed in that he thought were ready to contribute and turned a 2029 first round pick into Julian Strother, Jalen Pickett and Hunter Tyson. And so with all those moves during the 2022 offseason, the 2023 offseason, 2024 offseason, Denver burned through so many bits of draft capital and you know, you're really fully acknowledged it until you see them all gone until you see that Denver doesn't have anything left. And then they didn't have anything left. So the nuggets have been spending a lot of time this off season, trying to get those assets

41:59back and figure out how to do that without compromising your title picture entirely. But I think that might be coming. I don't think that Denver, I'll say it this way, I don't think Denver actually thinks that they're a real legit title contender. I don't think that whether it's the the front office or ownership or the players at this point, like I don't think that there's the full on belief that there used to be and they can kid themselves, they can talk themselves into the idea that those injuries, injuries and in each of these last three years, 2024, Murray was hurt. He was dealing with a hamstring injury. It was really difficult to get through and then they lost a game seven at home and they should have won the title that year. Okay, maybe that's true. 2025, you see Michael Porter, suffer a major injury, Russell Westbrook suffered injury

43:02that Aaron Gordon in the in game six against OKC right before they got bounced. He suffers a hamstring injury and his hurts and then clearly hampered and obviously, like, yeah, you push the type, the champs to seven and you realize, okay, we're still pretty close. In 2026, this last year obviously happens and Aaron Gordon's hurt to Martin, not to Martin Watzon, doesn't play at all and some of the pieces that you had in place, they just they didn't make it make it happen. And so as a result, it's really tough. I think that the nuggets can justify if they want to. They could they could justify that. They can say, oh, we're close. We just need to be healthy. That might be right. The likelihood of them being healthy at the end of a long regular season when they don't have the full infrastructure to make it happen is really tough. Like, they're going to probably rely too much on the starters again because of the way

44:04that the team is structured. You've got the five starters, you've got DeMar de Rosen, you've got Spencer Jones, and then after that, you're just kind of grasping its draws to figure out who is going to be the right fit from a night to night perspective. And so with that, it's very easy to see Denver starters playing heavy minutes, playing in situations that they probably shouldn't. And Denver probably still being pretty good, but then being gassed when the time comes or sustaining an injury at the wrong time. So I can make the case very easily that they are not a title contender, that they are a good team, not a great team, and that some of the moves that they made this off season were set up moves. They were moves to add back some of that draft capital, add back some of that flexibility. And if they feel the need to pivot, if they feel the need to get worse, trade away some of the guys that they have under roster at this current point, then they can do that.

45:05Then they might be able to do that. I could be wrong. I could be completely off base with that. And maybe the nuggets with the way that they play, maybe the style that they play, maybe they just find the right mix with the current group that they have. Maybe David Adamson pushes the right buttons. Maybe they're fine. Maybe they just stay healthy and they're really good. And that's an argument. That's a possibility. I don't think it's a strong possibility. But if that happens then great. They look, make me look like a donast. But I do think that the nuggets have opened up the door for waiting for the right time to make their pivot, to make their move. They've kicked the can down the road. They haven't made a major move yet while allowing Peyton Watson to walk, allowing some of their bench guys to walk, they have basically maintained status quo.

46:05That's what I would call this off season. They've decided, hey, we're not going to make the major changes yet. Maybe we will. Maybe we won't. But in the meantime, let's collect some assets. They've collected three second round picks and an unprotected first round pick. And we're going to see what happens. So I think at this point, the most likely situation that Denver gets into is, they go through the regular season, they get to about game 40, game 50. And they realize, okay, we're good. We're like the fifth seed, like the sixth seed. But it's going to be really hard to be better than, okay, see San Antonio or Minnesota. And if that's the case, if you're scaring that in the eye and you're looking, okay. Not sure how Joker's feeling, not sure how everybody else is feeling about the situation. Maybe it is time to start taking some calls, to start looking around quietly.

47:09And that, like to me, fifth seed is like a pretty decent outcome. It's a pretty solid outcome for what we're expecting here. Because look at all the other teams that Denver's going to be competing with at that point. You know that San Antonio and OKC are going to be great. At least I think they're going to be. One team that's going to be better is Houston. They got Fred Van Vliep back and they've added some other couple of pieces off their bench without really losing anybody. So there to me going to be pretty good. The Lakers, I don't think they're going to be great, but I don't think they're going to be bad. Like I think they're about in the same tier that Denver is. Maybe, maybe slightly worse, but like would it surprise anybody if the Lakers at around February 1st had a better record than Denver? No, of course not. Yeah, we will see what happens. But OK, B-Ball, shape down, says Peyton Watson was throwing shots at the Nuggets organization for saying he was faking injury and not believing in him in today's conference for Cleveland.

48:09Yeah, there was there was some sentiment there. I haven't seen the presser, but clearly the pivot has not gone well. I believe in Peyton Watson. I did not think that he was faking an injury. I this is a really tough situation. I just have made that pretty clear out of my show. So hopefully you guys don't feel like I've been undercutting Peyton Watson in this. Like I think that this was a very clear grade two hamstring strain that he had that should have been out for six weeks. And that, yeah, he was in a really tough situation and didn't want to sustain long-term impact of that. So that's that. But yeah, it was some of the other teams that are around Denver. Minnesota, you could see them having a better record than Denver, Rockets, Lakers. I don't think you could see many other teams having a better record than Denver, but it could happen. And yeah, could the Blazers be a surprise team?

49:10Could the not the jazz probably, but could the Suns surprise? Could the Warriors surprise? Could the Clippers surprise? Probably not. I don't expect the Clippers to be very surprising. But yeah, you start to get into the mix. They're like, okay, if one of those teams were to pop, does Denver find themselves closer to the plan than to a top four seed? Maybe. Maybe so. And if that's the case, then yeah, you could start to see Denver make a major decision. Whether it is to push the chips in and go for it and to really, like, let's say you're you're moving Cam Johnson's expiring contract along with another contract, let's say Zeknoggi and you're adding a first round pick and three second round picks. And you're going to go get an upgrade. You're going to go get like, let's say it's Trey Murphy, for example. Okay, like that would that would be a pretty good deal and maybe Denver pivots that way. Or they decide to go the other direction.

50:11They're like, you know what? Jamal's having a really good year. Joker's having a really good year, but we're injured, we're hurt. And we think that it's time to break this thing up. And so they decide to trade Jamal to Toronto or to Atlanta or to Charlottes or another team like that. That's in a good position to take a step forward. Whereas Denver's kind of in that position where they feel like they need to take a step back and add more to their asset pool. And maybe that's when they do it. I don't know which of those is more likely, whether it's Denver making an aggressive all in push or Denver feeling like they have to take a step back. What I will say is that Denver's left the door open for interpretation and the way that they're doing this. They are trying to gain back some of that flexibility so that they can capitalize at the right time. And the right time is not yet clearly they don't have the right feel for it.

51:12And clearly this is not the right time. Or at least that was the determination that they made. So we'll see where it goes. Okay, folks, that is going to do it for me. That's going to be the end of today's episode of Pickaxe and Roll. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. The new place is it's weird. It's a shadowy back there. Even when I put on lights back there, it still gets to be pretty shadowy. So I might get a new camera, but actually probably not. The bank accounts cleaned out from moving and from going on a trip. So we're going to see where it goes from here. But everybody, thank you so much for tuning into the show. Glad to be back. Going forward. I think we're going three episodes a week between now and the start of the season. Three episodes a week is where we are. We're going to start ramping up to and I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a lot of fun. So make sure to hit that like button and that subscribe button if you enjoy. Would greatly appreciate it.

52:12Talk to you guys. Very soon.

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