What Denver Nuggets can learn from Indiana and OKC

What Denver Nuggets can learn from Indiana and OKC

All [Music] right, Nuggets fans. Welcome into Pickax and Roll, brought to you by good friends here at Mile High Sports. I am your host Ryan Blackburn at NBA Blackburn on Twitter, part of the Mile High Sports Podcast Network here and I am excited to be talking about the Denver Nuggets starting a new week, the first week of June and very interested to kind of see where uh first thing that I think is very important for this upcoming week is the NBA Finals is about to happen. Uh today I’m still recording this on Sunday night. It’ll be posted on Monday morning. Uh, but we know who the two NBA final teams are going to be. We’ve known in the Western Conference for a while, the Oklahoma City Thunder. Not really a surprise. But the Indiana Pacers are the team that is representing the Eastern Conference. That was just found out over the weekend. And that series will tip off on June 5th on Thursday. Uh, going to be a very interesting week, I would guess, for the NBA. And like obviously I I don’t think anybody really expected an Indiana Oklahoma City matchup. So going to be fascinating to see which kind of media folks are able to adapt to that one as best as they can. But uh will be interesting to see. I’m going to ask a simple question. Is it good or bad for the NBA that the Pacers and the Thunder are the teams that are representing the NBA? Uh, can the Nuggets adapt to the new NBA that has the Pacers and the Thunder in the NBA Finals? I think that we can go back and look at through history and sort of the trends that we are seeing in the NBA right now to ask ourselves a question like, are the Nuggets still capable of being in that conversation? And finally, in the next in the second segment, the most important skill skills really around Nicole Joic. There’s a variety of things I’ve been thinking about, especially from a a roster building construction kind of standpoint and I have some interesting takes I think about what Denver should really be prioritizing in this upcoming free agency and offseason. But for now, let’s give some due credit. The Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder, two of the smallest markets in the NBA, two of the teams that have been building for a while. Uh OKC obviously their their story is a little bit more familiar I think to Nuggets fans. Uh basically you trade Russell Westbrook away, you trade Paul George away back in 2019 and you get back Chris Paul. You have one good year then he pivots. He wants to go to Phoenix and you start to build slowly but surely around Sha Gil just Alexander finding out that he’s a cornerstone player but not necessarily knowing who to build around next to him. In the 2022 draft they got Chad Holgren and Jaylen Williams in the same draft. 2023 they got Kase Wallace among other people. They’ve been adding young players out the wazoo. had a really good year last year, but then they turned it over the top and were able to turn Josh Giddy into Alex Caruso. Were able to um sign Isaiah Hartinstein outright because of the situation that they were in financially and now they won 68 games and they’re in the NBA finals. They lost three games to the Denver Nuggets. They’ve only lost four games in the entire playoffs because they swept the Memphis Grizzlies and they went up 4-1 against Minnesota. They are truly dominant. I expect them to win the NBA title. It wouldn’t surprise me if they won it in four or five. But the Indiana Pacers of course deserve to be there based off of how they have survived in the Eastern Conference. A little bit of a different situation for them. They took advantage of a tough situation in Sacramento. who to pick between De’arian Fox and Tyrese Hallebert, they decided to pick De’arren Fox and they traded for Damont Sabonis. And then the Pacers who already had Miles Turner, who already had started kind of adding guys like Aaron Nmith and some of the other pieces off of their bench. They had TJ McConnell already. Uh they started the slow build around Tyrese Hallebertton and figuring out the best pieces to put around a player like him. And they ultimately came around to Pascal Seakkum, but not before they added Bruce Brown in free agency. And Nuggets fans of course intimately familiar with Bruce Brown. And they trade him on what was a very teamfriendly contract, a tradefriendly contract to the Toronto Raptors along with three first round picks for a guy in Pascal. Uh who is the I would call him a supercharged Aaron Gordon. somebody who’s clearly like more towards the all-star talent. Uh certainly this year especially uh but somebody who had a little bit more scoring talent, a little bit more athletic, not athleticism, but like playmaking abil off the dribble game, things like that. And he was miscast as a top tier option in Toronto. They ultimately get him to be the second option last year. They go to the Eastern Conference Finals and everybody’s like, “Okay, I’m not sure how this is going to pan out. Not sure what you’re going to look like going forward.” And they made the NBA Finals because, you know, why not? It wasn’t perfect. They won 50 games just like Denver. And that should be something that I think Nuggets fans try to internalize is that, yeah, OKC won 68, but Indiana won 50 and was still able to make it. Hypothetically, if in if uh OKC suffers the same injuries that Cleveland suffered, the team that won 64 games, then maybe Denver is the team that is in the NBA finals, or at least that’s the the optimist’s point of view, kind of figuring out how to evaluate Denver season in contrast to these other teams. But Indiana took care of business. They were dominant in the first round against the Milwaukee Bucks, who had no business being in the same gym as them for much of that, but Indiana still made the plays that they needed to. And then they took advantage of an injured Cleveland Cavaliers team, but played them off the floor immediately. It was kind of a sad situation. Uh, and then they just took over when when the time came. And when Donovan Mitchell didn’t have anything left because of his own injury status, they got through it. And then the Pacers didn’t have to face the Boston Celtics, who were, I think, widely considered the preeminent Eastern Conference threat because of the Jason Tatum injury. So, they faced the New York Knicks, who should be happy to be in the Eastern Conference Finals as well, but uh Indiana just had more firepower and they were able to adapt to these different situations way better than the New York Knicks were. And Tyrese Hallebertton continues to show. That’s a top 10 player right there. and I don’t think he’s 10. Uh he is a dynamic player, somebody who does things in a different way, but the way that these two teams are built, I think, is something that the Nuggets can learn from, is they can understand from. It’s obviously hard to replicate what they’re doing because Denver’s already down the line. And this is something that people have to internalize as well. Denver can’t just pivot and become Indiana. They can’t pivot and become Oklahoma City. uh they don’t have the flexibility to do that. They don’t have the draft picks to do that. They don’t have the players to do that. They like Denver’s already a team that has a fully functioning identity. Uh core four salary cap stuffed out the w like they just can’t do anything that really change changes themselves to these teams. But I think maybe it’s something that if they’re kind of on the fence on a certain decision, whether it’s breaking up the core guys or maybe it’s signing a different free agent or maybe it’s drafting somebody in the future, there is something that they can of course learn from what Indiana and Oklahoma City have done. Um the first thing is you just got to be deeper. Um, this is not new information, but I just looking at some of the stats and looking at some of the total minutes played for some of these teams. Let’s start with Indiana because I think they’re more interesting. Nobody in the Indiana starting lineup played more like Pascin played 78 total games, but he only averaged 32.7 minutes per game, which isn’t it’s not that crazy. uh he led the team with 2548 total minutes played. Tyresese Hallebertton had 2451. Uh they played 78 games, 73 games respectively. Nobody else on the team was higher than 2,200 and they actually went the other direction. 10 of their players had a total of at least,00 minutes played on their roster. Some of that is injury related. Of course, Aaron Nesmith suffered an injury and so he only played 45 games but started 37 kind of in the same vein as Aaron Gordon. Uh Aaron Smith played 1123 minutes but has obviously had a really great playoff so far. We’ll see what his injury status is like for the rest of the NBA Finals. I think he had an ankle injury, but they had 10 guys that were playing a real rotation. And then even Thomas Bryant, who played 848 minutes as the 11th player in their roster. Going even further than that, uh, with Oklahoma City, they had nine guys who were playing at least 1,000 minutes. Kenidge Williams on their team played 1132, but Alex Cruso was their ninth guy, played 1,041. Chad Hongren was their 10th guy, played 877 total minutes. He only played 32 games. He had a tough injury situation himself, but again, kind of like Indiana, Sheay played a a very heavy minutes total. He had obviously carried a heavy usage. 2598 total minutes played, 76 games. Jaylen Williams was their next highest with 2237. Now, they didn’t have to play that hard in a lot of these games. They were one of those teams that won the game through three quarters, didn’t have to play the fourth quarter that often, and there were also games that they were able to just kind of throw away at the end of the season a lot like Denver did. Uh, but they still had like I didn’t even include big Jaylen Williams and AJ Mitchell and Dylan Jones, guys that like played at least 500 minutes off of their bench. And the reason I bring that up is you can then use this as a natural transition to Denver who was very very invested in their team’s minutes. Nicole Yokic only played 70 games, but he still played the same number of minutes that Shay Gilas Alexander played. He had 2571. I think Sheay was about the same. Christian Brown played more, 2675. Michael Porter also played 2593. Jamal Murray 67 games. Everybody’s complaining about his conditioning. He played 2418. played 2,418 minutes because he averaged 36 minutes a night. And like when you have those kinds of conversations, it’s and you you have those kinds of rotations that you’re playing, he’s still out there for all of those games. And I there’s there’s a lot of folks that are complaining about conditioning and I just don’t really get it as much. Like that’s not that’s not what the minutes say. That’s just not how it’s not how it actually worked for the team this year. But either way, Russell Westbrook played 2,92 minutes, which is an insane number for a six-man. And he he started half the games that he played. But still, Pton Watson played 1,600. Aaron Gordon played 1447. So like even though there was a like it felt like he didn’t play that much, he still played more than Chad Holgren who played like 500 fewer or so. And then Julian Strather played 1384. But then after that eightman mark, you drop all the way down from 1384 minutes to 691 for DeAndre Jordan. And that to me is where the problems begin for Denver. They had an eight-man rotation. They didn’t trust a ninth guy. It was DeAndre Jordan sometimes. It was Jaylen Picket sometimes. It was Ignagi sometimes. Hunter Tyson occasionally got into the rotation. They tried Darius Arch, that didn’t work. They tried Flaco Chantar, he got hurt. But Denver just has to have more optionality, of course. That’s the the most important thing that they can do for their team going forward is give David Adelman more options, more tools in the toolbox. I’m not breaking any news here, but that’s how Indiana and OKC got through the regular season. They were able to play their guys heavy minutes in the playoffs because they didn’t play them heavy minutes in the regular season. The only guys that really did were the top stars, Sheay, Pascal, Seakkum, and Dyus Albrin. That’s it. The other things I think can be learned is the possession game. There’s a a good Substack that I’ll try to link down in the description when I when I put this out there. Uh the F5 run by Gosh, what what is this? I’m sorry. I’m I’m misremembering right while I’m doing the show. Uh, I’ll link it. It’s the F5. It was a good uh really good article about position and possession game and turnovers being kind of the main catalyst and not wasting possessions and making sure that you’re maximizing as much uh from a possession to possession basis. Indiana does a great job of not turning the ball over despite being a very high ball movement team and a high player movement team. A lot of passes per game. I also thought it was very notable that even like including their usage statistics for shots and possessions that they like turnovers and drawing free throws and things like that. All of their guys are very even. It’s very different from Denver, of course, where Joic is at the center of that, but also Jamal Murray, Russell Westbrook had a lot of usage. Um, but OKC is a lot more like Denver where Sheay is taking on a lot of that. Jaylen Williams is a highlevel usage second option kind of guy. Uh he’s still carrying a heavy usage. Um Denver doesn’t need to really adjust those kinds of things. But just being better at taking care of the ball, being a better execution team, I think is so so important. Um, you have to have some turnovers at times when you are a highle passing team. When you’re going to take chances, you’re going to have turnovers. But Denver’s chances, like they take chances too often. A lot of times because they don’t have enough spacing. A lot of times because they’re kind of doing the same thing over and over again. I’ve talked about this with just pressing the paint button over and over and over again. Russell Westbrook had over a 20% turnover rate on basketball reference, which was one of the highest in the entire NBA and just just absurdly high. But it was for the sole reason that everybody kind of knew what he was going to do. He was just going to try to do it better than the defense could account for it by driving into the teeth of the defense, dropping the ball off to Jokic or some cutters or swinging it out to shooters or things like that. And that’s fine. It’s okay. But it led to some live ball turnovers that led to some errors. And Aaron Gordon, I think, was one that had a lot of these happen, too. Jamal Murray, especially in the playoffs, averaged over three turnovers per game. Jokic was really bad with the turnovers, but a lot of that was caused in part due to the spacing stuff. Like, Denver’s got to get better at winning the turnover battle. One of the things that Denver doesn’t do is force a lot of turnovers. They’re very passive when it comes to like they try to play shell coverage. They try to force teams to miss and then they grab the rebound and then they run. They try to avoid fouling. They don’t go gamble a whole heck of a lot. The only guy who would really gamble was Russ and you need you need that sometimes. Uh but he would also foul on because of that on very consistent basis. But Denver, like their habits were not to be the overly physical, aggressive, forcing turnovers kind of team like OKC. Indiana did some of that during the regular season. They’ve been better in the playoffs, especially as guys like Aaron Nmith have played more. But it does feel to me like Denver needs a little bit of a facelift from the number of players that play and the style that they play, trying to limit some of their mistakes a little bit more and just being a little bit more proactive about the kinds of risks that they are taking on both ends of the floor. There’s a time and a place for it. Uh but the team has to get smarter about how they take risks. That’s one of the things that you can say about Indiana and OKC. They are really two of the smartest teams in the entire NBA. And sometimes it doesn’t feel like that in in the moment, but OKC is a machine. They know exactly what they’re doing, especially on the defensive end. They’re learning on the offensive end, but defense they they are one an all-time great defense. Indiana is one of those like last year they were an all-time offense. They were fantastic offensively. took a little bit of a step back this year during the regular season, but it’s pretty clear that they are still great. Like they’re still a great offense. They just kind of had to improve on the defensive end a little bit. So, kind of interesting to see it from that perspective. But I really do think that the Nuggets, they’re of course in the same tier as the Pacers. I I think that the Pacers are a team that like it’s a good example that if you hang around for long enough and you just keep doing the right thing, then sometimes things break right for you. And so that would be I think a good argument to mostly run it back and say, “Hey, maybe what happened to Cleveland or Boston happens to OKC in the next year or two and you just have to get lucky at the right time and be prepared when you do.” Uh but I do think that that’s a little bit of a fool’s errand at times. you would want to put yourself into a position where you could be the best. And I don’t know if Denver’s going to be the best by just running it back, especially with the current kind of skill sets they have and the the kinds of things that they should be trying to accomplish to model after Indiana and OKC in some ways. Okay, let’s take a break. When we come back, we are going to talk about can the Nuggets adapt and what are the most important skills around Nicole Joic going forward for the rest of his career. We’ll be right back here on Pickax and Roll. All right, we are back. Pickax and roll. Ryan Blackburn here. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. Hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. Would really, really appreciate it. Okay, can the Nuggets adapt? I think that this is a fair question because well, some people won’t see it that way. Um, I think the Nuggets were built to win the championship in 2023. I think that the the main core that they have with Jokic, Murray, Porter, Gordon, Christian Brown is u like he was obviously built to be I don’t think he was put in place to be a starter. He has turned into a starter and it’s a very good like situation that Denver’s in with him specifically where he is at the point where he’s earning and can ask for pretty good money because of the way that he’s played. But with Russell Westbrook, like I think they tried to replicate Bruce Brown in some ways, and that was a good thing, but more of a a playmaker, less of a spacer. Um although like he turned out to be a pretty good spacer in the playoffs at times and didn’t necessarily do the great stuff as a playmaker in the playoffs. Um Denver has to adapt again. I think that they are at the point now where two years later uh effectively two years later it’s going to be three by the time June comes around next year and I think it is important to at least for Denver putting themselves into the place where they can shift with what the modern NBA is becoming at least a little bit which is shooting a few more threes, being able to protect the three-point line a little bit more consistently, matching up with some of the high pace um high pick and roll isolation kind of scheme, some of the DHO stuff where all these teams are just trying to re hellfire against Denver for the most part or they are trying to put Nicole Yokic on an island and doing all the things that they can to get him into the action, make him cover a lot of ground and then attack him at the rim. They also like to attack him at the rim when he’s a help defender and that can’t really be helped. Like that’s that’s a Jokic effort kind of thing. If he’s going to do it during the regular season, then great. I don’t know if I necessarily need for him to be a full effort defender in the regular season. We’ve already seen it in the playoffs. We know that he can turn it up. And I think that if there was any good thing that came from these playoffs, it was a reminder that Jokic can be really good defensively. not great. Like, let’s be clear, not great, but he can be really good. It’s just all about getting to the playoffs and getting into a position where you can be pretty smart at that point. The last few years, I think, are pretty notable. Um, this year, Indiana was a four seed. They made it to the NBA finals. Last year, Dallas was a four seed. They made it to the NBA finals. The year before Mi Miami was an eight seed. They made it to the NBA finals. The year before that it was Golden State and Boston. I think Golden State was a I want to say three seed that year. Um and the the year before that it was Milwaukee and and Phoenix. And you’re starting to get back into okay, these are real top tier contenders. But Milwaukee was a three seed that year. They weren’t perfect. Or maybe they were two. They were they’re pretty close to Brooklyn. Um, but I think the most important thing is that you don’t have to be an elite regular season team in order to win. You just have to be able to put yourself into a position where you can be great in the playoffs. And the belief is that you can be great in the playoffs. And one of the reasons why I didn’t really have that much faith in Denver was I just didn’t believe that they were really building towards anything during the regular season. And in the future, I think the way that Denver can adapt, they’re going to have to put the pieces that they have now, whether it’s the core four guys, Christian Brown, Payton Watson, Julian Strather, Russell Westbrook if he comes back, Don Holmes if he gets added in, and whoever else they decide to bring in. You have to place those players into a position where they are very comfortable and very confident with how they are going to be used in the playoffs and knowing that certain certain things they are going to have to accomplish. Pton Watson I think is a really good example of that. He has to be a guy that you can place on top tier players and know that he will lock him down or be in a situation where he could be a part of a unit that just locks down. And I didn’t feel that confidence from the team this year. And I’m curious to see whether that can change over the course of 12 months. uh whether that’s uh implementing things in the off seasonason and in training camp and then trusting him to do that during the regular season or if it’s kind of changing what the expectation is, changing what the role is and seeing if he could develop into something a little bit different from what I expected which was kind of like u I don’t know like Trevor Arza for maybe just a little bit less spacing from a uh if you’re looking for the arc type for a three andd wing. Um, Julian Strawther I’ve always felt pretty strongly as like a Terren Ross type, somebody who can win you a playoff game but isn’t super reliable during the rest of it. Uh, can he become a little bit more reliable? Can Denver develop him into something? And can they develop those guys and put them into mechanisms where they feel extremely comfortable staying involved? Uh, that’s one thing that I think Indiana did really well. Um, with OKC, a lot of their guys like Lou Dort, Kase Wallace, Alex Cruzo, they’re low usage guys. You know that they’re going to stay low usage guys in the playoffs. We also felt pretty comfortable that they’re going to make enough shots to at least stay viable when they’re bringing out the best perimeter defense we’ve ever seen. Uh, if Pton Watson is bringing that level of perimeter defense, it’s then it’s different. Or it’s perimeter, it’s combination of interior. I think he did some of it. Uh I don’t want to necessarily put it all on him, but I do think that he is just such a lightning rod for a lot of this because if the Nuggets aren’t going to change their core five because I think we could start calling it a core five here pretty soon if if Christian Browns gets extended for 30 million. Um then you have to change something else and it might be the Young Guys, it might not. Um, but does Don Holmes feel like like can you trust him to do some things in the playoffs in in any playoff environment? Can you trust Julian Strawther again? Uh, what are you going to do during the regular season to continue making that happen? Um, and so I’m just wondering if Denver can adapt to those new circumstances going forward. Lastly, the most important skill around Nicole Yokic, I think, is a it’s always changing because well, actually, no, it’s it’s not always changing. We saw how impactful shooting could be and we saw how impactful defense could be. We’ve seen how impactful a lot of other things could be. Interior scoring and interior pressure. Christian Brown, Russell Westbrook, Aaron Gordon. All three of those guys were very, very impactful. Just attacking the rim, putting Jokic into a position to succeed, overwhelming teams a lot of times, especially during the regular season. I think that’s a good regular season strategy. It did really suffer in the playoffs as those teams just collapsed on the paint and Denver didn’t want to fully attack anymore because why would you? There’s a seven-footer back there. there’s multiple elite rim protectors back. It’s just not a really good idea. Um, that was a factor. Uh, shooting of course was in such short supply for Denver that they needed a one-armed Michael Porter Jr. to stay out there for as long as possible. And honestly, like Denver starters were still a positive in the playoffs despite the fact that he had a hurt shoulder. Uh, and despite the fact that, yeah, it wasn’t perfect from Jamal Murray all the time, wasn’t perfect from Christian all the time, Aaron Gordon was great, but he wasn’t perfect the entire time, and then Joic wasn’t perfect the entire time. Like, these guys had their ups and downs, but overall, Denver starters were still pretty good in the playoffs as a unit. Um, that’s notable to me. And it happened in a part because, yeah, Joic is awesome. He’s great, but Jamal did take some pressure off of everybody. Michael Porter did take some pressure off of everybody, especially from a spacing perspective. The opposing team had to like stay attached to those guys and it allowed for other opportunities for Joic, Aaron Gordon, and Christian Brown to attack the paint on a consistent basis. Um, but I think the thing I’m going to be focusing on the most is hustle. It’s It’s like hustle. It’s energy. It is something very like like I think you need the high energy guys. You need the players that are going to just absolutely go rabid at times trying to get the opposing team to make a mistake. And when you have a skill of just playing harder than the opposition, that’s really important, especially around Nicole Joic. And it’s like Christian Brown was so relentless this entire season attacking the paint, attacking in transition. Joic took advantage of that. He he saved so many trips running down the floor because he passed the ball ahead to Christian Brown and Christian had a layup. Like it was great. That’s exactly how you get through a regular season. Um but you want guys who are raid dogs. You want guys who are going to make the opposing team uncomfortable. I know Indiana statistically isn’t a great defense, but I do think that having and like Jamal went through this going against Indiana multiple times over these last couple years. VJ McConnell gets under the opposing team’s skin on a consistent basis. Aaron E. Smith is their main high effort guy, but they have different players like Benedict Matherin, Ben Shepard. Uh Jarus Walker’s a relatively high energy guy who hasn’t really played that much for them, but he is still somebody that they are trying to work into their their rotation here. And then Pascal Seakum is of course a very high energy guy for a second option type player. And so that really helps. It really helps surrounding a player like Tyresese Hallebertton who can dissect the defense who when he knows that his guys are cutting can hit them can whether it’s a fullcourt pass or it’s just operating in transition or it’s just like cutting through the lane and those guys continue moving. they don’t stay stagnant. Like Denver can do themselves such a favor of continuing to stay moving on the offensive end. And that’s where you kind of get into the Aaron Gordon’s about to go into his 12th year. Michael Porter’s had three back surgeries. Jamal Murray’s got lower leg issues like in terms of trying to stay on the floor at times. And when you start to get like you rely on those guys on a consistent basis, when they’re healthy, they can do it. They can do it just about better than anybody. They’ve already proven that they’ve won a championship. But if they’re not fully good or if they’re just trying to maintain a regular season, you need other guys that can really amp up the energy, the physicality, the athleticism, the hustle plays, win the 50/50 balls. Russell Westbrook did do that during the regular season. I think that that deserves mention. He absolutely did that. He paves the way for stuff like this, a conversation like this. Unfortunately, there are some weaknesses in his game that I think might lead Denver to wanting to go a different direction. I’m talking about the turnovers, talking about the spacing, talking about some other things like is a little bit more one-dimensional in terms of what he provides as opposed to uh just I mean you could pick a a variety of different types of point guards for Denver. They may just need that despite the fact that Jokic of course made it work and and Russell Westbrook had a great year for Denver. I gave him an A minus for the for his contributions. Um, but I think Denver needs the hustle. They need the energy. They need the physicality. They need the like, pick a buzzword. They need those things around Nicole Joic in part because Joic is kind of a low energy player. He’s not going to make those extra like, oh, I’m going to jump out and blitz on this on this pick and roll for the third time in this possession during December. uh I’m going to really get out there in the first quarter and try to set the tone. He’s not really doing that. He’s trying to play it the right way, trying to get through it. And he’ll amp it up when the time comes. He’ll amp it up in the second half and then he’ll amp it up, especially during the second half of the season and then into the playoffs. But Denver needs to find a way to not miss out on games in October, November, December again because they weren’t ready for it. Because they didn’t hustle enough for it. because they weren’t fully engaged. That’s a very important skill. And so I don’t know who’s going to bring the hustle like that this year. Pton Watson would be the ideal guy. He would be the perfect kind of face of that. Um Christian Brown of course would be a perfect face for that as well. Just somebody who’s really amping it up and maybe he learns how to do it a bit better in his second season as a starter. That wouldn’t surprise me. But I do think that it’s a skill that Denver is going to need. It’s something that I think they should prioritize. It’s why I think Bruce Brown is a good option for them if he’s going to hustle. But he’s also, I think, in that 28, 29 year old range as well. Maybe you need just another 25, 26 year old. You need somebody kind of in that range who’s in their physical prime, kind of learning how to be an NBA player, but are like once you’ve learned the steps, you’re ready to win. Maybe that’s the right range that Denver should be going for on the open market. I could point to a variety of different guys. There will be plenty of time for that. Um, I do think that Denver is now in a position where this is just very very important for them to get right. This kind of player, it’s the Nquille Alexander Walker type before Nquille Alexander Walk or like you can’t get Nquille, he costs too much, but it’s this kind of guy. Um, it was their Bruce Brown. They’re going to need that kind of player again. I really do think that’ll help them. and you just need multiple of those guys to be able to go to during a regular season and then into a playoffs. Think about the the optionality that Indiana and OKC have had even into the playoffs. They’ve been able to trust 9 10 11 12 guys while Denver’s kind of gone the other direction and stayed six, seven or eight, maybe nine if they get lucky. So, I do think this is a it’s a must for Denver. add energy, add hustle, add bodies, add shooting. Uh, for me, it would be great if they had another playmaker, but somebody who’s an efficient playmaker, somebody who’s got a great assist to turnover ratio, isn’t really like you just want to make sure that you’re maximizing every single possession that you possibly can. And if you’re able to do that, then you take advantage of the regular season. like you make the most of it. I think that’s another thing that Denver should be thinking about with Indiana and OKC. They figured out who they were during the regular season. Indiana wasn’t perfect, but after January 1, they were great. They were a great team. The 50 wins, I think, is pretty it doesn’t like it doesn’t fully account for how good they were at various points throughout the year. They became a great team and took it with them into the playoffs. So, can Denver become a great team in a regular season setting? Again, I think that’s a fair question. All right, everybody. That is going to do it for this episode of Pickax and Roll, brought to our good friends here at Mile High Sports. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. I will be back again on Wednesday. gonna probably start doing some conversations with some different folks, recording a show, and then like really getting on some uh some other NBA media folks. Let me know who you would like to hear from and who you would like for me to talk to within the Nuggets Mediacs. I’ll be talking to a variety of different folks over the course of this offseason. Everybody have a good one. Hit that like button. Hit that subscribe button on the way out. I will talk to you guys very soon.

On the latest episode of Pickaxe and Roll, Ryan Blackburn breaks down how the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers made the NBA Finals and what the Denver Nuggets can learn from them.

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