Aaron Gordon’s Shooting, Chauncey Billups Scandal, & Denver Nuggets Notes | DNVR Nuggets Podcast

Aaron Gordon’s Shooting, Chauncey Billups Scandal, & Denver Nuggets Notes | DNVR Nuggets Podcast

Get down. All right. Oh, so hung over. Here we go. What happened? What happened last night? I don’t even remember the end of it. Last night was a terrible movie. What is up, everybody? Welcome to the Dear Nuggets podcast. There it is. Presented by Bet 365. Download the Bet 365 app, choose your offer, find out why, whatever the moment. It’s never ordinary at Bet365. Also, today we’re in the Toyota lounge. driven by your front range Toyota stores. Toyota, the official vehicle of DNVR. Uh, re-watched the game this morning as well as the Thunder Pacers game if you guys want to get into it. Well, that one must have took up most of your morning. It took like 5 hours to rewatch. It was so long. Did the results change when you actually It actually was faster because when you fast forward free throws, the game really gets short. Uh, so we’re going to talk about we’re going to talk about our hangover takes. We’re going to get into a little around the association. We of course have to get into the top story in the NBA. Hey, the NBA’s had a great first week, man. There’s been so many good games. And yet, the top story is somehow a horrible scandal with one of our idols. I know. Ah, I can’t believe it. One of our beloved Denver Nuggets, Chanty Phillips, in some hot water. We’re going to get through all of it, but it’ll be a good show. We’ll have fun. Why? Casual Friday over here, Brennon. Vote. Casual Friday, which is why I wore a hat. Is that different than most days? Not really, but I feel casual and it is a Friday. Um, okay. I will tell you as a fellow longerhaired guy now, like we all start the day at looking great like this and then like that g by the end of it we’re all just looking like we’ve been through a windstorm. That’s your friend now. At the end of the day, we’re all just like uh Dline Co. Uh, I just want to say hell yeah to Brett Bailey who just became a member of the supporters club. Yeah. And um I want to die. That’s something coming out. did sound like there was another sentence or like part coming on after that but no that was the ending hard ending there. Uh Harrison Wind man last night was great like great pregame show chat was on fire great watch along and then not a great finish to the game. We us four and Aaron Gordon brought it. I really feel like we did that too. I was more on the Cam John side of things. I’ll say Cam John I’ll stay balanced. I’ll call myself like a Yonas Valenunis. Okay. Yeah. Right. Not a lot to get mad at, but it was our part. We did what we needed to do last night. I showed up. I mean, literally, I just physically showed up. Yeah. Um, you could have been better. You win some, you lose some. I’m still thankful Nuggets basketball is back and there’s a lot of interesting stuff to talk to. So, or talk about. So, let’s go to the hangover. Everybody get ready. Grab your ibuprofen. Let’s go to it. Let’s go to the hangover. Give me Gatorade. Dion. Give me a Gatorade. Yes. Gatorade, please. And turn those lights down. Um, so one of the hangover takes I have number one actually I guess I’ll start here as a small detail. Peyton Watson bringing the ball up court. This was a big story all preseason. He did it one time last night. How’d it go? It didn’t it went horribly. He got ripped by uh Buddy He who is like I mean defensive stalward. Defensive stalwart. And it was a really really bad play. Sometimes guys come into the game not ready to go. But what was interesting to me about that play was Jamal on the next possession Paywok goes to get the ball and he’s like no. He’s like I’ll bring it up. And it’s an important detail because I don’t know if it was David Adelman. I don’t know if it was Payton Watson being a little rattled or if it was Jamal Murray saying we’re not doing this tonight. But it was a thing I noticed where Jamal was just like we’re that was it man. You got that one try this game. Try again next game. I I would theorize if they were playing, let’s say, the the Charlotte Hornets, maybe Jamal lets him do it again. Yeah. In the season opener on the road against that team, once was enough. Yeah. But it does, this is this is a point we will track all year long. If Murray does stagger, they are still going to give either Bruce or Payton chances to bring the ball up the floor so that Murray doesn’t have to do it. Because as as as Eric kind of helped unearth last night, it’s not just that he’s playing more minutes. It’s that he they’re relying on him in those bench minutes as well. It all becomes exhausting. So much the same way Aaron Gordon in the starting lineup can occasionally provide some relief. Can Payton Watson do it? They want the answer to be yes. It was not a good audition last night. And I think wind as a result Payton kind of had a game like last year. I mean he played 16 minutes. A very last year game from P1. Yeah, he played 16 minutes, which is a lot for a guy that was not making a big impact. But it was like he just you either didn’t notice him, he was out of the way, or he was doing something that you’re like, h Well, he had the other turnover, too, when he was driving baseline and just kind of got into too big of a crowd and couldn’t really pass it out of there. He should have had a third one, too, if you remember, but the ball got tipped and like luckily bounced to Denver, but it was really bad, too. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, it’s interesting because everybody had pretty decent games off the bench, it felt like, except for him. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s a weird position that he’s he’s put into. I really still don’t get it. We It looked good in preseason. It looked bad last night, but it also was just I mean, you’re talking about small sample size. Yeah. Uh he it was one possession, one one bad possession. Um but it it just I don’t know. We’ll see obviously how things progress. maybe a bad team to try to debut against for a variety of reasons for the Denver Nuggets. Like a lot of things could be unearthed and exposed, but I mean that’s definitely something we’ll be paying attention to is who’s handling that GD ball on the on the bench. And like Vote says, like is it lit are we literally our entire season just hinging on Jamal Murray’s ability to playmake for both the bench and the starting unit? I don’t love it. And and did he wear down? Did he roll an ankle or something like that? I mean, he obviously was less effective in the second half and those are the types of things that can help you not wear down in the first half and last night at least it didn’t happen. Another one I have, we made a lot of notes about the Spencer Jones minutes, right? Last night I went back and watched, well, obviously I watched all of it, but I was locked into those minutes to see Spencer Jones. Here’s what happened. He was a plus five in that first go. I actually think they would have gone on a run if it weren’t for these things. It’s Joic and four defenders. Bruce Brown, Christian Brown, Spencer Jones, Payton Watson. I’m so intrigued by what it looks like when you just give Joic four defenser defenders and then see what he can do with it. He settled for a couple of threes, which I just thought he kind of settled for, but then on the other end, Draymond hit a three. All right, Draymond’s going to hit some every now and then. Bruce Brown had this steal that he tipped and it looked like it was going to be a fast break dunk. Falls into Steph Curry’s hands and it goes to Al Horford and he hits a three. And then one was a Jonathan Kaminga three. They still won those minutes despite the fact that they went three for three on those three threes specifically where you’re like, “Dang, I didn’t.” None of those plays felt like they were going to happen and they just kind of bounced the right way. How’d they score though? Aaron Gordon. Oh, AG. No, no, no, no. Cuz it wasn’t with Aaron Gordon for the first portion of it. He came in at the very end and he might have had one three at that point. Then he in the plus five portion that was with AG on the floor. Um I believe. But it was an intriguing look. I mean, it’s it’s notable that he went to Spencer Jones right off the rip in game one and went with a no point guard lineup right off the rip in game one. It worked out for them. I’m cur It was a They kicked it up. It was a somewhat bizarre lineup, right? Like you you’re right that it’s intriguing. I’d be curious to see how it looked across a larger sample size. Um are you intrigued at all that idea though? like in the sometimes you’re sp uh stealing minutes and you just want a group to have an identity and in that one it’s like yoke you have a bunch of guys that are not going to really create a lot for you but they’re going to make your life very easy on defense just try to be a force on offense in a game where you’re scoring at will and you can’t get a stop I get it I do uh it just seems I also think we’ve seen like defenses if you don’t have a a real point guard on the floor if defenses want to they kind of know how to make life really hard for Joic so I’m I’m intrigued by it But I I’m skeptical as well. I love them playing Spencer Jones. I mean, I’m a believer in him. You guys know that. But I love that in game one of the season against a top level opponent in like a big game that you really want to win. Adelman went to him. Like I I just like that thinking. Spencer Jones pound-for-pound may be your best defender right now on the team just for one possession, right? So I I I just love the uh imagination there and him going to him. Kaminga is also an interesting matchup and I wonder if part of it was one thing David Adelman said when we were at practice on Thursday or Friday, I don’t remember which one it was, was we were talking about advantages you get from watching them. And he was like, “Well, one advantage is you get to see the rotation.” And part of me wonders if he like saw that and was like, “Okay, Spencer Jones, they’re they’re going to play through Kaminga in this stagger lineup and who can guard Kaminga? Spencer Jones.” So, it might have even been just that. Yeah, I just love having Spencer Jones as this chess piece they can deploy maybe this game. Maybe not against Phoenix, maybe against Minnesota. Yeah. Well, another play, the one where he turned it over. I blame Yoke. I blame Yoke on that one, though. Yeah, it was a weird play. Yeah, this is what I mean about Yoke in that minute cuz to me, it’s like your mind should be wrapped around. I have Payton, Bruce, Christian, and Spencer Jones. All right, nobody’s really going to let me do some stuff. And he walks up the court and rifles a pass to Spencer Jones in the corner. Like, here you create from the corner. And Spencer Jones like, uh, and turned it over. But it was like, what? Why did you throw that pass, Yoke? It wasn’t even open. Also, Spencer Jones just should have shot it. Yeah. Instead of trying to put it on the floor against Gary Payton. Even then though, I mean, probably not in. Yeah. But I It is though. It is going to be interesting though just to cuz they do have a bunch of guys that are worthy of minutes in an NBA game in the abstract. We did talk about during the preseason. Are they too deep? They might be too deep, dude. Oh man. Like Julian Charlotte didn’t even get near coming in and he’s a guy I think. But yeah, it it is weird. You just you deploy a guy for three minutes at a time. Like is that good? Is that I mean is that helpful? Like what’s interesting wouldn’t to me Eric and and this is my hangover take that I think is connected is he did it in what was actually a particularly conservative conservative approach in an opener with regards to rotations. So my guy the 10th cat on Twitter sent this to me. He was tracking it. I haven’t fact check it. He says the Nuggets played nine unique lineups for a median of 2.6 minutes in the opener. Steve Kerr went to 16. You know, a lot of coaches will often go sometimes 10, 11, even 12 guys in an opener, especially in this modern NBA, right, where depth is is paramount. Adelman has told us he wants to work his way to that eventually. But interestingly, in this season opener on the road against that team, he chose to keep it pretty rigid, pretty conservative. And interestingly enough, within that, he included Spencer Jones. So maybe it it’s reveals that, you know, to David’s mind, Spencer is not some big leap. Like he’s right there. He’s a playable guy. I kind of like a 9 and a half man rotation. If I had like if you just look at the minute distribution last night, the only tweaks I think long-term you want to make is Spencer jumps to me as the flex guy. Some nights might be a Spencer Knight, some nights might be a Julian night, and you kind of flex those six to eight minutes out based on matchup. And I think you give Val two, three more minutes. yoke two or three less, you know, is kind of ideally. And maybe you shrink some of those. I think Peyton Watson would have played more if he wasn’t so bad, honestly. I mean, 16 minutes, he didn’t really even deserve the 16 that he got. Um, so to me, I kind of like this 9 and a half rot man rotation. That’s not one of the things I’m I’m that’s stuck on me. What about you guys? Hangover takes. I as I kind of I woke up this morning and I was just kind of thinking about it, ruminating on it a little bit and it kind of struck me that, you know, we’re looking at David Adelman as sort of like the new strategic head of this team that we’re going to see more innovative ways to go about uh using this Denver Nuggets lineup. And when it came down to it at the end, it was just exactly the same as it always has been. It’s just the Murray Jokic two-man game. And they didn’t find a way to engage Aaron Gordon. They didn’t. There’s like I was kind of hoping that that maybe, you know, we had a couple plays like from Out of Bound where you’re like, “Oh, maybe we’ll have some cool little wrinkle. We’ll have something that they they do that’s a little bit different.” But at the at the end, it’s just like right back to what we’ve always had, which to be fair has been incredibly successful. But I I don’t know. I I hope that we’re not just kind of locked into that same old thinking. We actually do get a little bit more in the big moments. Well, one question I have and I’ll ask win this. Who feels more integrated into the offense? Not performed better, but more integrated into the offense, Cam John Cameron Johnson and Christian Brown or Kaminga and Pajki? Pajki is like the key to their offense almost and yet he’s their fourth guy. I mean Draymond Butler and Curry are kind of like the formation. I haven’t looked at the tracking data, but I got to think like Pajki dribbled more than anybody last night. Like he is everywhere, man. Kaminga big too. I mean they give it they play through him on possessions. Yeah. Um, obviously not the key to their offense, but you know what I mean. Um, yeah, I think it’s Steph. Personally, I thought Steph was the key, but Pepe Pipsky was he was everywhere last night. Like, I’m not lying. But so, do you think they should have like gotten a different shot down the stretch or like gone to something else other than what you made? It was just that that last stretch. They got a pretty good look. They did. No, they got a great look. I I don’t mean just that last shot. It was just like down the stretch when things were falling apart. It’s just like they went back to Sorry. I guess that was a bad take. I They don’t They don’t like that at all. No, Eric, it was your favorite soccer reaction. That was someone not scoring. Oh, okay. Yeah. No, I thought I mean I heard the excitement. I assume no one scored. Um, so the uh but no, I don’t know. I just felt like down that that most pivotal time down the stretch, it turned into a bunch of Murray and Joic playing off each other, they turned into a bunch of like hless Jokic threes. Um, and it just seemed like, especially on a night where Aaron Gordon was just so lava hot, it it felt like there could have been a little bit more in overtime, too. It felt like AG didn’t really touch it much in overtime. Tough. So, yeah. So, I didn’t love I didn’t love that. I didn’t love I want to get your takes on this, but we have to take a break. I I do like this question because I actually think that there’s something to it. It’s just game one, but do the Nuggets need to go away from the twoman game a little bit more. Not all the way, but it wasn’t that dynamic last night. We’ll talk about that on the other side. Stay tuned. There might be a goal. There there probably won’t be, but there might be. Uh shout out to the Gold Crown Foundation. Uh if you grew up playing basketball in Colorado, chances are you played for Gold Crown in one of their competitive leagues. Right now they’ve got divisions for fourth through eighth graders. Uh feeder teams, gold, silver, bronze, club teams, elite and open as well. Uh you can play in high school gyms or at the Gold Crown Fieldhouse. So if you’re a parent, you got a kid who wants to get involved in basketball, Gold Crown’s a great league to play in. And now is a great time to find a team in your area. tryyout pages on their website or you can check with your local school. goldcrownfoundation.com. You can also hit that QR code right there on the screen. goldcrownfoundation.com. Learn more. Sign up by scanning the QR code on the screen or visit goldcrownfoundation.com. Divisions for fourth through 8th grade teams. If your kid wants to play basketball, it’s a great option. Can you sign up? Can I sign up to play against fourth graders? I don’t believe so. No. Maybe in the celebrity game. Yeah. Just sw take that. Last night’s season started in San Francisco, but we all know every season really starts at Dicks. Oh, hell yeah. Sporting goods. Hey, Colorado, stop by your local Dick Sporting Goods for the hottest apparel and footwear. They’ve got it all from top brands like Nikes, Adidas Originals, FP Movement, VRST, Calia, and um Oh, does this say DNVR? There it does. Look at that. our merch, Eric’s hard work on display at Dick Sporting Goods where it belongs, right, with all the other top sports gear. You can go pick some up for yourself. Plus, you score all the latest equipment for baseball, football, soccer, basketball, golf, and all your tailgating essentials. Here’s the cool part. If you found a lower price, Dix will match it with their best price guarantee. Get your gear fast with free curbside pickup at your nearest store or easy shipping from dicks.com. Because every season starts at Dicks Sporting Goods. All righty, back here. Segment two. Everybody throw us a like. Nuggets fans get in here. If you want to join supporters club, who was it that joined earlier? Do you remember the top? Bailey. Bailey. That’s right. Uh Brett Bailey. Brett Bailey. If you want to join, you can do that. You get access to all of our emojis. Um this is one thing I was wondering last night. Just they are Steph Centric, the Golden State Warriors. And yet Kaminga was loud. Not just because he received cuts and passes, but because there were moments when they said, “No, Kaminga has the matchup. Let’s play through him.” And let’s run our same offense, split cuts, everything else. He hit Draymond on a nice dive. Pajky is very aggressive and pick and rolls and looking for stuff. And you’re like, it’s Steph Centric, but everybody is very aggressive. Kim Johnson not very aggressive. Christian Brown, the ball didn’t really find him last night. Do you think that the Nuggets, Is this just game one stuff? I’m going to say game one stuff for now. I mean, it’s obviously something to track. Like last year at times they looked more egalitarian, but then by the end it didn’t seem like that was a real option in the playoffs. Um, you know, I I chalk some of this up to just game one from Cameron Johnson who kind of looked, let’s just say tentative. Cam John, yeah, excuse me. Tentative, right? Like maybe there were some live reading react moments for him to really like, no, you go make a play and and he shied away from it. Uh maybe Joic and Murray were just kind of less used to look, you know, finding him in certain moments. Obviously, there was a lot of Aaron Gordon in this. The Christian Brown part of it is is is one worth tracking in the half court. What does it look like for them to get Christian involved? You know, transition. We know that’s where he does so much damage in the playoffs when it becomes more of a half court game. You know, we know the smartest defenses knew what to do with him. Yeah. So hit look that was also just a poor performance from Christian and he will play better. But that was one to me of how and can they get Christian more involved so that you can leverage other mismatches or where their worst defenders are hiding and so on. Man, the f the thing that I’m like just keep coming back to is that they should have won this game. It looks like there are a lot of things you’re looking at you’re like h they’re not doing it right, but they were up seven with a minute and a half left. 230. But yeah, and and then Steph just went nuclear and it like just made it look like the the Golden State Warriors are doing everything right, the Denver Nuggets are doing everything wrong. Um, you know, it’s like Kaminga and Pajki, they were fine. But now in the light of Steph, they it’s like, oh, they’ve got it figured out and we’re idiots. We can’t do anything. I know. The story really should have been, wow, the Nuggets won. They beat a really good Warriors team and didn’t even play that great. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And we got and Jokic got another game winner in the house of horn and whatever. And but instead we’re left to just nothing but self-loathing. It’s true. If you get that one cuz they did have the one not too long. It does become a story line of he always comes in as game winner. Yeah. All we do we see the shot from best player of the year. Yeah. We see the shot from last year over and over the house of horror. The the Joker owns San Francisco. Now it’s like Jokic is Jokic. Uh was he Jokic is a fat slob. He’s a fat idiot. Well, Adam’s a fool. It was it wasn’t his best night. And I will say the storyline now, at least on Twitter, is boy did they go after him late in games. Now, some of this is Horford and Draymond together were a plus 11 last night in like 10 minutes or something like that. It was the end 10 minutes. And it is kind of one thing that’s different about the Warriors this year. here. They have a legitimate big guy to guard Yic. And I think before you could try to hide Jokic on some of the other ones and then they run pick and roll. Now it’s like he has to guard one of them and both of them can run a great pick and roll with Guri. So it’s also swapping Horford for Looney is the guy they’ve had in the past and Horford just like a more dynamic offensive player too or a guy who can pick and pop too. So it makes that n like that equation more difficult. Correct. So Joic was in a pickle basically in all of the clutch and spamming the pickle roll. Steph made all what 18 in a row, but some of that was Yeah. They knew how to get him open every time. Yeah. And I mean, they were they went to the drop with Joic probably because he was so tired and you just can’t defend Curry in that action. Like Christian, I actually went back and watched a lot of those because we talked about Christian a lot defensively. Christian could have done better for sure, but honestly, it was more of just the defense they were playing and like Yoke just playing so far off the ball. Christian doesn’t really have a chance like chasing Curry coming around the screen like that. and those screens that they set were pretty good. So, Yolk’s got to be better in those situations. Like, he’s got to be more in shape. He’s got to be more up in the pick and roll. And um they’ve just got to contain that action better. And they were picking on him. I do also want to say, you know, Steph Curry running a pick and roll. You know what I mean? Oh, did they bring the center into the action? Like that’s part of it. They’ve never done that till last night. They’ve never done that till last night cuz sometimes people do that with even Rudy, you know? Oh, they were picking on Rudy. like they were running the most common action in the modern literally every but having said that raise my hands and say last night it was ugly and it was it was the conjunction of of you know Christian ground who’s not yet a a screen navigator and and Joic who’s infamously leadfooted in space. So whether it was Horford or Green it was those two guys in a torture chamber and that’s what made it feel like a tough matchup and not just a tough loss. I still walk away from the game equally, not more so, but equally encouraged and not I don’t want to say concerned, but like you like, huh, that’s something I’m going to keep my eye on because there was a lot of good stuff, man. I mean, Big Val is very exciting. Jamal Murray for a half looked really, really exciting. Aaron Gordon’s shooting, man. Some of this was they treated Aaron Gordon like a nonshooter, even though he shot 44% last night. And I kind of wonder if that’s going to go away. Right. I think very quickly people are going to like actually he’s not the same guy. He’s he is a 40% shooter now. Make them so hard to guard. Well, the Warriors have done this in the past. Remember when Draymond Green just let Jaylen Brown shoot wide open threes? They they do this sort of thing. And it’s not like they started to guard him more. They they kind of kept the same game plan the whole game. No, they started to guard him a little bit more. But Denver is a little bit Well, no. You know, because you know what the story is? They switched. They said, “No, let’s guard Gordon. Let’s not guard Joic. Ed Joic is like, “All right, three. Let me reward that decision.” Yeah. Brick, brick, brick. God damn it. I’m The Nuggets were so good last night. They were so good. Make an executive decision. I know. We were too hung over. What do we want to see in this Phoenix Suns matchup coming up? That’s more like it. What is it? What I mean, just like obviously a win and we want to see him play well, but like if you could isolate one thing. I will. Well, I’ll just for I’m sure you guys will get to the others. I’ll start with Cameron Johnson against his old team. I’d like to see Cam Johnson be comfortable. The balance of comfortable but assertive, which again, I’ve tried to say I think from the the preseason on, that’s a tight rope walk, man. I I think as as high as one could be on the Cam trade and the moves that followed it, it’s what Mike’s role was harder than people realize. And Cam’s in that role now, and he’s going to have to figure out like, I don’t want to mess up the season opener. Okay, actually Joic wanted you to score there. That’s stuff that takes time. But also, I think he just played poorly, right? Like Cam I think can play better, might play better against the Suns, a team that I think is also going to just generally be less well coached, less disciplined. Not that the Nuggets struggled to score, but can Cam Johnson get himself involved? And I don’t mean score 40 points. I mean look like a in a healthy way, in a way that looks replicable, look like part of the half court offense. Yeah. He I mean he’s just it’s got to start by just hitting wide open shots. Just you just knock him down. Make everybody start to think about oh man like that what you’re talking about. It’s like oh man now we can’t leave AG uncovered. Oh no now we can’t leave Cam Johnson uncovered. Oh no now you know where there’s just no good options. Um there was a hilarious sequence where AG when he was on that string where he hit like three in a row and then the ball finds Cam Johnson wide open and you’re like oh that one’s out. Yeah, son of a biscuit. Cuz that was where Denver was up like 13 and everything’s rolling and you’re like, “Oh, here comes the haymaker rolling the whole goddamn time. That third quarter, man. The Warriors in the third quarter. It should be illegal. They they ban third quarters.” Yeah, I think Cam is a great answer. It should be a dominant bounceback Jokic game, too, just because they start Igodaro and Ryan Dunn, right? Get inside. Get inside. So, I mean, Yoke that those guys are barbecue chicken for Yoke. Like he should have Yeah. He should have a super efficient easy game. And Mark Williams is the kind of center that Oh yeah, Mark Williams off the bench. Nick Richards like these are guys Joic dominates. Not if you ask Dan Wiki. Yeah. Should we ask him? We’re down so bad. Dan, what what about you? What do you want to see? It’s a great I mean I I just kind honestly I just want to see more of the same, but just like a little bit more success on things that should work, you I mean, the the game the Nuggets played last night should by all rights blow the Phoenix Suns out of the water. Yeah, that’s a good point. Um, they, you know, like the Phoenix Suns made a very furious comeback to beat who many think is one of the worst teams in the league in the the Sacramento Kings. Um, you know, and they they were like all hustle and heart and defense is what everyone on that side of you. You know who’s in the rotation for the Suns? Steady Eagles. I know, dude. Apparently he was really good. He was He was Apparently he was really good. Um but I Dylan Brooks calls him the junior villain over there. Did you know that? Junior villain. The junior villain. Yeah. He sweaty, bro. He’s pulling Dylan Brooks is pulling Colin Gillespie under the He’s like uh Christian Brown. Branding is everything. Don’t do it, Colin. But I Yeah, right. Resist. Uh but I I I mean I think the answer is is clear. Say Cam Johnson’s got to step up. Has to I think that is a big one. I love the angle you brought up that it’s his old team. I mean, he’s more known for being a son than he has a net. Uh, so that would be a good your home debut and now you’re against your old team. That’d be a good little motivator. I’m going to go Jamal Murray. 25 points, 10 assists. I thought he had a very good game. He tailed off at the end. And I would love going up against Dylan Brooks, one of his favorite guys to go up against and favorite teams. Yeah, one of his favorite teams. I would love for that to be uh a big time performance from him. um like it was this one, but finish it. Finish the job, you know. And if he would have finished the game, the way he started it, this is probably a 33-point night, a 33 and 12, which for him is a monster game. I mean, for anybody, it’s a monster game, but for him, it would have been incredible. So, I’d love to see uh that. If I add one more though, I will say Payton Watson. I mean, everybody’s afforded one bad game. He just had such a good preseason to come out immediately off of that. You get one bad game out of 82. fun and you learned it in the first game. Well, it’s more like does preseason matter? Not really. But you’re like, ah, there’s momentum and then one game you’re like, dang it. Turns out preseason does not matter in any way. Remember Julian Strawler shooting like 90% in preseason cuz Malone last year said it was an open battle and Christian Brown sucked and Julian was awesome. I was like, it’s Christian Brown. I I do have a prediction for tomorrow though. Nuggets by 20. You think it’s a blowout? I I think they win easily tomorrow. I’ I’d like part of that I think would be playing much better defensively. I dare you. And you know it was Oh, that’s actually maybe the best answer. Yeah. Like they were they were they had a rough game on defense and at times it got so scrambled that it was hard to decipher even what the plan was. Um, but I know you guys at All City put uh a good visuala visualization out on Twitter kind of showing that they were trying more than ever to pick up higher and it didn’t really work. And as we talked about, it’s a tough matchup to do it and by the end Joic kind of had to concede and drop cuz he was tired and it wasn’t working. Does plan A work better? Are they cleaner behind it? And are they able to stick to it against a team that, let’s face it, is doesn’t pose the same challenges as Golden State? Uh, I love that answer. It might be number one to me. That was a really good point. I think the Warriors are good. I think this is one of those games where you just get away for like 10 games from now will be like, “Well, that was the toughest game they played cuz on the road in Golden State, they already had a game and they’re just a good team, man.” And Denver’s defense didn’t look great. The Suns are not great, man. They’re okay. And so, show up defensively and I think we’ll be like, “All right, this team, this team can be something.” Uh, let’s take a break. On the other side, Mr. Big Shot aka Smooth finds himself. Do we have to under investigation? Sorry, my bad. Terrible. We’ll talk about it on the other side. Uh, shout out to Monarch Money. Uh, you know, finances, they’re a tough thing to keep track of. I definitely know that. I was never somebody who was good with finances and just keeping everything organized. That’s why I checked out Monarch Money. monarchmoney.com. Use the code dnvr. They help you stay informed, upto-date on your finances. It’s not just a regular finance app. It’s a tool that real professionals and experts actually love. It was named the best budgeting app of 2025 by the Wall Street Journal, named in CNBC’s top fintech companies in the world, and it’s especially built for people that have busy lives. Um, so if you’re somebody who’s put off organizing your finances, if you’re somebody who’s not just really up to date with that stuff, check out Monarch Money. It puts everything right in front of you. Very easy to see and understand. You can plan for the future. You can see how more you could be saving right now. Check out monarchmoney.com. Don’t let financial opportunity slip through the cracks. Use code dnvr at monarchmoney.com. Use the code dnvr for half off your first year. 50% off your first year at monarchmoney.com with the code dnvr. Get the family together. Take them to the mountains. Take them somewhere fun. It’s getting cold actually. Just take them to Ballerina to go see the dual denison of Ballerina. Your avalanche and your nuggets. I have a feeling it’ll be more fun when they play the Suns. But when you go, everyone pack in that Toyota. Toyota has a bunch of different vehicles for you. If you’re looking to bring the family or if you’re looking to get some real work done, of course, trucks have always been a part of their DNA. If you’re looking to reduce your carbon footprint, they have more low and zero emission vehicles combined than any other automaker. And if you’re just looking for that that hybrid experience for the smooth city rides that you can also take up to the mountains, you know, they have choices for you as well. No matter what kind of Colorado you are, do yourself a favor and find a Toyota that’s right for you by visiting your front range Toyota stores at a location near you. There’s Auto Nation Toyota Arapjo in Centennial, Corwin Toyota in Boulder, Groove Toyota in Littleton Mountain States Toyota in Denver, Stevenson Toyota East in Aurora, and Stevenson Toyota West in Lakewood. Toyota is a proud partner of the Denver Nuggets and the official vehicle of DNVR. Let’s go places. Let’s go places. All right, everybody hit that like button for us. Um, some bad news you guys. Oh no. Let me give you the details that we have right now on this Chanty Bips case in case you are unfamiliar with it. Current and former NBA players uh Chanty Bilips, Terry Rosier, and Damon Jones have been arrested. It was an illegal gambling and sports rigging operation that spanned across 11 states. In total, 30 individuals were arrested, including 13 mafia members from the Lakosa Nostra MA Italian mafia. Charges included illegal gambling, wired fraud, and extortion. There’s two separate indictments going on. The first involves six uh defendants accused of participating in a sports corruption uh scheme that exploited insider insider information involving NBA players and teams. We think this one is Chanty Bilips because they said it was a player who entered the league when he entered exited the league when he exited, but they didn’t name him for some reason in that one. And they did say co became a coach in 200 became a coach. I mean, it’s almost certainly him, but they for some reason in that one didn’t name him. But then there’s this other charge about these poker Oh, that allegedly the coach informed somebody that, hey, I’m not going to play my guys, so take the other team tonight. like gave betting advice or or somehow betting advice got out that that came through. Then there’s this other part of the case which involves private poker games where athletes including Chanty Bilips is named in this one was used to lure high rollers into the private game but the game was rigged and it was rigged in the most ridiculous way. Have you guys seen this? Yeah. X-ray uh glasses and contacts. uh a shuffling machine that like sorts the cards and lets you know who’s going to win. All this crazy stuff. It’s stuff that doesn’t even seem like it could be real. And somehow it was this ruse that Chanty was a part of whereby he was basically ripping off people or working with the mob to steal large amounts of money from people. Um there’s a whole bunch of other details into it, but that’s the big part of it. I’ll just start Dline. Chanty Bilips is it’s hard for people that don’t know Denver’s backstory and all these things to understand. Chanty’s our hometown hero. I used to I grew up in the same gym as him. He would always come and play. Nicest dude, man. Like to me, I was like, “Oh, it’s like Mr. Rogers, you know, our guy here.” So to be this news is like, “Damn, man. This sucks. What a scummy.” Like what a bad thing to be accused of it. Okay, so John Chanty Bips is a Denver hero. Basketball is not a a thing that is homegrown here. We have obviously now the Yokicero. We have Melo who hates us. Chanty Bilips is like the guy that came from Colorado. We have Derrick White obviously. It honestly be like if Derrick White was accused of this, we’d be like what? Yeah, man. So like this is the second time we found ourselves embroiled in having to defend Chanty Bips before it was like something that was even grosser. But I didn’t even know about that one until it came out. Like apparently that was a story, but I don’t even that was like not a story in my world. I hate this. Like I hate this. Like it it makes me feel like I uh have been, you know, idolizing somebody that did not deserve it. And I think that that is the really the only way to look at this. Like he wasn’t like just a hless like oops I got invol like he got involved with the mob, man. Like that Lacosa Nostra. Like this is like movie stuff. And frankly, it makes us look like [ __ ] because of we get sponsorship from gaming. Like we’re sitting here talking like trying to talk about the evils of of what this man’s involved in and it makes us look bad also. Even though that this is not exactly the same thing, but you just look at a guy like this that is has all of these opportunities, is looked at in a certain way. Um, and you know, people are just clamoring to simply play poker next to him. They’ll do whatever they can. and to use your power in this way, it just man, it is uh it’s so disheartening. It really is because this is again like this is a a legend, a hero, somebody that you know we all look up to and now you can’t look at him in the same way and I I hate it. It really bums me out. And some people have felt that way for a for a while now, right? I mean, he’s been in the news multiple times. When he got the job in Portland, like we had a whole thing about like, hey, he was exonerated, you know, don’t come on, don’t come at Chanty, that’s not cool. And now it’s like, all right, well, whatever. I mean, I guess he’s burn he’s burned through the goodwill and the benefit of the doubt for sure. It’s unfortunate. And it’s it’s also not even I don’t know if this is part of the investigation, but there’s a a poker podcast called The Only Friends Podcast. Saw that, man. About two years ago had a had a their own report on an LA and Vegas based uh rigged poker game also involving Chanty Bip. So, just sounds like kind of is known behind the like in the poker world, this was kind of a known thing. And to the point you were laying out about all the the stops they pulled out, they were saying, you know, to pro players that were there, it was very apparent with this, they were getting destroyed and they were getting destroyed on like the luckiest cards over and over again. Plays no one should make and they were hammering it, right? So it does see, look, it’s it’s not looking good for Chanty, man. He’s heavily implicated here. It’s not the first time he’s been in the news for for rough reasons. And it it is it’s disappointing, you know, in Denver. From a basketball perspective, the question is just how far does this stuff go? And that kind of pivots us into the next part. And one thing I will say is I am such a firm believer in innocent till proven guilty. And so what I’ll say is all we know right now are the accusations. They don’t seem great. I don’t I’m not like holding my breath here, but I do think everybody kind of deserves the like let’s let this play out. Um, but the second part of it is more interesting to me, which is that the NBA in the Adam Silver era has a lot of like stains on the uh he has a lot of stains up, you know, on his record here. And one of them is that Terry Rosier was investigated by the NBA. Yes. Two for this exact thing. Was it two years ago? Two or three years ago. Not that long ago. And they were like, “Yeah, we can’t find anything.” And the FBI is like, “Did you look because I we it’s not that hard.” And I think this is one of the things that sticks out to me is, okay, you’re going to allow sports gambling. It’s going to be a big part of the world. You’re going to embrace it with your league partners and everything that you’re doing with the league. And then all of a sudden, when these accusations pop up, some of them seem to go away. Like the NBA doesn’t want to be bothered by it. And now the FBI is almost like rubbing their face in it and saying, “Hey man, you guys are purposely turning a blind eye to your own league.” Yeah. Well, I think Brian Winhorse had that piece of it, you know, a day or so ago where he was like, “The NBA kind of swept this under the rug.” Like, they did because what happens is when there’s all these weird prop bets coming in, like for Jonte Porter, like for Terry Rosier, the sports books catch it and they alert the league. And so, like the league knew about it, like they knew something was up and they just tried to make it go away. Yes. And they kind of did. They cleared him and now, you know, he’s back under arrest. But I’ve got to think there’s a lot more to this story for sure. Yeah. And I’ve got to think a lot of other players are holding their breath right now, hoping that the friend of a friend that they might have let a little information out to doesn’t come back to bite them. Yeah. And it just quickly like for the NBA to you know in the sports world in general to embrace sports gambling as much as they have again like we’re not free from this but there’s a difference here like the NBA if you are going to be the thing that all of this is centered around you have to be so exceptionally like you have to make sure you you are sparkling there’s nothing that can be pointed to uh that can be untored or like or can go in this direction otherwise you have to just push it away. You have to really take a stand if you’re going to let this type of element into the world, which frankly I think I I mean I have no problem with it. I think it’s great. Like I enjoy it. I don’t need to bet on every game. I enjoy it. It makes it more fun. You know, you don’t put life-changing money on the line if you can’t, you know, you just have to do it in a responsible way. I feel this way about every single vice. I don’t feel like you can point one out and and you know, you can say that one is bad, the other is good, etc., etc. But if you are the NBA, you the way that you used to monitor drug use, you have to um treat this in the same way you that if you’re going to invite it this close into your house, you have to be absolutely certain every step is taken. So you but you Oh, go ahead. Well, for me, the media part of it is like obviously, as you acknowledged, Dline, the obvious irony, the logo that’s above my head here course is it makes having these conversations certainly a bit more difficult. And it’s why some of the league’s major media partners, namely ESPN, for a long time wanted nothing to do with gambling. As Mike Greenberg pointed out, yeah, yesterday on ESPN, as ESPN realized they had the ESPN bet Chiron up as well, um, now they do. One interesting thing though just about going forward is I did I find it perhaps not a coincidence that roughly 48 hours before this news dropped Adam Silver was on Pat McAfee show saying you know we have asked our our partners to pull back a bit on the gambling thing. Perhaps this is a somewhat of a reckoning of of just the recognition of how hard they’re they’re hitting it at least makes it harder to then have investigations or talk about it without your integrity constantly being sort of poin. So now we have Jonte Porter, we have Malik Beasley, we have Terry Rosier. The Chanty thing almost feels separate from this because it’s so it’s po well but it’s both it seems like. But because it’s so all-encompassing, it almost makes it feel like maybe he’s a little more shady than than we thought. All these different things. Yeah. Deep in the underworld. Whereas these other guys, it seems like, by the way, Winhorse was saying that it’s believed it was LeBron James he was betting on. Damon Jones, very, very close with LeBron James. Um, also Damon Jones best friend, Tyoo. Very interesting one as well. So, uh, who knows how many people are attached to this. But the thing is is I wonder if this is it’s all new and there’s going to be some people that get burned off of a new thing and it was inevitable but everyone learns from it because it’s all or if this is like yeah man you invite this into a world and these guys are just they come into the league at 19 20 years old all they know is hey this sounds like pretty cool and this will always just be a thing. They’re always going to be. I mean, Michael Porter, everybody laughed last year at his comment cuz it was so weird that he just came out of nowhere. But it was actually pretty prudent when he said, “Yeah, man. A lot of guys think like, what if I can get my buddy a bag of course?” And the funny part is is like nobody’s going to get away with this. These things get flagged immediately in the in the modern digital world. I was thinking about it like they probably need to put limits. They have them already. They already have limits for like like on on Bet 365 and things. So that way you can’t bet $100,000 on Jonte Porter one and a half points. But nonetheless, it’s still guys will bet $5,000 10,000 on it and it’ll still get flagged cuz who on earth needs to bet on Jonte Porter one and a half points over or under. Actually, I don’t know. It feels like a mess, man. But more than anything to me, I always bring this back to Adam Silver and say the NBA keeps putting itself in these compromised positions because now we’re trying to get investments from some of these foreign entities out of uh Qatar, out of Abu Dhabi, out of Saudi Arabia that are branding the referees. There’s no way there’s no way this comes out later on. some somehow or another the Emirates Corporation had something to do with the and it just seems like Adam Silver rushes into things that are like yeah this has a lot of dangers and it’s like a we’ll navigate this as we go. The dangers are kind of scary to me. So the league uh I it sucks for the thing for me with Chanty is twofold. One I really like Chanty man. I don’t I don’t even know what who I would equate that to in today’s Nuggets era, but it’s just a guy we it’s like Aaron Gordon, I guess. It almost be like Aaron Gordon. We open up and all of a sudden you’re like, damn, we love that guy and we thought he was great. And two, the mafia. It’s 2025, man. Even Lakos Nostra is is not exactly in their heyday. It’s been kind of really interesting just that we had a mafia pop up. Yeah, actually like I I certainly got scared to say that by the way into a microphone. I was going to say I Uh uh listen, I I’m from New Jersey. Uh in my lifetime, that stuff went away. It’s just interesting to have a mafia story line in 2025. Yeah. Um let us know what you guys think. Let’s go to a happier conversation, which is talking trash about other teams. Let’s go to around the association there, Dion. Round the association. Um can I start with one cuz I’ve been sitting on it for 45 minutes. This we’re going to do overreactions from around the league because of course we’re pragmatic about our team. We’re not going to go crazy. Yeah. I mean, listen, we we know what’s up, dude. We We But other teams, no, they don’t know anything. All right, here’s my first overreaction to game one. Joel Embiid is done. Did you guys see him play? I don’t think he’s off to a slow start. I don’t think he’s coming back from injury. I worry, and I’m not even trying to clown him because I don’t think this has to do with like him being a bad player. He looks to me like he’s trying to pretend he’s not done, you know? Like I like he looks like he was as healthy this healthy last year and he sat out and then he was like I’m not getting better so let me see if I can still do this and he cannot. What was confusing is he had that good preseason game, right? Did he have a good one? He had like almost a triple double. Yeah, he did. Like yeah, everyone was saying he’s back. So exactly. Everybody was saying he was back. Watch back. Watch this game he play. Not back. Back. Not back. Watch this game he played cuz it’s not like he missed shots or he did this or that. But I mean he looked like it he looked like me honestly like if I play one night and then I’m all sore I have to go out and play like the next night you’re just kind of on a back to back. Yeah. You look like me on a back to back. Not on rest on a back to back. I mean his knees are just He’d be the first to tell you his knees are cooked. But that’s but this is why I think people unfairly criticize Philadelphia’s training staff and medical staff cuz it’s not maybe some nights he’s like yeah just it feels okay tonight and I can go drop it go drop 30. And then some nights he’s like, “I literally can’t play.” And it’s not as simple as just run an MRI. I’ve said this a hundred times. Why the MRI doesn’t actually fix it. The MRI, you know, the MRI is going to tell you, “Yep, still bad.” Yeah. It’s going to tell you that his knee’s terrible and he shouldn’t play. You know what I mean? That’s what it’s going to tell you. But Embiid’s trying to play through this. So, I do give their staff a little bit of benefit of the doubt of like sometimes he can, sometimes he can’t. And in the long run, um, it’s obviously going to be an unceremonious exit for a former MVP from the NBA. That the way you put it is exactly how I felt with just watching him play in those in the minute. He didn’t even play that many minutes, but watching it, I was just like, man, this is going to be like a weird just he hangs around for a little while, but then we just did and then you’re like, oh, that’s right. He did play till that long after he’ll beat Allen Iverson. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But but he won’t go to other teams. And but like I guess their consolation prize, they got the best pick in the draft. Maybe he looks pretty darn good. Yeah, he does look good. I’ve got one. Uh Dion, will you bring this up please? Oh no. What’s this? Oh no. Oh no. No. We’re burying it. Oh, after one game. After one game. You’re out after one game. At least give him a lead. I respect this a lot, actually. Really? I respect. Do we have like the tap song? The like, can we play the little horn? Listen guys, I uh I put a lot of takes out there into the universe over the years. Some good. Shoot from the hip. A few good, some not great. My era of clowning WBY for being soft has come to a very unceremonious end. Watching his game on two days ago, he did everything that I yelled at him for not doing. So, in some ways you could say that I actually just saw the right way for him to play. He would never do it. He was shooting all threes. This time he shot no threes. He shot one threes. He shot one. He shot two and one and he got a four-point play on it. He got a four. He made every shot. I mean, he like made try to block his three. It’s just instinct, but what are you doing trying to block? not going to he’s not going to make every shot like every jump shot, but like he did the thing where he just was like, I’m huge and I’m going to charge toward the basket and slam the ball and you’re like, “Oh, god damn it.” Fake into the windmill reverse dunk that he had. That was like a play I don’t think anybody’s ever done before. His toes were touching the ground at the end, too. Like he was holding the rim and his toes were on the ground. That was an insane play. the give and go where he sizes Lively up, doesn’t have it, makes one pass, makes one cut, and then dumps over him like your little brother in the basement hoop. That’s not an angle to jump to the rim, and somehow he’s like just no. And it frankly, it’s like I thought we were going to see this the whole time from him. Like when he first came into the league, I was like, why are you not doing this? Now he’s doing it. I’m like, please don’t do this. Please stop doing this. It’s terrifying and I don’t want any part of it. I think you should have held out a couple more games cuz it was a really good game. I mean, you would I think we would have been doing this a week. Not I’m just saying I can’t like he didn’t play soft. That’s the first time I’ve not seen him play soft for and I was like, “No, please play soft. Please.” But I I am I do think that you know there’s going to be some a huge guy playing uh you know like jumping around and what happens to his foot and kind of thing. Like I still am not on the he’s going to dominate the league for a long time bandwagon, but I officially cannot clown him from being soft anymore. And I hate it. I hate it. It’s over. That’s I’m I’m proud of you for that, man. Was it was it a stint? I’m proud. I’m proud of you and a little ashamed of you. Well, listen. Welcome to me. That’s like What do you think it is to me? Then you think I’d walk around not thinking that exact same thing every single day. I’ll zig one for you real quick. That’s I have a one in that same game. I have a same game. Uh, Anthony Davis is washed. Exactly. I was gonna be like, there’s a simple pivot you could have made here. I mean, I mean, listen, I Well, I’ll take I just need a new agenda. I don’t know what it is, right? Well, here’s your new agenda. He’s watched Anthony Davis. I mean, he’s he looked terrible on the offensive end of the floor. Shot jumper after jumper against the Spurs and WBY. Looked slow. I mean, the storyline of him being out of shape was prevalent in the preseason. That was the thing. He looked awful. And the Mavs as a team look terrible. I have no idea. They were shook by Wemby. They just they I mean maybe they were shook by starting Cooper Flag at point guard. Like what are they doing? Anthony Davis looks bad and he um looks like he’s teetering on the edge of a decline. Real decline. I think it’s I mean this is this is why I thought you should have held your corner for another week. I still think you would have been here eventually, but the Mavs kind of look terrible and Anthony Der again. It’s just I saw the way that he played. He’s not soft. He didn’t play soft. Also, Eric, if if Jason Tatum ever put a single game highlight together like that, I would run for cover, brother. What do I have left? He didn’t play soft. So, uh, F me. F me. Right. My one time. One time. Uh, how about this one, you guys? Who do you think is going to most aggressively try to get a revenge game against their former beloved team, the beloved Nuggets? Michael Porter Jr., Russell Westbrook, or Michael Malone? Because I don’t know if you saw his interview yesterday on ESPN where he talked about, “No, I’m not done coaching. I can’t wait to get back into the game.” A gig just opened up in Portland, by the way. I don’t know if you guys saw that. Uh, but he kind of tells the story of the Nuggets through gritted teeth. And I remember I just was watching it going like he’s so interesting. I love what he has to say. Damn, he’s going to go after Denver 10 for as hard as he possibly can. I thought he was really gracious yesterday. Very gracious. But at some point it’s going to come out yourself. No, I just think that he is like gracious in the way that you’re gracious to someone you want to murder. Oh, right. Like if he takes a new job, then he’s going to try to That’s what I mean. Oh, no. Like I mean he did this for the Kings to be fair and the Nuggets always let him down. We have We have precedent for two of these. Michael Malone took playing the Sacramento Kings very personally. Brought it up every time. Called their owner a clown. Like everything he went out, but also also it never worked. We lost Kings every time. And Russell West every night in the association, Russell Westbrook is playing against a former team and it doesn’t matter. It never matters. Michael Porter Jr. will have to see. I kind of think he’s just going to be like, “Hey, what’s up, guys?” No way. I don’t know. I don’t know, man. I don’t even know what a pro aggressive Michael Porter Jr. in that way looks like. You should have watched game one. It’s 30 shots and 12 points minus 19. Dude, hold on. Another fast trigger was vote after 4 minutes of the Nets game cuz he came out with eight points in four minutes. What I said was a porter quarter. He’s going to open the season with a porter quarter and then he missed two free throws and basically never scored again. Never scored to get in the game cuz I was thinking it too. I was kind of like, “Oh, damn man. Is he going to go off for? We need new agendas. Those are terrible. You know what we couldn’t afford though was Cam being bad in game one. It would have been the worst. It would honestly I’m very relieved. It would have been a nightmare. I’m rooting for Michael Porter too, man. Like I watch when he was going off. I couldn’t find the channel. I couldn’t get it on my league pass or whatever. And so I missed all the points and then I got it and he didn’t score. I want to check out Prime. Might have been on there. It was on Prime’s tonight. I watched the full game and that was Nets Hornet. I need to consult that. I watch as it was intended to be watched. Nets hangover take on Nets Hornets, by the way. Nets probably the worst team in the league. Maybe the Wizards, probably the Nets. Nick Claxton might be their best player. Yeah. Oh, that’s that’s not a good that’s a bad sign. Uh, what other round the association takes do you guys have? Uh, VJ Edgecom looks unbelievable. Yeah. Um, what else did I pick up? Uh, let’s see here. Orlando Magic. My beloved Orlando Magic. I kind of feel like they’re they’re like a better version of themselves, but doesn’t make them any better because they suck so bad on offense. Wizards are bad. I think Madas Bazelle has taken a step forward. Oh yeah, Clippers. Frauds. Oh my god. Absolutely. They’re the biggest loser. They’re the biggest loser. I mean, they are loser. But are they frauds? But I think the Clippers have higher status than the the Hawks. But let’s be fair. Let’s be fair. Tailoo could have been terrified because the FBI is coming after him. You’re joking. But like No, I’m not. You’re joking. But there there’s a chance they did not have a game plan cuz he was like, “Well, I mean, I Leonard no showed the job.” Three of nine. They literally their entire roster. I would if I were the FBI, I would be looking in that direction. Maybe this is what it is. Is Adam Silver’s actually It’s like a lot of guys are going to go down, but this is my plan to get the Clippers. This is the only way. We just have to contract that franchise. Every player has been implicated. Uh I got another one that I don’t love. Maybe the coolest player of the first game of the year was Anthony Edwards. His close in the fourth Gordon Aaron Gordon too. Yeah, Aaron Gordon. But Anthony Edwards, the way he closed that game was just so saucy. I mean, they were down like 15 in the fourth quarter and then he just goes into his mode where he and the shot he got like think about Shay and his he has multiple now fourth quarter gamewinners. They’re all the same thing. Shot fake, pivot, pivot, pivot, jump into your free throws. Anthony Edwards had the chance to win the game and he said I’m gonna get a real shot. Just drained it. He’s the man. He He’s Yeah, I’m with I was just gonna say I I hate to say it. He is a super fun watch. He is incredibly fun watch cuz he plays with like joy and anger and like he like wants to clown you all the It’s like everything you want. The worst part about this first slate of games is there were so many instances of this of guys like going at and clowning and like really making other teams look bad and we couldn’t do it. Jokic and Murray look no team that this is the one uh the annual team I’m going to be too high on early on and Eric’s going to clown me for. I already have them. It’s not Is it the Clippers? No. Let me know. Uh the Toronto Raptors. Yeah. Get out. I love this team, man. I love this team, man. They have all these guards. You just love Dick. I do love Dick. No, I actually hate Dick, but I like Shed a lot. I just love They have some of these like guards that just fullcourt press you and get and get right into you. And I just I kind of think that they’re good. I actually hate all their guys. Yeah, I know. I was going to say I hate all of them. It doesn’t seem like your type of team. It’s because it’s not those guys that I like. It’s the other guys. Bench. It is great. That’s exactly I’m high on the Raptors bench. Sandro Mamu. I love that, dude. Mamu is straight up good. Yaka Ple sneaky great. Keeps doing it like with the Spurs and like and every time you’re like, “Man, where’d that guy come from?” every time. Oh, he just keeps doing it. He does it. Eurob basket like he just doesn’t look like the guy that’s a murderer. I mean, he looks like he does look like a murderer, but he doesn’t he doesn’t look like a basketball murderer. Looks like he might be in Los. Absolutely. Guys, careful. Dude, I the fact that you brought up Michael Malone and Portland, it actually got me thinking about it. Wouldn’t it suck? The Trailblazers are such a Malone team. Oh, totally. The defense. God damn it. Yan Hansen, he’s got he’s got he’s got Baby Yoke. He’s got Kamar like uh Drew Holiday. All these defenders, Ty. Jeremy Grant would hate it. Well, I mean, yeah, he he’d request a trade instantly. Yeah, playing for Malone in the whitest city America. Do you guys know Jeremy currently in hell would be even in a deeper hell. Um like that seems like a Malone team and he would get to play the Nuggets four times a year. Oh man. And they got the Timberwol. That would make this conference. So thankfully I’m kind of I’m kind of rooting for be so smart to hire him. I’m kind of rooting for Bro, he’s not a Portland is not doesn’t feel like a city though, man. Did Denver though? Kind of. I mean, he works. He loves the Grateful Dead. He’s a wester he’s a Western Conference guy. He’s following the footsteps of uh the what’s his name? The center that I can’t remember. Son of a biscuit. Put that in your pipe. The tall Walt. Yes. Thank you. Follow Grateful Dead. You’re right. Grateful Dead. I do like Put that in your pipe and smoke it. They’re like, “Okay, it’s already in the opening presser. We’re ready to go.” Ending with that line. The thing that’s working for us is that Malone currently has the easiest and cushiest gig in the world. Dude, he’s on ESPN from his house. You can tell it’s not his. Yeah, man. But it’s like a lot of money to not do anything. I know. But there’s a thing like he’s a he’s a street cop and he doesn’t want a desk job. Yeah, that’s a great take. That’s a great time. This is where all the real crime is like pencil like that’s so good. Um, all right. All right, we’re going to have to go to overtime to get to our super chat today. So, if you’re watching us on channel, we’re head to the internet now on a typewriter. That’s That was the perfect metaphor. I can’t believe it. All right, now we’re on the internet with the Italian mafia will never find us. Yeah, free. Let’s go to our super chat. Brett Bailey, it was awesome having you guys down. Getting to meet you in San Diego. Hell yeah. Looking forward to next year. This is for after our win on Saturday. All the nuggets are good. The vibes are immaculate. Get it in early. That is again our newest uh member of the supporters club. Heck yeah, man. Logan, right? Jokic summers need to change. How many guys have come to visit him overseas? He and he comes in barely a day before training camp starts. That’s bad leadership in my opinion. Logan says he was embarrassing last. Bro, is this more than a year of people turn on Yoke? Like we’ve never seen criticism of Yoke before. I mean, he kind of earned it for this game, but are we going to go too hard? Yeah, but now it’s on his summer and his character. So unbelievably overstated, but we have one game. He needs to change his number from 15. Actually, I don’t deserve to wear Melo’s number. Disrespectful. To be fair, we said the same thing about the Summers last night. I just think Joic is going to be good. Like, I think he’s going to have a good season. Yeah, I still have the trust in Joic’s process to give him the benefit of a doubt, but and again, he’ll see how the season goes. He makes that shot. We’re like, triple double game winner, best in the world. He makes that shot. were like, “Bro, drink a beer pregame.” On the flip side, if he has a down year, might be on to something. The boy’s dad, which nugget addresses the crowd before the opener. Oh, what a great question. Bruce Brown. Bruce Brown. Bruce Brown. I thought Bruce Brown, too. He he posited it might be Aaron Gordon who then throws to Bruce Brown. He brings him up. Bro, dude, that would be like we’re writing our own fan. It’s probably going to end up being like Jaylen. It’s going to be the last guy on the roster. Don Holmes. It should be Aaron Gordon. It absolutely should be Aaron Gordon, especially after last night. Man, I That’s a great question though. Now I’m excited. We should like make bets on this. I’m going to DM Kyle Spelleler and tell him to uh call Mr. Nugget. Got to give some more Mr. Nugget and Bruce B. And Bruce Cyb. Yeah, I think I think it’d be awesome if it was Bruce personally. Uh Leamin, let him in. Looking at his 23 highlights, Joic was way slimmer. Guys, it’s true. It’s true. Don’t look at our 23 highlights. Yeah, totally. By the way, weren’t we all? Hit that outro. The world has changed. What a nice little casual Friday with you guys. So casual. It’s honestly truly great to be back. Truly great to be back. And guess what? Tomorrow, Saturday night, if you’re not going to the game, come to the DMV bar. Hang out with us. It was popping last night. It’s going to be popping tomorrow. And we got the Suns. Always a good time. Hit that like button on the way out. We all silly like the man.

The Nuggets dropped their opener in Golden State but Aaron Gordon set a career high with 50 points. The DNVR Nuggets crew gives their Hangover Takes from the game, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray’s nights, David Adelman’s coaching, and more. Then the guys go Around The Association and discuss the Chauncey Billups betting scandal that’s the talk of the NBA.

Start – 0:00
Welcome In – 1:00
Hangover Takes – 3:20
Thoughts On The Suns Matchup – 23:40
Chauncey Situation – 32:30
Around The Association – 44:44
Superchats – 1:00:00

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