After a black and blue series, Christian Braun left the Nuggets red-faced.
Denver capitulated to the Minnesota Timberwolves in six games, a championship bid ending in vacant stares and shaking heads. Braun accepted responsibility. Then he elaborated.
“I just think I’m the leader of this team,” Braun said. “I’m the vocal leader of this team. And when we don’t play well as a whole, you can blame whatever you want … You can blame anything. But I didn’t play well enough as an individual, and I didn’t have this team ready enough to play in a tough series. So we’ll be better. I’ll be better. I’m looking forward to next year, when we can respond.”
Braun deserves criticism for his awful playoff performance and his lost regular season due to an ankle injury. His quote, on the surface, was absurd. More concerning is that it set off no alarms among his teammates.
How could it? Minutes earlier, Jamal Murray admitted that the Timberwolves wanted it more, and took “it kind of personal.”
Braun meant what he said because he has grown into an outsized role over the past three years in a locker room with a three-time MVP, a player whose number will hang from the rafters and a veteran known affectionately by fans as Mr. Nugget.
This is why the Nuggets are doomed without adding their own version of Gabe Landeskog.
The Avs are 51-7-8 with Landeskog in the lineup this season. But his real value lies in his leadership.
He is the captain, and leads by example, both physical and verbal. Teammates can go to him with concerns, and he is able to communicate points to the coaching staff. Avs players will do what he tells them out of respect, out of love, not fear (that is reserved for Nathan MacKinnon’s glare).
And he takes up for them on the ice.
The importance of this cannot be overstated. You want to mouth off, Landeskog will talk with his fists. You want to take a run at MacKinnon or Cale Makar, a hard check into the boards will be postmarked with vengeance.
Landeskog takes his role seriously.
No doubt Braun does, too. But the loss to the Timberwolves revealed that he is miscast.
Want to be the leader of the team? After Jaden McDaniels called out Nikola Jokic, Murray, Aaron Gordon, Cam Johnson and Tim Hardaway Jr. as “bad defenders,” Braun should have been waiting, mouth frothing.
The first time McDaniels took the ball to the basket in Game 3, Braun should have fouled him in a way that conjured images of Anthony Mason. The second time McDaniels exploded to the hoop, Braun should have fouled him in ways that brought back memories of Joe Dumars.
Hard. Clean. Enough is enough. Instill toughness.
Braun did none of it.
Yet blaming him is misguided.
The fact that he felt comfortable talking the way he did tells you everything that is wrong with the Nuggets’ current roster and coaching staff.
Why would he not think he is the leader? His play reflected his team. He was timid, passed up open shots, and was not a lock-down defender. Like his teammates, he accepted accountability and, by virtue of his actions on the court, took nothing personally.
As the Nuggets enter an offseason of uncertainty, it is clear the roster no longer works, especially since all indications are that David Adelman is safe. An argument can be made for letting Adelman learn on the job, but he fueled concerns that he is a better offensive coordinator than head coach with the playoff collapse.
This is not second-guessing. I wrote six weeks ago that the Nuggets needed a player to provide bad cop energy, to give the team an edge and keep everything in line when the defense slipped because they ran off the last coach who urged them to guard people.
Something has to give.
Maybe it starts with trying to move Gordon to the Celtics in exchange for Colorado legend Derrick White. And obviously, trading Johnson must be discussed as a way to bring back Peyton Watson. He must be a top priority.
The Nuggets are over the luxury tax and both aprons. And if history is a guide, it is hard to see ownership absorbing any financial penalties next season.
Compliance starts with moving on from backup center Jonas Valanciunas, spreading $2 million over three seasons rather than paying him a $10 million salary. And it is unlikely Hardaway comes back unless he signs a team-friendly deal, his situation not dissimilar from Bruce Brown’s after the Nuggets won their championship.
The Nuggets must treat failure as a curriculum.
Looking at the Thunder, the Spurs, and the Timberwolves, there is no way to see the Nuggets as a championship contender. They do not match up well against elite teams. Their scoring was a problem against Minnesota, but not as much as the lack of physicality and protection against drives to the rim.
It has shown up on the road where flaws are typically exposed. In their last 10 postseason games away from Ball Arena, the Nuggets are 2-8, including six losses by double digits.
The Nuggets’ front office of Jon Wallace and Ben Tenzer received high marks for building a new bench last offseason. That is exactly what was needed on the spreadsheet. It accounted for strategy, not chemistry.
Now, they are faced with solving a problem they inadvertently created with an inexperienced coach and a roster absent a mean streak.
The Nuggets boast too many good vibes guys. They don’t have a Landeskog. Or a MacKinnon.
There are players with these traits, but they are not displayed with the consistency that, in hockey parlance, would demand a C or an A on their chest.
This is how Braun found himself in front of a microphone after Game 6. He is a veteran with a high basketball IQ. A proven winner.
But he cannot be this team’s leader.
Two years from now if he has lived up to his contract extension? Sure.
When he is averaging 18 points per game and stifling top scorers in the fourth quarter? Yep.
But until then, he needs to become a face in the crowd with a louder, more proven player’s voice filling the room. A player like Landeskog.
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