Jaden McDaniels has a five-year, \(126 million contract. Christian Braun has a five-year, \)125 million contract.
McDaniels had 32 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 block in Game 6. Braun had 3 points, 1 rebound, and 3 blocks.
Braun is doodoo and Jaden McDaniels is Jaden Mcdaniels
God forbid a white boy get a little motion
Narrator: but there was no motion
Narrator: He secured the bag but there was nary any motion
White Boy Summer is now on hiatus.
White Boy Summer is a go…in Cancun.
Save this for Collin Gillespie’s next contract
Tbf, Braun helped them win a championship
He was a rookie. He had some good plays but I wouldn’t say he was a massive momentum shifter in their championship run
I remember him having a real impact in the finals, am i misremembering?
You’re not misremembering. People just don’t like to give credit to role players on championship teams because they’re not putting up Jokic numbers. CB definitely had an impact that playoff run.
I guess you didn’t watch that playoff run then. He was definitely a contributing factor. You can’t just discredit him because he wasn’t the guy. Not many rookies getting the minutes he was getting in the Finals. He was playing for a reason.
this is r/nba buddy, we only formulate takes based on whatever happened in the last game played
Jaden “Jaden McDaniels” McDaniels
Can finally go back to calling him Braun instead of Brown…
Chaden Mcdaniels
Minnesota: the year of defeating Braunshirts
Ant has been saying it for a while now
“We got Jaden McDaniels”
Ant has gassed up Jaden since they got drafted together. He calls him his twin lol.
I feel like Ant doesn’t get enough praise for backing his teammates. I love how he defended Gobert to President Obama
The best example of this is KAT. He did wonders for KAT’s demeanor and attitude up until the trade. KAT then backslid a bit when he got to NY.
I think that narrative is meh. KAT has his moments but he’s an All NBA caliber player who was willing to be No2 in NY and then was willing to cut his playing time and shots every time he’s been asked. Hes changed his position and style of play multiple times under both Thibs and Brown. He has his flaws but the demeanor/attitude complaints are overstated.
Factor in that kat lost his mom here. Ant knows that pain. They are bros. Mental/emotional state factors into his game. I think ant is just an all around hype man and positive personality that really got him through. I don’t think kat did a backslide in ny though. Takes a while to fit into a new team.
KAT literally shouted out Ant coming off the court last night too. They’re bros for life
i just want to hug KAT man
I mean a lot of the “soft” image that used to be attached to KAT came from Jimmy and Embiid. Plus, I don’t think KAT was ever soft, his competitive nature just shows in different ways. It doesn’t always have to come out as being a dick to your teammates like Jimmy or talking trash on the court like Embiid
I thought kat can come across as “soft” because of his play style. He’s a thick 7 footer capable of dominating near the rim, but sometimes he plays like a shooting guard.
In the games they won this series, KAT has been racking up the assists. He’s very much a team player just doing what’s necessary
I like that he told Brunson at the all-star break to take care of his boy.
That’s a wild sentence lol
Ant is from Atlanta. Everybody calls everybody twin here
Generational draft class for us
Ant really is Jaden’s biggest fan
Twin is just slang, twin
Genuinely an all time great quote lol.
This Wolves core really deserves a ship.
KCP and MPJ were legit a great fit for Jokic.
Hindsight is always 20⁄20.
Mpj only traded cuz of contract
Classic Jokić problem. Get a guy paid and then have his contract be a burden to the team.
KGs Timberwolf career in a nutshell 😂
KG wanted his friends on the team. We were hamstrung from the Joe smith(I think that’s his name) contract
That’s not what happened.
Joe smith signed well below market value because he was colluding with management to circumvent the salary cap. Them getting caught cost the team five first round picks (at the time), but his contract initially gave them tons of flexibility to sign role players.
See this Silver?? This is a guideline to Ballmer sidestepping it for Kawhi
Clips don’t have their picks 😂
Take them away anyways! (Ngl though okc getting a top 3 pick would be hilarious)
For some reason I don’t mind OKC not getting them either lol.
Yeah sorry that’s what I meant, the result of that.
We got hamstrung with Terell Brandon’s contract because right as he signed it he got hurt and was never the same, but because we had him signed long term we let Chauncey walk and become a HoFer with Detroit.
Jokic obviously makes guys better, but it’s pretty clear MPJ would’ve gotten paid on a wide array of teams after seeing him average 24/7/3 on 60%TS and a 97th percentile O-EPM to back it up
Bruce Brown is more of a “Jokic got him paid” guy. A great defender, but Jokic was able to bring enough offense out of him to make him seem more desirable
When are we gonna see a star take less to win? Someone’s gotta do it with how much there is in contracts now. lol jk they def won’t
I mean LeBron, Wade, and Bosh all did it and people shit on them for it.
People who are fucking dumb
Harden did when he got to Philly. Of course, Morey used the extra room to sign PJ Tucker so lol
brunson just did it
Yes! But it took a situation with unique circumstances to happen.
true like playing with his besties
His agent was the team president and his dad worked for the team already lol
Ok, be honest… Would you? I know I sure as hell wouldn’t.
It’s very difficult to put oneself in that position without literally experiencing it. I like to think if I had HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS I would take less to win. But it’s impossible to say, there are many factors.
Yeah the MPJ trade wasn’t a mistake when you factor in the fact that they got a decent backup center with the money that they saved
Jonas was completely unplayable last night and Jokic played the entire 2nd half
To be fair, Jonas was the best backup C they’ve had for a while. Not saying he was remotely playable in the postseason but he gave them great regular season minutes
I’d argue D. Jordan was better
I’d argue Jonas Valunciunas has been better as he could be the offensive hub when Jokic sat, allowing for a similar style of offense to be played. That is something you couldnt do with DeAndre Jordan, who played in 131 games over 3 years, never once attempting over 3 field goals a game. Jonas however, in his single season was almost as efficient on double the shots + almost a three attempted a game.
That’s why I said in a while. The corpse of DJ in those final few seasons were not better.
He didn’t even want to play in the NBA this season, so not surprised at the lack of effort
A backup center that didn’t play at all in the playoffs.
They got the best backup center they could find, but that was not a decent backup center. JV gets decent counting stats when he’s in, but he’s consistently a negative +/- because fouls, turnovers and layups allowed also matter.
Ppl made a big deal of that signing at the time but I was skeptical he could play in the playoffs at his age. Pretty clear 82 vs 16 game player issue there
A “decent backup” who was useless in this series and the team largely abandoned in the playoffs. He had two DNPs, and two games with under 4min played.
It was a good idea in theory, but it clearly was not good in reality
Yeah, but when you factor in the fact that they also sent out a 2032 unprotected first round pick, it starts to look pretty bad again
KCP fucking sucks lol. Where is he playing?
Apparently he’s on Memphis now. I didn’t hear anything about him this year. He probably would have looked better if he stayed with Jokic. But I don’t really blame them for getting nervous about giving him another big contract in his early 30’s
KCP’s career has been running on the fumes of the finals series from the Lakers bubble ring for so long man
Nuggets FO have been terrorists the last 3 years
Join the club
Bucks and Nuggets after their championship are eerily similar.
The big difference is that Jokic has generally been available come playoffs, lately Giannis has not been lol
Do you think nuggets with healthy Giannis instead would win another ring?
Honestly i have no idea. I think it just highlights how fkin hard it is to win a title and that despite how great one person it is, its not gaurantee of any success. Nuggets FO tried to make cap space and spread it out which clearly hasnt worked. Its just a bloody hard thing to win
Usually the healthiest team wins.
At least they both got one. Sigh.
It didn’t help that every team that was already established got fucked hard by the current cap rules. There should definitely have been a transition period to allow top teams a chance to keep the squad together.
I was born in this club
They built such a great roster 4-5 years ago that led them to a title. If anybody important left from that Front Office, I bet that dude is thriving wherever he is.
hey we all said it at the time, it was Kroenkes being cheap
Reminds me of the Jordan Poole contract. After the ring they kind’ve felt compelled to overpay him
Isn’t that the best time to overpay someone?
I would argue the opposite. Back to Back titles only really happen to historically great teams. Overpaying your core after a championship has most often lead to cap hell and not continued contention.
We’ve seen this happen to the Warriors, Nuggets, Bucks and Celtics in recent years. The Celtics were able to pull off some great trades to escape cap hell, but the other teams all now have horrible cap sheets.
You’re talking about back to back titles, but only 11 teams have won a championship this century. There’s a minimum amount of money that all teams are expected to spend on salaries. What’s the point of spending this money if not for rewarding a player for helping you win a championship?! Based on that standard alone majority of the teams are just throwing away their money coz most of them won’t win in the next even 50 years. Took the Warriors 40 years between championships. You can’t take that for granted.
I know this thread is about Braun’s contract, but genuine question — I thought the FO decisions were well regarded this last off season? It didn’t work out, but you could argue with AG and Peyton Watson healthy things could have been different. Nuggets were rolling when healthy
A lot of us knew it was more about getting under the apron than upgrading the roster. They had unused cap space this season after trading MPJ that they just never filled
I wonder what changed
Everyone here hammered ownership for cheaping out on keeping Connelly. Local media tried to pin it on Connelly asking for too much but that obviously wasn’t true. It’s classic Kroenke bullshit, same with keeping Adelman instead of doing a real search for someone more expensive
Its almost like they lost the gm that built the roster in the first place
Literally everybody was raving about how many great moves Nuggets made this off season. Yall just blew it
Tbf they got fucked by the CBA with the MPJ contract. His max made sense in the old CBA I guess. The Braun contract was insanity. No reason to tie so much money to him
probably going to lose Watson over this.
Jaden basically set the market for that emerging Wing/Guard extension back then. Every one of them got that every year since. Vassell, TM3, Dyson Daniels, Keegan Murphy, ETC.
I wouldn’t take any of them over Jaden.
I think Vassell actually got paid first.
Yep - difference of just a few weeks funnily enough.
The Minnesota cost of living discount finally starting to help the Wolves /s
TM3 would the only one I thought I’d take over Jalen
dyson?
Dyson just isn’t as plug and play as everyone else mentioned. Braun and Keegan Murray both had huge down years (Vassell, McDaniels, and TM3 all has their best years so far), and Dyson played really well this year, but it’s still hard to consider taking the guard who cannot shoot a 3 or free throws. Braun and Murray aren’t creators and are only spot up shooters/cutters, and DD can be creative and useful despite his lack of shooting, but still, shooting sub-20% from 3 and being afraid to shoot from the perimeter is a tough fit for a lot of teams.
Trey Murphy is fantastic bro
Jaden’s contract will expire before theirs (other than Vassell) so you guys will have a chance to set the market and pay him what he’s worth then! Hoping he earns a max with you guys.
Anunoby got 42m
That’s probably about what Jaden would get on the open market right now or maybe even more
Even if you factor out the “what have you done for me lately” factor one advantage McDaniels has is that he can stay on the floor.
He doesn’t sweat or look tired? Ant mentioned he’s never seen him working out either which I find hilarious. “I don’t even know what he does”
The workload he carried last night was unbelievable. Primary creator, lots of ball handling, still picking up the opponents best wing full court
For 45 goddamn minutes. I love Jaden McDaniels
Mid-range pull up after mid-range pull up after mid-range pull up.
He’s the cardio final boss
Maybe he has the same medieval torture chamber “home gym” that Harrison smith has
Smith has what now?
Damn, I wonder what McDaniels actually does. Like for fun outside basketball. Is fun something he has experienced? Is Jaden McDaniels real?
dude go look at a picture of him with his wife and kids. I refuse to believe that it’s him. there is no way that demon just goes home and takes care of his baby
Lol yeah, it’s like crazy. Hard to believe that it’s really him.
Lmao he looks like such a well-behaved dude in this photo
Then you see him on court and he constantly looks like he’s planning a murder
That’s cause Jaden McDaniels isn’t real and is just a manifestation of hate that balls out for the wolves to make other players feel bad.
Hey now on the Timberwolves instagram the other day they posted Jaden doing Bulgarian split squats! Was it just for the gram?!
I think he meant outside of team stuff and in the off season.
He played 45 minutes last night. Nutty stuff to have the impact that he had defensively, with that much offensive efficiency, while only sitting for 3 minutes and 6 seconds.
Since his first year in 20-21, out of a total of 482 possible games (5 82-game seasons and the shortened 20-21 season that had 72), he has played in 439. He has played in every playoff game possible at 43. He has played in 92% of all Timberwolves games since being drafted, playing about 30 minutes a game.
It seems like the only time he’s been seriously hurt is when he punched a wall.
Wait, he didn’t play in every playoff game possible. He broke his hand and was out for the first round back in 2023
Murray is getting paid 50m to be Jaden’s bitch every playoff series, too
Braun won a highschool champ, natl title and NBA title in like 4 years, then got 125 million. Makes sense he was gonna take his foot off the gas from improving as a player.
Funny enough I watched a podcast where Christian Braun said if he was back in college making a ton of NIL money like how college athletes are right now, he wouldn’t have been as hungry to make the league or doesn’t think he would have made the league if i recall correctly.
That type of thinking does not bode well for nugs fans lol
it’s always a bit odd when you simultaneously want to give someone points for self-awareness, but then take away points for what they’re self-aware about lmao
He never showed anything close to being a 25 million dollar player a year, the nuggets org was weird for that one
He never had a shot or handle though or the ability to defend good guards. He got paid before showing anything in any playoff series.
I don’t think he took his foot off the gas.
I think he’s just not very talented (at least relative to his price tag).
He’s never had a handle and his jumper has always been limited to “wide open and has 3 seconds to set his feet.” He played 3 years at Kansas and scored 14.1 PPG in his final season. In Kansas’ championship run he averaged 11.2 points. He had a good scoring year last year because he sprinted in transition and punched gaps when defenses focused on the other 4 players.
Like, McDaniels was, at one point, the #1 high school recruit in America and got KD comps. Obviously not all elite prospects are actually that good, but Jaden has always had a pretty sneaky self-creation skill set. Even in a disappointing true freshman season at Washington he averaged 13.0 points per game.
Genuinely asking but is Braun good against other teams? I only watch the nuggets when they play the wolves and Braun is consistently a non factor.
He’s a pretty great regular season role player. In the playoffs he doesn’t get free fastbreaks or cuts in the lane
Christian Braun fits right in with the average pistons player
Yeah he would be bench guy #11 on OKC. Good teams can extract his value from young guns making 1⁄4 of this money.
Yeah. Really crazy to me Denver gave $125 million to a hustle guy
So basically he suck’s when teams actually play defense
hes good in transition offense but struggles in halfcourt. this happens with a lot of players in the playoffs when pace slows. in denver there is a lot of benefactors from jokic’s outlet passes-no doubt he is one of them
And there are way fewer transition opportunities with Watson and Gordon out.
This is my first time even learning that Braun is highly paid, I thought he was just some scrub who posterized Rudy once
hes a transition offense jokic merchant and that diminishes in the playoffs and its specially hard against the wolves; the main problem is that he came back from injury and hes been pretty ass on defense & cant hit his 3s, so he legitimately offers nothing as soon as the game tightens up in the clutch or playoffs
Reg season no one defends so anyone can run to the net and cut and get buckets with certain playmakers.
Braun has been a liability in every playoff series the past 3 seasons. He only wasnt one in 2p23 when nuggets won because he only avged like 5mpg
What team does Christian Braun play for? I feel like I haven’t seen him lately
They really chose Braun over Watson lol
To be fair Watson sucked last year. Not that they shouldn’t have tried to extend him for cheap.
Didn’t they barely play him? Maybe I’m misremembering tho.
Yeah they barely played him bc he sucked lol
I feel like this is a concept fans frequently struggle to understand. It’s very rare that a player is ready to be a positive contributor but the coach just lets them rot on the bench.
They’ll keep Watson fs
They’re in the second apron to start the offseason without Watson, THJ, Bruce Brown and Spencer Jones under contract. They can decline JV’s final year (unguaranteed) and trade or stretch Nnaji to get under the second apron, but a $25M+/year deal is going to be wildly expensive to match.
They have no money
Braun contract is gonna age so poorly—especially now that they may not be able to pay Peyton Watson
Watson was looking good this year. His euro floater is leagues ahead of any offensive creation braun can do. How are the nugs not cooked with these contracts?
That was literally the point of my comment! lol
Dude should’ve never got a buzz
Nuggets fans were talking crazy too saying Braun was better than Reaves lmao. Dude is so damn overrated
Reminds me when Lakers fans used to argue Anthony Davis over Jokic
When? That must have been at least 4-5 years ago, and, at that point in time, it wasn’t an outlandish thing to say. AD was really fucking good in his prime.
Who the fuck said this? Can you provide 2-3 instances? 1 at least?
This is the same sub that couldn’t understand why the Bucks would consider a Giannis package headlined by Jaden. So many slanderous things said about him.
As good as McDaniels is, he doesn’t hold a candle to Giannis. You make that trade 10⁄10 times.
It’s a great deal one one side for Jaden but 25m a year isn’t crazy money and in 2⁄3 years will look totally fine as the cap keeps going up.
A bad contract is a bad contract regardless of the cap.
Can somebody dig up and post the threads of both of these signings?
Jaden: sentiment from Wolves fans is “yay” and from non Wolves fans is “NBA players make a lot of money,” not much talk of an overpay though. Mostly paying for potential and curiosity if he’ll be worth it
CB: people are saying it was a slight underpay but don’t blame the man for taking a lot of money in a comfortable environment. Should note this was two years later so $125 doesn’t have quite the same juice as when Jaden got his
Man. A lot can change in 6 months
Flirting versus harassment
$125M for a no 3 no D player is rough. That might be a tough contract to move.
Edit: My team couldn’t even move on from Patrick Williams
What happened to Braun? He looked great in his first few years. Is he hurt?
He had a bad ankle injury early this year, and it looks like he never fully recovered
That the benefit of contributing to a championship winning team
Excuse you; it’s Jaden McGoddamnDaniels
Put some respect on his name!!
The first of his name.
can’t believe some people were some people saying that braun for 5 years 25M/year was a great deal back when he first signed.
well that’s an embarrassing comp
If you actually watch the Nuggets you understand that he is a great glue guy and essential for their success with his cutting, shooting, and defense. Both of them are a bargain at their salaries. Wolves are just the worst possible matchup for them, as proven in recent history
There is a reason why players end up out of the league after leaving Nuggets.
Should’ve thrown in the additional million, duh.
I said at the time it was a huge overpay for Braun and got voted down. Hate to say I told you so.
Got in so many arguments with Nuggets fans last summer about Braun’s deal.
Sorry guys.
got off the MPJ deal just to have this one in tuck
braun is a poor man’s austin reaves
They aren’t remotely similar other than being white.
What a dumb decision to pay Braun that much. He cannot create his own shot.
I said it was stupid when they did it, and Braun has proved me right.
Dammit.
Mom, can we have Jaden McDaniels? No dear, we have Jaden McDaniels at home
Mom, can we have Jaden McDaniels?
No dear, we have Jaden McDaniels at home
SadKid.gif
I think people are underselling how valuable AG is to this Nuggets team. Ever since he came to Denver they went from good to great. He’s been injured all year and they were never going to go anywhere with him on the bench.
It’s a 1mil savings across 5 years! Win for the Nuggets!
I think Braun thrived last year (24⁄25) because the spacing was so amazing.
Jokic has insane gravity anywhere and is probably the best passer in the league. Murray is typically an electric shooter/shotmaker. MPJ is an elite shooter. Gordon developed into a 40+% shooter. So teams were fixated on Jokic, couldn’t collapse down, and Braun got a ton of open drives to the basket against an out of position defense.
But with Gordon getting hurt, the spacing started to dry up. And with Gobert able to neutralize Jokic enough that the Wolves didn’t need to send extra bodies regularly, it became apparent just what Braun can do against a defense that doesn’t forget about him: nothing.
Especially because he’s not quite big enough and explosive enough to be a weapon in the dunker spot like Gordon was prior to his 3pt renaissance.
Braun is a nice roler player. It would be zozk if he made halt that amount maybe. I don’t see him progressing enough offensively to ever justify that price tag.