The Trailblazers guy will be in this conversation soon

2022: Nuggets trade a 2027 1st round pick to dump JaMychal Green. Solely for luxury tax relief. No on-court improvement.

False. That pick was traded along with Green for the 30th pick of the 2022 draft, which was used to select Peyton Watson. Why are you lying?

Now I’m imagining a frontcourt of Jokic and Gobert. They’d cover each other’s weaknesses perfectly.

Believe it or not the majority of major sports franchises aren’t that interested in winning, especially in the NBA. Teams make a profit no matter what they do with how crazy the TV money is so why spend more than you have to?

Also, extended MPJ, Murray, AG, and Braun right away, paid Zeke Naji and Reggie Jackson, and traded Hartenstein for nothing.

Literally half of the things you listed directly contradict one another.

For example how is letting Ujiri walk a bad decision if it leads to us getting Tim? How is letting Tim walk when half of the other bad decisions you listed were made by him?

This sub is full of morons who brainlessly hate without any logic or reason

Well Sarver was still the owner in the 2020s decade. And he sold first rounders for cash

Nets owner pre-move sold the first round pick that became AK47 to cover Summer Leagues costs and a coffee machine

The amount of picks we dumped for nothing is such insane mismanagement

Robert Sarver comes to mind, though he’s no longer with us.

This is fucking infuriating to read.

Let’s not forget trading Nurkic and a 1st for Plumlee and a 2nd. A 1st for Jerami Grant also seemed reasonable at the time but he left shirt half a season. I guess we wouldn’t have Gordon if he hadn’t done that though.

And yet in the past I have had butthurt Nuggets fans coming at me when I have called the owners cheap.

That MPJ trade was a disaster. One mistake like that and you’re cooked.

You can’t make catastrophic mistakes as a gm. It sounds like stating the obvious, but in a lot of businesses you can recover from one big mess up.

Aww cmon that isn’t circumvention, that’s a direct deposit

He’s a dick, but in this case he’s right.

Presti is considered one of the best GMs in the league. And looks like we are about to watch SGA go through the same experience. Celtics are considered well ran and blew up the roster following their championship. LeBron James is a top 2 player and had to jump teams consistently. KD left the previously mentioned Thunder due to them not building around him. The nba is set up to keep teams from building around players.

Maybe not wrong but also not entirely Denver’s fault.

We’ve seen 3 recent champs (Bucks, Celtics, & Nuggets) have to make cost saving moves because of the new salary cap rules

Basically. No way Jokic has those stats in LA, NY etc

Are you seriously defending George Karl of all people? I didn’t say that I disagree with him

The idea of replacing your guys with rookies is good, especially in this CBA. OKC and SA will do the same with guys like Caruso and Vassell likely. Just paying Braun that much was crazy

It was the current GMs who paid him. You can blame a lot on Calvin Booth but the move that crippled the franchise, the CB contract, was made by the current GM.

Same thing for the Bucks, but one usually gets the benefit of the doubt on that, while the other didn’t.

My feeling is that this is just the most common outcome with the current CBA.

They just lost a playoff series to the wolves bench, they don’t get the luxury of using injuries as an excuse. This isn’t to take away from Jokic, but if LeBron at the same age lost that series he would never have heard the end of it when his name comes up in all time rankings. Jokic has a major flaw in his game in his ability to protect the rim — a super important responsibility for his position. He’s simultaneously escaped the level of criticism deserved for that while also being failed incredibly by his organization to support maybe the only flaw in their GOAT player.

Well yeah, during the 99 lockout they changed the rules so that teams could no longer easily pay to retain stars while retaining the ability to also pay a supporting cast. From that point forward contention windows became far smaller than they were in the past, the current CBA just made it even harsher.

The Nuggets took the champion Thunder to 7 games. They basically had a 6 man rotation. They were also forced to play their guys too much that year due to how shallow their roster was and, unsurprisingly, Aaron Gordon ended up getting hurt. 

There’s a genuine chance that having KCP would have changed that significantly, just by being a competent backup who they could put out there for 20 minutes without the team imploding. And they got absolutely nothing out of the flexibility they apparently got from staying below the 2nd apron. 

KCP a lot. It blocks the organization from shooting themselves in the foot and overpaying Braun a year early. It also blocks the organization from going with the “what if we try the two timelines approach except with late round draft picks and 2nd rounders, and trade current picks to do it”.

Team doesn’t overpay Braun. Doesn’t trade back into the draft for Picket, Tyson and Julian and retains their 2030 and most likely their 2029 first round pick and uses those assets and roster spots on players that could help them win in. Doesn’t devote resources and roster spots to trying to develop multiple late round draft picks.

Entire trajectory of the team could have possibly changed. Not really because what KCP would bring, but what he would have prevented them from doing.

They went to Game 7 against OKC with Westbrick on 35% FG in that series (22% 3PT on 5 attempts per game)

They were really desperate for a simple 3-and-D guard.

That’s my complaint with the Cubs. They got their ring, tore it down, and have turned the reins over to Jed Hoyer, whose directive is clearly “be good enough to sell tickets, but keep profits higher.” He keeps making half-committed moves that lead to short-term spending that will never let them make the horrible error of having one bad contract on the books for a franchise that’s top-5 in revenue.

10+ years later, they still haven’t given out a contract as large as Jason Heyward’s, they haven’t given a single pitcher even \(70M guaranteed, and the most he's ever given to a reliever is \)14.5M over 2 years (and the guy is terrible).

And when you get one of those handful of owners people still just complain that they don’t have infinite money

That was the turning point.

I remember actually making a post on the announcement that he was gone saying that it would lead to the demise of their championship aspirations

Nah it was Calvin Booth who fucked us

I think the contrast with how the Timberwolves under Timmy has been tweaked every offseason vs whatever the blue hell Denver has done to repeatedly deteriorate ever offseason save for one year post-championship is a testament to just that

Connelly left when the Wolves offered him $20+ million a year and ownership stake - Connelly went to Kroenke (Denver ownership) and asked for a raise. He was the lowest paid GM in the league at the time. He had just drafted Jokic, Murray, and MPJ in back to back to back drafts and the Nuggets were fresh off a WCF run.

Kroenke was upset Connelly asked for a raise and fired him. All the bad decisions of the Nuggets come back to Kroenke not wanting to pay.

Moreso who replaced him

They’re gonna sell before that ever happens lol

They also needlessly overpaid both Murray and Gordon. Both of them had injury issues and looked better than they are thanks to Jokic. If they hadn’t done that they could have kept MPJ for example.

You guys have to stop blaming the CBA. The reason the Nuggets haven’t done anything is because the Kroenkes aren’t going to outspend revenue. The Nuggets have paid a total of \(79.06M in taxes in their history and \)57.9M of that has come since 2022.

I’ve been told by Nuggets fans for years that the team has been staying under the aprons so they can aggregate Zeke Nnaji’s salary in a trade that has never materialized. The only below-apron move I can remember them even taking advantage of was using the MLE to sign Dario Saric, and we all know how that went. It’s not the aprons, it’s the money, and that has always been true.

Naw the bucks traded away all their assets for Holliday and then lillard. Denve resigned their championship core to close to max contracts (something that was the normal thing to do with the previous cba) and now has been trying to retool their roster with crappy contracts

I’m certainly biased but I think it’s inarguable that you have to put the Celtics on the list of teams most impacted by the new CBA. They just had to ship off their homegrown 2nd best player 2 years after he won finals MVP for peanuts because of how catastrophic his next contract is going to be under the current system.

Doesn’t change the fact that the Nuggets were the team to beat for years and they made it look easy.

Any org would have loved to have him

But PG isn’t expiring, so maybe it’s actually 6D

What a load of BS. His game doesn’t rely on athleticism and any dip will be minimal at best and he always keeps in shape despite his appearance. Him retiring early is a bigger concern than whether his game ages well.

Lol what?

His play style will allow him to play long. Obviously as long as he wanted

It’s not like his game has been predicated on speed and athleticism in that way. Steph’s stayed relevant because he’s worked his ass off to stay active with cardio to remain a mobile threat. Durant’s a tall, lanky shooter who still dribbles and shoots well with his frame. LeBron’s a physical freak that should never be used as the baseline for others.

Jokic is most revered for his vision and ball movement. He’ll still be a tall, intelligent passer with good vision. Unless his eyes start to give out, or he becomes a soft player averse to contact, I wouldn’t worry in the same way. He hasn’t been insanly hard on his body as a high-flying rim finisher or aggressive defender. I think he’s kept himself pretty low on wear just by being such a strong, static player when he needs to.

What’s that got to do with Denver’s front office

If anything fans of incompetence orgs can identify incompetence easier

Mr sensitive