Latest / Moser, Lombardi and Kane / Brian Windhorst offers the national perspective on the Nuggets offseason
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Nelly.
- 0:00Speaker 2: Let me know when we're all hooked up and good
- 0:02Speaker 2: to go. Brian Winhorst, ESPN dot com. We'll add this
- 0:05Speaker 2: to the Ramos Law hotline car accident you need Ramos
- 0:07Speaker 2: Law Medical Doctrine Attorney ramoslat dot com. Uh, let's ring in.
- 0:12Speaker 2: Brian Wenthorse, ESPN. Brian, how you doing, buddy?
- 0:15Speaker 3: Good morning guys.
- 0:16Speaker 4: How are you very nice of you to join us?
- 0:18Speaker 4: We just show they just showed you on first Take
- 0:22Speaker 4: a very busy day. I do appreciate you throwing the
- 0:25Speaker 4: Denver background on this, so that's very nice of you.
- 0:28Speaker 4: Did you guys notice that?
- 0:29Speaker 1: Yeah, I see the cash register building right there.
- 0:33Speaker 3: In an absolutely crazy turn of events, because we talked
- 0:36Speaker 3: about the nuggets on First Take like about four times
- 0:38Speaker 3: a year, we actually just had a nugget we saw
- 0:41Speaker 3: minutes ago. We saw that it was absolutely it's it's
- 0:44Speaker 3: it's just I'm gonna it's kind of a weird cosmic thing.
- 0:47Speaker 3: I'm actually gonna go play the lottery because that's a
- 0:49Speaker 3: strange circumstance.
- 0:50Speaker 2: Well, Brian with that, because we can't listen to the
- 0:52Speaker 2: television and do the show at the same time. The
- 0:54Speaker 2: question was should Nikola Jokicic trust the Nuggets vision.
- 0:57Speaker 3: What did you say, Well, you know, look, the Nuggets
- 1:01Speaker 3: are in a very tough spot right now, and like
- 1:04Speaker 3: what they're trying to navigate is one of the toughest
- 1:06Speaker 3: things organizationally, I mean, the toughest thing to do as
- 1:08Speaker 3: an organizations win the championship, right Like, So that's you know,
- 1:12Speaker 3: that's the hill you gotta climb, and it's a it's
- 1:15Speaker 3: a it takes years, and it takes luck, and it
- 1:17Speaker 3: takes incredible talent and all this stuff. And the second
- 1:21Speaker 3: toughest thing you have to do in the in the
- 1:22Speaker 3: NBA today is to stay at the top because all
- 1:26Speaker 3: of the rules have been put in to try to
- 1:31Speaker 3: try to keep teams from being dynastic, to try to
- 1:33Speaker 3: keep teams from staying at the top. Like, all of
- 1:35Speaker 3: those rules are put in and those rules were not
- 1:37Speaker 3: put in to target teams like the Denver Nuggets or
- 1:40Speaker 3: Oklahoma City Thunder. They were put in to target, you know,
- 1:44Speaker 3: teams like the Lakers or you know the concept of
- 1:46Speaker 3: the Bulls or the Lakers or the Celtics, you know,
- 1:49Speaker 3: being able to stay on top for ten eight, ten
- 1:51Speaker 3: years because they were put in by mid market teams
- 1:54Speaker 3: like Denver. You know, there's more of them than there
- 1:56Speaker 3: are big market teams, and they structured the CBA. And
- 1:59Speaker 3: so this is what the Nuggets are fighting against is
- 2:03Speaker 3: the wins of the league. They're you know, they're going
- 2:06Speaker 3: against the the you know, the league is not designed
- 2:11Speaker 3: today to be relevant to be a championship contender for seven, six, seven,
- 2:16Speaker 3: eight years. So they're what they're doing is they're fighting
- 2:19Speaker 3: against that. Okay, they're also fighting against a couple of
- 2:23Speaker 3: decisions that they made. They made a decision, for example,
- 2:28Speaker 3: to extend Jamal Murray at the MAX. And you know,
- 2:34Speaker 3: the man was a championship player. He had had an
- 2:37Speaker 3: incredible run, but he was probably not a MAX player.
- 2:42Speaker 3: And a generation ago, ten years ago, if you gave
- 2:47Speaker 3: a MAX player who'd won a championship another MAX contract,
- 2:50Speaker 3: I mean, if he wasn't a MAX player, you know,
- 2:53Speaker 3: it cost your owners some money, but it didn't prevent
- 2:56Speaker 3: your team from from competing. That's not true anymore. And
- 3:00Speaker 3: so like right now, like the Knicks have got this
- 3:03Speaker 3: real difficult situation with Carl Towns because he's a championship player.
- 3:10Speaker 3: If they pay him the max, they're going to have
- 3:12Speaker 3: a big problem in a year or so, because that's
- 3:14Speaker 3: just the thing. That's why the Thunder are giving away
- 3:17Speaker 3: players right now. The Thunder gave away three rotation players
- 3:20Speaker 3: this summer. They literally gave them away. I know they
- 3:21Speaker 3: got like second round picks, but they handed them away
- 3:24Speaker 3: for nothing because they're trying to manage the idea of
- 3:27Speaker 3: having a championship window, and so now it's flying in
- 3:30Speaker 3: the face of the Nuggets. They're trying to manage it. Okay,
- 3:34Speaker 3: it doesn't mean they're bad people. It doesn't mean that
- 3:36Speaker 3: they're dumb or whatever. The Bucks. It broke the Bucks,
- 3:40Speaker 3: and the Bucks didn't really have to even deal with
- 3:42Speaker 3: the second aprom for the whole time. But the Bucks
- 3:43Speaker 3: were championship contenders for I want to say six ish years.
- 3:49Speaker 3: I think from twenty eighteen to twenty four. They looked
- 3:51Speaker 3: at themselves in the mirror and said, we're championship contenders.
- 3:53Speaker 3: Look at the how long of the Nuggets. What was
- 3:56Speaker 3: that first big high win season? Was that like two thousand,
- 4:00Speaker 3: eighteen nineteen or.
- 4:02Speaker 4: It was when they got to the second round, and
- 4:06Speaker 4: then of course the next year Jamal Murray gets hurt
- 4:09Speaker 4: in at least some issues.
- 4:10Speaker 1: Was the Golden State.
- 4:11Speaker 4: Hey, their window actually started in nineteen windy, but they
- 4:15Speaker 4: had the bad fortune of having an injury to one
- 4:17Speaker 4: of their best players.
- 4:18Speaker 2: Otherwise we could be talking about two titles.
- 4:20Speaker 3: And that's what happened. Well, first off, they win Game
- 4:23Speaker 3: seven a couple of years. I mean, I thought that
- 4:26Speaker 3: team was or whatever. I don't want to go back down.
- 4:28Speaker 3: But you can say the same thing about about Milwaukee.
- 4:31Speaker 3: By the way, Milwaukee had a sixty win team or
- 4:34Speaker 3: like a fifty seven win team. I thought was going
- 4:36Speaker 3: to go back and Yan and you know, Middleton hurt
- 4:38Speaker 3: his knee and then Jannis hurt his calf or whatever.
- 4:41Speaker 3: Like they had bad luck. I mean, I don't feel
- 4:42Speaker 3: I feel okay about it because there's a banner hanging
- 4:45Speaker 3: up there. And I'd say the same thing about Denver.
- 4:46Speaker 3: There's a banner hanging up there. You know. You you know,
- 4:48Speaker 3: I have this big belief that you never you win
- 4:51Speaker 3: a championship means ever saying you're sorry. But the Nuggets
- 4:53Speaker 3: are battling the the the grain of the league. And
- 4:58Speaker 3: so look, you guys know the numbers. Right now, they're
- 5:01Speaker 3: sitting at about seventy million dollars in tax they've paid
- 5:03Speaker 3: fifty million dollars in tax in the history of the team.
- 5:06Speaker 3: Do we honestly believe that they're going to pay that
- 5:09Speaker 3: seventy million in tax.
- 5:11Speaker 2: Well, and that's not even with and that's not even
- 5:12Speaker 2: Peyton Watson being backed either.
- 5:14Speaker 1: Right, of course, I think we all hear Brian feel it.
- 5:18Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to pay it. I mean, I was
- 5:20Speaker 1: telling the guys that you have the best teams in
- 5:22Speaker 1: the league. I mean, the Celtics went in there like
- 5:23Speaker 1: we're not second Apron and that thing boom, you know
- 5:26Speaker 1: what you see, Like it's just so prohibitive even if
- 5:29Speaker 1: you had two hundred million dollars sitting around that you're
- 5:31Speaker 1: going to write a check to the league two hundred
- 5:33Speaker 1: million and no it for the payoff. It just doesn't
- 5:36Speaker 1: make any sense.
- 5:38Speaker 3: Right. And then we have the you know, the cloud
- 5:41Speaker 3: on the horizon, right, so sometimes the cloud comes over
- 5:45Speaker 3: and we get thunderstorms. Sometimes the cloud passes. So I
- 5:49Speaker 3: know what Nikoli Jokic has said. I'm very well aware.
- 5:54Speaker 3: I know what kind of person he is. I was
- 5:57Speaker 3: there the night they won the championship. I understand and
- 6:00Speaker 3: all that. I acknowledge all of it. Okay, I'm also
- 6:04Speaker 3: a person of actions over words. Okay, he did not
- 6:07Speaker 3: sign the extension. I know what he said, I know
- 6:10Speaker 3: who he is. I'm not saying he's not going to
- 6:12Speaker 3: do anything about there. But if you ran a team
- 6:17Speaker 3: in the NBA, if you were running a team and
- 6:20Speaker 3: you had the opportunity to open cap space next year
- 6:23Speaker 3: and you thought you could get Joki's attention, would you
- 6:26Speaker 3: fill your cap space?
- 6:28Speaker 1: No?
- 6:28Speaker 3: Based on I mean, what do you I mean, it's
- 6:31Speaker 3: not meant to be. I'm not saying anything. I'm not
- 6:35Speaker 3: saying he's not being truthful. I'm not saying it's not
- 6:38Speaker 3: in his heart. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense
- 6:41Speaker 3: for him to want to add money onto the back
- 6:45Speaker 3: of his career. I'm not taking any of that not
- 6:50Speaker 3: a face value. But you got to admit it. It's
- 6:52Speaker 3: a cloud on the horizon.
- 6:53Speaker 4: But can't you Here's how I look at it, Wendy,
- 6:56Speaker 4: because I know Nicolo very well. Can't you send a
- 7:00Speaker 4: message while at the same time understand that you're not
- 7:04Speaker 4: going anywhere?
- 7:04Speaker 3: You could?
- 7:05Speaker 2: You could do both.
- 7:06Speaker 4: Listen, if he lost a limb, the Nuggets would signed
- 7:10Speaker 4: him to the supermax contract. So agree, nothing matters for him.
- 7:14Speaker 4: So for him, it's not a roll of the dice.
- 7:17Speaker 4: The most money he can make in the NBA is
- 7:20Speaker 4: via the Denver Nuggets. It's not moving to another team.
- 7:23Speaker 4: Money matters. People may not agree, but money matters to him.
- 7:28Speaker 4: He's not going anywhere. But at the same time, he's
- 7:31Speaker 4: sending a message. And I think that's powerful, and I
- 7:33Speaker 4: think that's how you're doing.
- 7:35Speaker 3: I agree because by the speak, by the way, I
- 7:37Speaker 3: agree with every syllable that you said. You know, this
- 7:39Speaker 3: is not your first year with the league, right, You've
- 7:42Speaker 3: been around a little bit, right, of course, and you've
- 7:45Speaker 3: been with Nicholas since he was, you know, the second
- 7:48Speaker 3: round pick. You know that they weren't sure he's going
- 7:50Speaker 3: to make the summer league roster. Okay, that's what Michael
- 7:53Speaker 3: Malone told me. Once he goes, we weren't even sure
- 7:55Speaker 3: he's gonna play on the Summer Lee And which is
- 8:01Speaker 3: why it's maybe a kind of little tiny bit disingenuous
- 8:05Speaker 3: for him to worry about what his salary is going
- 8:06Speaker 3: to be at age thirty five, right like it, the
- 8:11Speaker 3: Nuggets are always gonna pay him. So like for him
- 8:14Speaker 3: to look at you and say, I'm I'm waiting a
- 8:17Speaker 3: year so that I can make sure I get paid at
- 8:18Speaker 3: thirty five. You're kind of like, now you're gonna get
- 8:21Speaker 3: that anything, Nicola, You're gonna be able to maybe put
- 8:25Speaker 3: up triple doubles when you're forty three, Like you know,
- 8:28Speaker 3: like I honestly believe he could, he could play, he
- 8:32Speaker 3: could plays. We don't think he could play till he's fit.
- 8:35Speaker 3: Like I honestly believe if he played at fifty years
- 8:38Speaker 3: old and only played one under the court, he would
- 8:39Speaker 3: a put up triple doubles. But the guy, the game
- 8:42Speaker 3: is predicated completely between the ears, and he's the smartest
- 8:45Speaker 3: basketball player I've ever seen.
- 8:46Speaker 1: Brian, Let's let's pivot here a little bit. Excuse me,
- 8:49Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I because I know your time is valuable.
- 8:52Speaker 1: We are sitting here every day talking about Peyton Watson
- 8:55Speaker 1: and it's driving us crazy because he's an asset for sure,
- 8:58Speaker 1: so sign and trade would have to be you can't
- 9:00Speaker 1: just let them walk. But at the same time, you
- 9:03Speaker 1: know they've they've qualified him. Why is he not getting
- 9:07Speaker 1: an RFA offer from one of these teams that has
- 9:09Speaker 1: all this cap space? Is he is he overvaluing his
- 9:13Speaker 1: value to the rest of the league Because we think,
- 9:17Speaker 1: you know, seventeen eighteen million is probably fair, and you're
- 9:19Speaker 1: still in your second apron and so on and so forth.
- 9:21Speaker 2: But why is there nothing coming in on this player?
- 9:24Speaker 2: All we hear Wendy is that, oh, the Pucks are
- 9:26Speaker 2: interested and the Clippers are interested. Well, if you're interested,
- 9:28Speaker 2: why isn't there an offer?
- 9:29Speaker 1: What are we doing?
- 9:30Speaker 3: Correct? Yeah? Well, first off, the Clippers right now are
- 9:33Speaker 3: in the limbo. They don't know whether they're going to
- 9:35Speaker 3: be able to make this big trade or not. So
- 9:36Speaker 3: I have to take the Clippers out of the conversation.
- 9:39Speaker 3: In the situation of the Bucks, yes, they can do
- 9:42Speaker 3: this deal because they've got this big trade exception where
- 9:47Speaker 3: they wouldn't have to send anything back to Denver theoretically.
- 9:51Speaker 3: But they're like four million dollars from the for Forrest.
- 9:56Speaker 3: Maybe it's I don't have enough top of my Head's
- 9:57Speaker 3: it's it's single digit millions away from the tax? Is
- 10:00Speaker 3: that team going into the I mean Peyton Watson is
- 10:03Speaker 3: your fourth or I mean you know for the Nuggets too,
- 10:07Speaker 3: like he's your fourth or fifth best player. You going
- 10:09Speaker 3: into the tax for your fourth or fifth best player?
- 10:11Speaker 3: You are not? I mean, like, so the same thing
- 10:15Speaker 3: with Jonathan Kaminga is the same thing. People are like, well,
- 10:17Speaker 3: what are the Buck's gonna sign Jonathan Kaminga. They're not
- 10:19Speaker 3: going into the tax run if you're going to do that, right, So,
- 10:24Speaker 3: you know, look, it's hard for me to talk about
- 10:27Speaker 3: stuff like this because this is my twenty fifth year
- 10:29Speaker 3: cover in the league and I have spent hours of
- 10:33Speaker 3: my life listening to agents who have restricted free agents
- 10:36Speaker 3: who are frustrated in July. And I'm just a calloused
- 10:41Speaker 3: SOB at this point, and I'm just like, I know,
- 10:45Speaker 3: restrictive free agency sucks. That you're in the stalemate. Call
- 10:49Speaker 3: me when you've taken the qualifying offer, because that's really
- 10:52Speaker 3: the saber rattle. We're gonna take the qualifying offer. We're
- 10:54Speaker 3: gonna take the qualifying offer. You better watch out. I'm like,
- 10:57Speaker 3: sounds good. Call me when you've done it. Have a
- 10:59Speaker 3: nice sum Yeah, I'm going on vacation. I know that
- 11:03Speaker 3: if you're a Nuggets fan, you haven't had this happen.
- 11:05Speaker 3: You're probably like, what is the update? What is the update?
- 11:07Speaker 3: I've just been around this too long. I've been around
- 11:10Speaker 3: this too long. I've seen this happen too much. It sucks.
- 11:13Speaker 3: As a player because you're because you're like, well, why
- 11:15Speaker 3: can't I get an offer? Why can't I get this?
- 11:18Speaker 3: It's purgatory, and you know it might get resolved in
- 11:22Speaker 3: three days or it might get resolved in seventy days,
- 11:26Speaker 3: and he can take the qualifier. And frankly, the Nuggets
- 11:32Speaker 3: would be fine with him probably taking the qualifier. I mean,
- 11:35Speaker 3: they don't want to lose him in a year, but
- 11:38Speaker 3: you know, with where their salary is, and the thing
- 11:41Speaker 3: about it is like, you know, I was talking to
- 11:43Speaker 3: an owner recently and he was talking about extending one
- 11:45Speaker 3: of his players, and he was using it and he
- 11:47Speaker 3: was using a poker reference. You guys play. I don't know.
- 11:49Speaker 3: I'm not a good poker player, but you know he's like,
- 11:52Speaker 3: sometimes with the player, you want to see another card. Okay,
- 11:56Speaker 3: he's taught. You know you've seen you've seen the first
- 11:58Speaker 3: three cards, or maybe even seen the first four cards.
- 12:00Speaker 3: You want to see another card. Sometimes you're willing to
- 12:02Speaker 3: make the bet when you've just seen four cards. But
- 12:04Speaker 3: I was talking to this zone He's like, yeah, and
- 12:06Speaker 3: this guy, we want to see another card. I think
- 12:09Speaker 3: with the Nuggets and with some other teams, they'd like
- 12:11Speaker 3: to see another card.
- 12:12Speaker 2: That's fair.
- 12:12Speaker 1: That's totally fair, right, totally firm.
- 12:15Speaker 3: And so when you're when you're a restricted free agent
- 12:18Speaker 3: and you're a player that is trying to get paid
- 12:21Speaker 3: on potential, you know, it's a hard it's just a
- 12:26Speaker 3: hard thing to line.
- 12:27Speaker 4: Up last one for me, Wendy, and I told these
- 12:29Speaker 4: guys earlier, Tell me if you agree. The rest of
- 12:31Speaker 4: the league knows what Nuggets are mired in right now.
- 12:34Speaker 4: Salary cap. Hell, they're not going to do the Nuggets
- 12:37Speaker 4: any favors. People say, why can't they just trade one
- 12:40Speaker 4: of these big contracts?
- 12:41Speaker 2: Well, who's going to take.
- 12:42Speaker 4: On thirty million from Aaron Gordon or fifty million from
- 12:45Speaker 4: Jamal Murray these ridiculous numbers. Not many teams are, first
- 12:50Speaker 4: of all, able to do that. And in this day
- 12:52Speaker 4: and age, do you not have to send assets picks
- 12:55Speaker 4: along with these trades to make them work. The Nuggets
- 12:57Speaker 4: don't have any of those.
- 12:58Speaker 3: Assets, that's right. So this is what happened with the Bucks,
- 13:02Speaker 3: and the Bucks ended up I called it mortgaging their
- 13:07Speaker 3: mortgage to buy a sports car with with what they
- 13:10Speaker 3: did with Damian Lillard, and boy, do not want to
- 13:13Speaker 3: do that where they they they waved and stretched him,
- 13:16Speaker 3: and now he's on their books for years when they're
- 13:18Speaker 3: in when they're in a rebuild. I mean, you know,
- 13:20Speaker 3: let's just be honest. That trade last year for Cam
- 13:24Speaker 3: Johnson for Michael Porter. There was a reason why the
- 13:28Speaker 3: Nuggets put a pick in that deal because that was
- 13:31Speaker 3: a salary dump. Because of the differential in the salary
- 13:35Speaker 3: that Cam is making this year versus the salary that
- 13:39Speaker 3: the Porter is making this year. That was a salary
- 13:41Speaker 3: dump move. And it was a it was a it
- 13:43Speaker 3: was a it was a creative salary dump. It was
- 13:45Speaker 3: it was a nice piece of business, even though I
- 13:48Speaker 3: know Cam didn't have the year that everyone wanted. They've
- 13:50Speaker 3: been trying to do this. In the case of Aaron
- 13:53Speaker 3: Gordon Aaron because of how much he's owed. I mean,
- 13:56Speaker 3: he's owed around one hundred million for the next game,
- 13:58Speaker 3: and you have to assume he's picking up that option.
- 14:01Speaker 3: He's extraordinarily valuable to your team. But when you call,
- 14:05Speaker 3: if you were to call and try to trade him,
- 14:06Speaker 3: people will be like, well, he's owed a hundred million
- 14:08Speaker 3: and you're in trouble. We're going to hold you up.
- 14:09Speaker 3: So it's impossible to get value for that of course,
- 14:15Speaker 3: of course, and so like like you can't obviously I
- 14:20Speaker 3: know that there have been some conversations with Aaron Gordon,
- 14:22Speaker 3: but it's it's a very very hard trade to make
- 14:24Speaker 3: because he's so valuable to your team and you can't
- 14:26Speaker 3: get value for him. So that's why you're hearing a
- 14:29Speaker 3: lot of Cam Johnson's stuff because at the end of
- 14:31Speaker 3: the day, he's still an expiring contract and you can
- 14:34Speaker 3: move off of him. So the question WILLI is going
- 14:35Speaker 3: to be is this I think the whole league, and
- 14:37Speaker 3: I could be wrong. Just because I say the league,
- 14:41Speaker 3: the league expects this doesn't mean what I think the
- 14:42Speaker 3: Nuggets are going.
- 14:45Speaker 1: I don't.
- 14:47Speaker 3: I don't know for sure what the Nuggets are going
- 14:48Speaker 3: to do. I wish I did. I wish I could
- 14:50Speaker 3: tell you that I've infiltrated their meetings. And this is
- 14:52Speaker 3: what Josh Cronkey is is making edict. But the league
- 14:56Speaker 3: obviously believes they're going to cut salary, right, and nobody
- 14:59Speaker 3: would blame them if they do cut salary. Quite frankly,
- 15:02Speaker 3: the real question is how bad is this gonna how
- 15:04Speaker 3: bad is this going to bleed? Because like if you
- 15:07Speaker 3: look at what the what the thunder did like they
- 15:10Speaker 3: just traded away a starter. Okay, they they bled a
- 15:13Speaker 3: little bit with with trading lou Dort. Now they've got
- 15:16Speaker 3: backups and whatever. But but they are bruised right now.
- 15:20Speaker 3: But they can survive that. No one's looking at the
- 15:22Speaker 3: thunder and saying, boy, their horizon changed. The question is
- 15:25Speaker 3: can the Nuggets figure out a way to what to
- 15:29Speaker 3: the bruise that they have that it's going to happen
- 15:32Speaker 3: when they cut a player, probably it's not a wound,
- 15:35Speaker 3: and that you can recover from it. And this is
- 15:37Speaker 3: a hard thing. This is not a referendum again on
- 15:41Speaker 3: the quality of the people in their jobs. It's the
- 15:43Speaker 3: modern it's the reality of the modern NBA. And I
- 15:45Speaker 3: will tell you this, you're much better off having this
- 15:48Speaker 3: type of problem looking up at that banner than you
- 15:52Speaker 3: are if you're the Washington Wizards or you're the you know,
- 15:57Speaker 3: name the team. You know you're the Utah Jazz, who
- 15:59Speaker 3: are who have just taken it in the teeth for
- 16:01Speaker 3: three straight years and you're saying, maybe we can get
- 16:03Speaker 3: in the plane. This is a Cadillac problem. It's going
- 16:07Speaker 3: to require a lot of solutions and some pain, and
- 16:10Speaker 3: it's going to be some stress, but this is where
- 16:13Speaker 3: you want to be. You want to be the team
- 16:15Speaker 3: that's trying to get back to the championship. After you've
- 16:17Speaker 3: you've still got your ring. And that's the reality that
- 16:19Speaker 3: they've got right now.
- 16:20Speaker 2: When do you last thing for you? Appreciate your time.
- 16:22Speaker 2: I'm sure you're ware. There's a very famous tweet about
- 16:24Speaker 2: Lebron when he turned thirty where somebody said, Lebron just
- 16:28Speaker 2: turned thirty. This bleepery won't last too much longer. How
- 16:31Speaker 2: much longer is the bleepery gonna last in Philly?
- 16:34Speaker 3: You know if he picked Philly. I don't know if
- 16:37Speaker 3: he picked Philly. You guys, I don't know if you
- 16:39Speaker 3: know this, but like like seven eight months ago, I
- 16:43Speaker 3: was thinking about him as a nugget.
- 16:46Speaker 2: Podcast.
- 16:47Speaker 3: Yeah, and I refuse to say it out loud because
- 16:49Speaker 3: I know would have blown up. And I watched how
- 16:52Speaker 3: Lebron engage with Nikolas so much during life, Vic, Did
- 16:55Speaker 3: you notice that? Was I out of my mind?
- 16:57Speaker 4: Exactly right.
- 16:58Speaker 3: He had never treated he ever treated Yokic like that before.
- 17:01Speaker 4: I've seen it behind the scenes too. Listen, they're the
- 17:04Speaker 4: two smartest players in the league. And I think you
- 17:06Speaker 4: were thinking what we were all thinking, can you imagine
- 17:08Speaker 4: those minds together on the court at the same time, Wendy.
- 17:11Speaker 3: I love watching Jokic play so much. You guys know
- 17:15Speaker 3: that I've played, I cover a lot of international basketball.
- 17:18Speaker 3: I've seen Yokic play in China, I've seen Yokic play
- 17:21Speaker 3: in France. I love watching the Serbians. Just in general,
- 17:26Speaker 3: I love watching him play so much. I don't ever
- 17:29Speaker 3: want to make the mistake of trying to get into
- 17:31Speaker 3: Lebron's head. But when I saw him engaging with Jokic
- 17:38Speaker 3: the way I did, I was like, he's got to
- 17:39Speaker 3: be thick on the same thing. He's got to be
- 17:41Speaker 3: thinking about the possibility. And if he was willing to
- 17:43Speaker 3: go to Philly, would he have been willing to go
- 17:45Speaker 3: to Denver? And it just you know, like at some
- 17:48Speaker 3: point I'll do some interviews and I'll get I'm sure
- 17:50Speaker 3: when he comes to Denver next year, you know, he'll
- 17:52Speaker 3: get asked about it. Because, by the way, Minnesota was
- 17:54Speaker 3: a really good fit too, Like Minnesota, like I don't
- 17:57Speaker 3: think I would want to play with LaMelo want to
- 18:00Speaker 3: play it, but and like I even mentioned it, like
- 18:03Speaker 3: I'll just be honest, Like I mentioned it to Rich
- 18:06Speaker 3: Paul like months ago, I was like Rich, like, you know,
- 18:09Speaker 3: if he if he's ended up willing to take the minimum,
- 18:12Speaker 3: I'm like, what about Denver? And he's like, well, we
- 18:14Speaker 3: haven't talked about it, but like I I really liked
- 18:20Speaker 3: that fit. I really like that fit. And you know, obviously,
- 18:24Speaker 3: beating San Antonio or beating Oklahoma City, it's it's a beast.
- 18:29Speaker 3: And I get why he wanted to go east and
- 18:32Speaker 3: he can spend time in New York City. I get it,
- 18:36Speaker 3: but picking Philadelphia, I mean, I think if you picked
- 18:38Speaker 3: Miami or Cleveland, you know, like what, that's that's home.
- 18:41Speaker 3: I get it, But if you're gonna go off the board,
- 18:45Speaker 3: Denver made a lot of sense off the board. Plus
- 18:47Speaker 3: the relationship with the Cronkey family, you know, plus it's
- 18:49Speaker 3: closer to California. I don't know, man, I I there
- 18:53Speaker 3: was a time where I was letting my letting my
- 18:55Speaker 3: mind go there. I know that's not productive. Now, it
- 18:58Speaker 3: doesn't matter. It's mood, it's stupid, but I did spend
- 19:01Speaker 3: time thinking about when do.
- 19:02Speaker 2: Your the absolute best? Thanks for the time this morning.
- 19:05Speaker 2: We'll chat soon.
- 19:06Speaker 3: Have a great day, guys. Take care,