It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Never nuggets at Dario Sarge, they keep Blackco Chanchar, they're still waiting on Russell Westbrook. We'll talk about the moves and what's next to the nuggets here on Lockdown Nuggets. You are Lockdown Nuggets, your Daily Denver Nuggets podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to Lockdown Nuggets, your Daily Denver Nuggets Podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks for joining us, making us part of your day. Appreciate you guys being with us. Here, if you're listening to this on the podcast, you're catching it on a Sunday morning before world's finest later tonight, I want to go ahead and get in an episode here on Saturday to talk about the big news, because the Nuggets have themselves a new big man, Dario Sarge. Signs with the Denver Nuggets on Saturday, they finally get their guide. This has been hinted at by Harrison Wayne about a million times over the last couple of weeks. And so they add Dario Sarge, they get their guide. That's the guy they've had. The Nuggets have had two guys kind of circled. It's Russell Westbrook and Dario Sarge. They're still waiting on Westbrook. And we'll talk about why they're waiting on Westbrook later today. We'll talk about all that and more on today's show. Plus, we'll get into the impacts of not only getting Sarge, but keeping Blackco Chanchar and where they are in the Western Conference. Today's show is brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms do apply. Thanks for joining us. If you're catching us, by the way, on youtube.com/lockdownnuggets. So many folks hanging out with me on us on a Saturday night. Just you're good people in the chat. If you want to support the show, give me a like on youtube.com/lockdownnuggets. Tell me how big a factor you think Dario Sarge will be for the Denver Nuggets in 2024. Alright, let's get right down to it. So the Denver Nuggets get Dario Sarge. This is not a surprise. We haven't talked about it much just because I wasn't sure if it was going to be the actual thing that kind of came through. And so I wanted to see whether it actually happened or not. Because to be quite frank, I think that there was probably a little bit of competition for it. The Nuggets signed Sarge to a two-year, $10.6 million deal. The deal does include a player option for the second year so we can try and recoup some of what I think he's lost over the last couple of years in free agency. Sarge spent a lot of time with the Sixers. He was a process-sister for several seasons from 2017 through 2019 before he was traded in Minnesota and then wound up in Phoenix. That's really where he had a career renaissance. Sarge, I was always kind of like, "Yeah, Sarge is fine." And then with Phoenix, when he reinvented himself into a small ball five, I really think that there was a substantial kind of shift here with where his game is. With a lot of guys, he's playing bigger as he gets older. That makes sense. That's how most guys are. He is 610, 225, so he's got the size. The best thing I can kind of say about Sarge is that he's hyper-versatile. He's a guy that is a smart player. He combines kind of like the veteran savvy of Jeff Green with better athleticism, although it's been diminished since his ACL injury three years ago, shooting capacity as a pick and pop big. So think of what everyone wanted Ziknaji to be. Sarge is like that if he was good. It's not a terrible way to kind of think about it. He's versatile. He can switch. So you can play this lineup. And in a vacuum, I think there's probably not a lot that I could say about Sarge in terms of his impact. He was a negative EPM player that's the catch-all metric I trust most. Not the only one I look at, but it is the one that I trust the most. He was a negative player on that end. And the Warriors, despite having Chris Paul and having an overall pretty good bench unit and Sarge had some really good stretches for them this season, they were still a negative with Sarge on the floor. And that to me is kind of like telling a little bit that they did lose his minutes despite the bench overall being pretty good. Now he started a lot and that was part of the problem was like starters weren't very good for Golden State in related news. Clay Thompson's no longer there. So there's kind of like this combination of things that he kind of brings to the table. I don't think that this is a fix for the second unit. I just don't. What I will say though, is that if you kind of link it together with the fact that Blacko Chantar resigns on a one-year minimum contract deal via the Niedeto of the Gazette and my Skoda Hoops hype, Blacko's back too. I actually really kind of like the idea of Blacko and Sarge together. You throw in Doron homes and all of a sudden I'm like they're on homes. I'm all of a sudden like okay, now you're kind of cooking with gas. If Peyton can become a little bit more of a secondary playmaker, if they do add Russ, this kind of does kind of change the things. I like that versatility and it's another veteran which you know I'm going to be in favor of but also just like Sarge has utility. There's things that Sarge does. Now the problem is really, Sarge like I said was really great in 2021 with that Sunstein and if he doesn't get hurt and tear his ACL, I genuinely think that might have been what flipped the finals because they needed a small ball option and they lost it and the next year without Sarge being available, they abandoned that and that really hurt them. You need this small ball look I think when Yokich isn't on the floor. Like I do think it's better to try and, because a Linux is not available, I do think it's genuinely better to try and be like okay, we can't program the same way that we do with Yokich on the floor. We need to go the opposite direction and go into a small ball look, I think is a really good option here. So like having Blackco, having Sarge two guys with marginal NBA careers, both of whom have had ACL surgery, not ideal but at least those, I think their skill sets compliment one another and that's like that to me is maybe the upside of this is I like Sarge less in a vacuum of what he provides and more of okay, if we imagine the second unit and the pieces do kind of fit into the where they should go, if you get a pop from Julian Strathor, if Holmes pops, if Peyton Watson takes a step there, I can kind of start to see like okay, maybe this can work in the second unit and be like a viable normal second unit where the entire team doesn't die like passing gas in an elevator, like maybe you can get to that point with Sarge so like I think it does kind of help in that direction. Now this is to say like he's going to have to earn the minutes and he's going to have to get the confidence of the training staff and I don't know where that's going to be at like or the coaching staff, I don't know where that's going to be at, I just don't know. It's not that Sarge like Sarge is a veteran so he's going to have a leg up on the competition but I don't think that it's like oh he's definitely going to play and play a lot even on this 10.5 because I think he'll be the incumbent but he'll have some competition and he'll have to kind of earn it and if nothing else, hey, maybe this is good because it gives the technology somebody to compete with, I don't think he's done well in that situation before where you know he's lost minutes to DJ, that's extremely worrisome. But maybe maybe with it being a similar type guy, maybe Z comes in like competes with that guy and you get more out of him. The more asked could Sarge play with Yokage? Yes, every human being on the planet can play with Nicole Yokage except maybe Gary Trent Jr. That's like the one guy that I would say probably not. I really wish people would stop suggesting him, I think that's an absurd idea and if it happens I'm going to be like I don't like that move, could entirely happen, I'll just tell you right now, do not think that that's the move. Yes, Sarge can play Power Forward next to Yokage. If Aaron Gordon or MPJ has to miss a game, Sarge makes a lot of sense as your spot starter. So that's another addition here where I talk a lot about redundancy and taking care of your injury options. If Gordon or MPJ has to miss time, I feel totally fine plugging Sarge in and you're still able to space the floor adequately and he's got some versatility on the other end. That's the athleticism is a little bit diminished since he obviously had the ACL surgery but again with him and Blacko, I just feel like you have a lot of options for how you can go now. That Power Forward spot and really three, four, five now has some redundancy. Likewise if Nokoli Yokage has to miss a game and the nuggets are playing the Hornets, you can plug Dario Sarge in and you can probably win that game. That's you are better than 50% on the road to win that game. And that's that I think is like a pretty good pick up. Zamora asked the defense doesn't worry you. So I think a lot of this gets into how are you using him, right? Like are you using him in switch all situations? Are you using him as like a hedge? Are you just going to play switch all in a playoff environment? I care about that Zamora, I don't care a lot. I'll be honest with you about regular season because guys don't get picked on like nobody good that guys are every team is just trying to run through their stuff and work on their dynamics and work sharpen their stuff. They're not targeting you except in like really important game situations. So if Sarge is in the game at the end, sure that might be a problem and there might be some games or some teams hunt Oklahoma City will hunt him like that's an example because Oklahoma City is one of the few teams that does hunt in the regular season. They switch on it. The Mavericks will a little bit not as much but a little bit, but I'm also not necessarily as worried about that. And I do think the Sarge probably has better days ahead offensively. I think then maybe he's had I think he's probably got some better days ahead of him. On the other side, I want to talk about Russell Westbrook, the waiting game. We'll talk a little bit about that black co plus KCP has some comments about the nuggets not offering anything. We'll talk about that on the other side here on lockdown nuggets. Right now I want to tell you about ebay motors. Passion drive and patience, the formula for winning championships is also what keeps your rider die alive ebay motors is everything you need to maintain your vehicle and level adapt to peak performance, superchargers, roof racks, exhaust kits, LED headlights and more. Whether you're in the speed power or style ebay motors has you covered with over a hundred and twenty two million parts for your number one rider die. You'll always find exactly what you're looking for and with ebay guaranteed fit your parts guaranteed to fit your ride every time or your money back because of the ebay motors you're burning rubber not cash with all the parts you need at the prices you want. It's easy to make your car the MVP and bring home huge wins. Keep your rider die alive at ebay motors.com, eligible items only, exclusions apply, guaranteed fit only available to you as customers. We'll be right back on lockdown nuggets. You know we love talking stats here at lockdown and here's one that's super simple to remember. Discover automatically doubles the cash back you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cash back match. That means with Discover you could turn a hundred and fifty bucks cash back to three hundred dollars. That's right you could put it towards some memorabilia you've had your eye on or treat yourself to a premium sports network you earn and discover doubles. See terms at discover.com/creditcard. Back here on lockdown nuggets thanks for joining us and being with us here on a Sunday. I hope your weekend's going great. The weather is incredible and never the time of year it's going to get to be like in the hundreds next week which is a bummer but I will enjoy it because I like to heat but still it's been beautiful here in northern Colorado. Hope you guys are having a good off season even if the nuggets off season has not been good. Real quick on Russ so everyone's kind of wondering like what's going on. The reality of it is this the Clippers are going to probably are going to move him okay and they're going to move him to a team that buys him out and then the nuggets will sign him. If that doesn't happen it will be because the Clippers are that petty versus the nuggets. They wouldn't let PJ Tucker go last season because they knew that he was either going to sign with Phoenix or Denver and those were both options they didn't want to have to face in the Western Roberts playoffs. So I don't agree with that tactic I think that if you don't tend to play a guy especially a veteran you should let him go but with Russ I think that they're much more like they're not in a hurry. The Clippers don't need to do this deal there's no rush for them because they're not going to get anything back on it. They're not trading Russ for a second rounder. They're not trading Russ for a player or an asset they're just trading him to basically move him and move on and as such they're open to waiting on this. It might be August it might be September it might be camp when they finally make this deal. Do I expect Russell Westbrook to be in Denver after? Yeah I do. That's what I expect. But Denver's like not moving assets for Russell Westbrook because they know they're in the driver's seat and I don't think they think of him as hmm how good about this? I think they feel that getting Russ is important because Nicole Yokech wants it. I don't feel that they're in any sort of hurry to get this that they're not anxious to get this deal done. They're not like so they're not going to give up assets to get Russ that'd be a bad way bad use of assets they don't have any left anyway so there's no real option here. They're going to trade. They will wait until someone trades for him and then buys him out. It might be Utah again and then they'll resign and then they'll sign Russell Westbrook. If that doesn't happen other events will have had to have occurred that I haven't heard about KCP and his introductory presser today with the Orlando Magic talked about how he did not get a counter offer from Denver. I know Tony Jones reported that they offer something similar. I love Tony. Tony's the best. I might have Tony on the show sometime. Tony and I get along great. My understanding was that there was no real effort to counter offer KCP that they understood what he was going to get in the market and they had already decided that they were not going to match it because any effort to match it was going to put them in the apron and they were not going to do that. Second apron. Do I think that that's like the best way to have handled things? Probably not. If you want to have a better open line of communication with the guy that won you a championship, I think that's probably not great. I think that there's still an appreciation for KCP, but I also think that maybe it was pretty clear that both sides were ready to move on for whatever reason. I don't know what those reasons maybe are. I would start probably with the confidence that the team has in Christian Brown and that they're just ready to move on to that. You got to understand like this team really believes in Christian, I mean it really believes in Christian way more than I do and I could be wrong because I've been around a long about lots of guys that they believe in, but they believe in Christian Brown a lot and so I think that there was like a real confidence there and I think that they understood that because of the financial realities that even if they were able to get KCP on some sort of deal, they would move them within range of the second April and after they do made any other moves and that would mean that they were going to be there plus it would limit their ability next year when they're going to be in the exact same spot again with Aaron Gordon with how deep in the second April they're going to be. That to me is I think how that kind of played out. I think the whole thing is unfortunate but it's, this is a business and everybody understands that including KCP and KCP is always going to be appreciated and never for what he contributed to the first championship in franchise history and so that to me is kind of how this goes. I kind of brushed over this in the first segment so I want to talk about it. Blackout Chanchere resons on a minimum one year deal, you know, look ACL surgery is no longer as bad as it used to be. That's not as bad as it as it kind of was. It used to be like a really devastating problem was like if you had a torn ACL, you were done. I'm Irish, Adam Meyer was never the same. They used to have what was called micro fracture surgery and if that sounds horrific, it was because it was literally what they did and it was absolutely terrifying and it ruined a lot of careers. Thankfully, they've moved past that and now ACLs are really not that big of a deal long term. You're not the same after as you were before but you're also not like careers over. You can keep playing for quite a long time and I think Blackout because he doesn't have as many miles on him actually has still has quite a lot to bring. Blackout's well liked by the team. Blackout is a pretty versatile guy and I'm, you know, I think he gets overstated sometimes by various people that believe that he's like a real serious impact guy in terms of like CT, Fazio on Twitter, very, very big. Love the guy, good analysis but I'm just not as high on him as that but I have come around to the fact that like, no, Blackout can play. Like Blackout's given them good minutes and when Blackout has been removed from the rotation afterwards, I've been like, I don't agree with that assessment. Like he'd earn those minutes. Now for whatever reason the team just hasn't trusted him. So whether that's coaching staff, veterans, whatever, he has not stayed in that rotation. So I think it's something to kind of wonder about. But I am glad to see Blackout back because it's a lot of, it's continuity. He's been there a long time and he understands how to play alongside all the other nuggets. So in general, I think Blackout is a bonus for getting him back. I think it's actually a pretty good move for them. All right. We have an itch in the comments talking about how bad Blackout is because of how he was in a qualifier. I don't care, man. I really don't. On the other side, we'll get to this question. Do the nuggets have enough in the Western Conference? That's a tough one. We'll talk about that next here on "Locked on Nuggets." Hey, every dayers, for your second listen, enjoy the "Locked on NBA" podcast. There's no op-season in the NBA and "Locked on NBA" provides daily basketball analysis from national and local experts in 30 minutes or less. No one keeps you as informed and entertained as "Locked on NBA," available on YouTube or wherever you get podcasts. Be part of the "Locked on" podcast network, your team, every day. Back here on "Locked on Nuggets." Thanks for joining. Appreciate you guys being with us here on a Saturday. World's finest will be with you on Sunday. Adam and I will break down. I think we're doing it on Sunday night. I'll put it on Twitter, whether we're doing it Sunday or Monday, and Adam is getting some well-deserved time away. But I think he's back tomorrow. If not, we'll do a show on Monday morning. All right. Let's ask you this question. "Did Nuggets have enough in the Western Conference?" Let's assume they get Russell Westbrook. They add Dario Sarys. Those were their two targets. They draft Holmes, Blacko's back, Christian Brown is now the two-guard, Peyton Watson, internal development from Peyton Watson, Gillian Strathor and the like. What does this look like? Okay. So today, I was going through my numbers. And if you'll remember, last year, those numbers said the Nuggets were going to win less than 50 games, and they won 57, which seems bad. The problem for me is that most of the metrics, if you kind of look back at them, back me up is like, "No, Denver was not as good as their record was." Now, it doesn't matter, like they won their games. I had concerns because a lot of it was kind of propped up on their base off of their clutch rating. If you'll remember, that didn't go great. That just did not go great for the Denver Nuggets in the playoffs was like, "That was not a great addition." So I ran some of the numbers, and I kind of came out with where I think Denver is going to be next season. I'm not going to tell you where they are in the Western Conference because I have to decide if I really want to put that out into the world. I will tell you that there's a number of teams that are above them. Some of these teams are teams that I do not think are as good because they just wind up in my numbers as like, "Oh, hey, the team actually looks really good because of their combination of offense and beatments." But they are firmly behind several teams, and the biggest problem, this has been mentioned in the comments here on youtube.com/lockedonnuggets. They're way behind the top of the West. They're way behind the Thunder. So we never really kind of got to test this theory because the Thunder lost in the second round, and the Nuggets lost in the second round. The Thunder went three in one versus Denver last year, and we kind of like brushed it off like, "Okay, well, KCP missed a game, and they won a clutch, weird game in Denver, and then there was another one, and there was a bunch of like, it was weird." Okay, see, I think matches up better with Denver than maybe we kind of anticipated because the idea is like, "Well, Yokech is so dominant, they don't have a center, and they do now in Hartenstein. It doesn't really matter. Yokech is going to score on anybody." But the big problem is just like Oklahoma City has so much shooting offensively. They have an individual player in Chey goes Alexander, who by the way, the best defender against him on Denver was KCP. I don't think Christian will do as well against him. He'll do better against Anthony Edwards, KCP struggle with Ant, right? Got cooked by him. Christian was pretty good on Ant. I think Christian won't do as well versus Chey goes to Alexander. They've got Chey, they've got Chet with another year under his belt, they've got J-Dub. They have all this talent, but they also have all this shooting, and they add Caruso, who's now going to be able to alongside guys like Casey and Wallace, guys like Lou Dort, hound Mall Murray on ball, much the way the Minnesota Timberwolves did. They have guys like Isaiah Hartenstein, they're just absolute monsters on the offensive glass, and that's going to help considerably. They have size to combat Denver is too big. They have Chet homeroom and Hartenstein now, and that's a really big combo. Hurricane asks, "Is Mike the only plus shooter on the team?" Right now, besides Jamal, depends on what you think of Christian Brown. Maybe Julian, depends on what you think of Christian Brown. That's a reality. If you think that what you saw from above the break, Christian Brown last year is who he is, then you've got another one. Saraj was also 38% last year, he's a good shooter, so that's the thunder, and that's just one team. The other problem is when I ran some numbers today, Dallas came out way better than I was expecting, and now I kind of have to grapple with the fact of Clay Thompson for all of his warts now, at this age, after both the Achilles and the ACL, Clay Thompson's still a dude in this league. Like, he's just still a guy in this league, and I got to be honest with you, he's way more of a guy than Russell Westbrook is at this point in this league, and I hate that because it's like, I loved watching Russ in his prime, but Russ just isn't as much of a gut. That's why he's on the bench, and it's possible, Clay Thompson comes off the bench, but I was surprised when I looked at the stuff that I used that I came out with, oh, wow, they're way better with Najee Marshall, Clay Thompson. Now, I don't love the fits for those guys as much as I like Derek Jones, Jr. and what like Josh Green brought, but they are objectively better players, and so Dallas upgraded. Minnesota hasn't gotten any worse, like, they're just the same team. There's no real reason to think Minnesota should be any worse barring injury. Now, they do have Mike Conley and Rudy Gobert, sure, definitely a thing to be on the lookout for, they're going to have to manage that. They're still going to be really good. But those three teams in the Western Conference, I have no way for me right now, after what has happened to the Nuggets over the last two seasons, losing Bruce Brown and then KCP, to look at this and go, the Denver is better than those teams. It's not really about keeping pace because I think sometimes that's a weird way to look at it because a lot of times you add guys and it doesn't work. It's possible. That sign just doesn't work for OKC, or Caruso just isn't as good. That's that, basketball is weird. It happens. Al-Horvey went to Philadelphia and it was a disaster. They hate him there. Al-Horvey is a Hall of Famer who everyone loves, except Philly. That, to me, says more about Philly, but still, it happens. And so it is impossible to really say that Denver has not lost ground in the Western Conference. The counter to this is just, look, every single year, Malone has gone over the wind total, every single year, Nicola Yokich is a top three player in MVP, every single year, Yokich is one of, if not the most impactful players in basketball. And when you have a guy that great and you surround him with decent enough talent, and you can't say that the talent on the Nuggets is bad. They still have Jamal, they still have AG, they still have MPJ. Like, MPJ didn't get instantly bad. MPJ had a good season last year. He was a more consistent player than a lot of guys in the Nuggets. Yeah, if Jamal has a bounce back here, which is going to be all of the talk, then they're going to be way better, right? So there's all these ways the Nuggets are fine. It's just, the best way to kind of think about this is that their insurance policies are gone on those random nights where it was like, oh man, you know, nobody really had to go and the KCP gave him 25 off the bat, 25. But that happened. Like, KCP had a huge scoring night sometimes, just had the opportunity, found his way into some threes, hit some pull up jumpers. Do I have confidence? Christian Brown's going to do that? No, I do not. Is this bench unit going to be better next year? Maybe somebody was arguing with me on Twitter saying like, all it's got to be is like a normal bad. And I'm kind of at the point where I'm like, look guys, I've seen so many iterations of this and it's never normal bad. It's always horrifically terrible to the point where I have to imagine that that's something to do with how the team is constructed or coached, rather than it is any sort of like one combination of players. The players look, this is a big key. The players, the personnel will always look worse when the team doesn't work right. Like good players look bad when the team doesn't work right. And we see that all the time in the NBA. It's one of the reasons why I'm pretty high on the Pelicans because I think the gente Murray's really good. Him and Atlanta didn't work. Nobody in Atlanta works right now and I don't really have the answer for why. Trey Young is a shorthand for it. Like everyone's just like, well, it's Trey Young because that's a consistent factor. But I can't point to anything Trey's doing and be like, ah, this, it just doesn't work. Now if the Nuggets, if Christian Brown comes in and it works, that's all you're going to care about. And guess what? Everyone's going to be like, man, Calvin Booth, what a genius. He identified that that Christian Brown was better than KCP. And that's not true. Like, where we are right now, Christian Brown is not a better player than KCP. And it's to be perfectly quite honest with you. It's not particularly close. I don't mind my colleagues talking about how it's going to be fine because they are right that if you put anything next to Nicola Yochich, it's going to be pretty good. The difference is that KCP was good. Other places was a championship level starter. Other places before he got to play with Nicole Yochich. The only good we've seen from Christian Brown is when he plays with Yochich. I get nervous of that. I want to make this about Christian Brown the entire way. It's true for pretty much everybody. With Miami, there's this concern. If Miami lets somebody go, like Caleb Martin just signed with the Sixers, if the heat lets somebody go, automatically, red flags start going off. Because every guy that they've let walk, Josh Richardson, Gabe Vincent, all of these, Max Drews to a certain degree, all of these dudes have been so much worse when they go other places outside of the culture. And with the Nuggets, you don't really see that much. But I will tell you that Jeremy Grant looked a lot better playing next to Nicola Yochich than he has anywhere else. Marshall Mather says, "All the weight can't be on Yochich again this season." Well, guess what, it's going to be again. Lapper Beat says, "Lack of death killed this team going into the playoffs. Everyone was gassed or hurt. Now will be two times worse." Okay. I want to address that real quick because we've got some time. Do you want to know who has to be the most forward about taking care of that problem? And you're going to hate this answer because it goes against how we think about sports. Here's how we think about sports. The players play and the coaches coach. That's not how it is in the NBA. The players most oftentimes, the star players, they make their rotations. So Nicola Yochich plays the entire first quarter or 10 minutes first quarter, last eight second quarter, all third quarter, last eight fourth quarter. That's because that's what Nicola Yochich wants. And I will just tell you right now that again, a big reason why the starters played so much together last year, which is such a huge talking point this season, is because that's what the players wanted. They wanted to win games. And if you want to win games, you play your starters heavy minutes. That's what you do. They wanted to get the one seed. The starters have to collectively in tandem with the coaches and the coaches have to be up front about this. I'm not letting the coaches off the hook here. The coaches have to be like, hey, we got burned last year because you guys were gassed. You're got to sit. But the players then have to be like, okay, fine, all right. Like Yochich always says, if they want me to sit, I'll sit. Nope. I don't believe that. I'm me personally. I don't buy that. I think that's the tone and it was like, can I play? Yes, you can play. I'm playing. Yochich has to take that step back. Aaron Gordon has to take that step back. Jamal quite honestly needs to be like, this is what's going to be frustrating. Jamal's going to get this extension if he signs it. And when he signs it and he plays this season, there's going to be times when he needs to sit and you're going to be frustrated that he's not available, but you have to do those things so you don't wind up with it with a repeat of last year. And you say, like, well, he sat and he was still hurt. Absolutely, which is a hard thing to balance, but you also can't go the other way and be like, well, he's hurt then. So we're going to play him. That's how you're going to end up with a long term injury. So you're going to do all those kind of things. Okay. Okay. Finally, the nuggets still have enough in the Western conference. They still have the best. Every any given night, they're going to have the best player in the world on their team. Jamal has a still a very big ability to step up and have a better season. Everything can surprise me and be every bit as good as everyone kind of thinks he can be. Peyton Watson, I actually have the most optimism for making a big leap. Sarge and Westbrook can work out great. There's still like a live upside for this team. You should not you should be able to turn the corner now. This offseason was disappointing. Yes, this offseason was disappointing. You have not gone from championship contender favorite in the West to eighth seed. You are somewhere in the middle. You are no longer the I don't think you're no long. I think you are no longer the top dog at the conference for its books. They'll think you are it's either the thunder or the nuggets is the favorite in the Western conference of all the books. Okay. But you're somewhere between the top, which I think is the thunder. And the sixth seed and where you fall in there is probably going to be determined by health, by luck, by internal development. But that doesn't mean this team isn't worth rooting for just because you're frustrated doesn't mean this team is not good enough to win you a championship because it is because I'll tell you this. This team is still considerably better than the Dallas Mavericks were last year. They're still better than that team. Now this current Mavericks team might be better, but they're still better than the Mavs were last year and the Mavs were three wins away from an NBA title. That should be like the way to think about this. It doesn't matter how you get there, get back to the finals. Just beat the guys in front of you. Figure it out. Get back to the finals. And you do that. You're in pretty good shape. That's got to do it for locked on nuggets. Appreciate you guys being with us. Hope you guys have yourselves a great Sunday. I will talk to you again on world's finals either Sunday night or Monday morning. Make sure to hit the like and subscribe button, give me the five star reviews, have yourselves a great day, and I'll see you guys again next time here on locked on nuggets. Hey Prime members, you can listen to this locked on podcast and free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. This episode is brought to you by Game Time. Game Time is an authorized ticket marketplace of Major League Baseball, which makes getting tickets faster and easier. Prices on the Game Time app actually go down the closer it gets to the first pitch. With killer last minute deals, all in prices, views from your seat, and their lowest price guarantee, Game Time takes the guesswork out of buying MLB tickets. So download the Game Time app. Create an account. Use the code locked on for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem the code locked on L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N for $20 off. Download Game Time today. Last minute tickets. Lowest price. [BLANK_AUDIO]
