(footsteps thudding) This is the sound of your ride home with Dad after he caught you vaping. (footsteps thudding) Awkward, isn't it? Most Vapes contain seriously addictive levels of nicotine and disappointment. Know the real cost of Vapes, brought to you by the FDA. (dramatic music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) What is up everybody? Thank y'all for joining me. I'm the latest more cast part of the CSG network. I'm of course a host, Jeff Horton. Okay, well disappointing end of the nugget season as they lost in game seven, blowing a 20-point lead in the third quarter and losing to the Minnesota Timberwolves, 98-90 in game seven, which eliminated them from the playoffs and moved the wolves onto the Western Conference Finals before I address anything else. Congratulations to former NUGS executive, Tim Connolly. Honestly, I'm happy for him. I don't care, I don't give a fuck about the wolves, but I'm happy for him and couldn't be happening to a better person in the NBA. And everyone knows that I have a good relationship with Tim Connolly and this guy really deserves all the success he's getting. So I'm happy for Tim, not happy for the nuggets and we will get to that. Before I get to the rest of the podcast I need to talk to you about our sponsor, but online. Bed Online is your number one source for all your summer sports this season for a MLB golf NBA and NHL playoff stats. Yes, the nuggets are done with the playoffs and obviously this is disappointing to all of us. But anyone who's listening to this podcast, you know, you probably still want to bet on things. The Western Conference Finals and Easter Conference Finals are still going to be going on. You may want to play some waiters on that. 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Questions that the Nuggets really didn't face this last-off season. This last-off season, the Denver Nuggets were coming off a championship so it was a different sort of scenario. This is some disappointment. Now, there is the desire to not overcorrect, which is something that can happen frequently. Do you do what the Milwaukee Bucks have done, which is completely fuck up their team. Pardon my language, I'm feeling salty today, so pardon my language here, but you can mess up your team. By making decisions that you probably otherwise wouldn't invest in contracts, you probably shouldn't. Playing, paying players who were over the hill, anything like that. And the Bucks are a very cautionary tale for the Denver Nuggets heading into this next year, but also there's the other side, which is sitting on your hands. And I would describe the Nuggets last-off season, this last-off season, 2023, of basically sitting on their hands. It was a, we can't pay Bruce Brown, so what we're going to do is compensate with draft picks in pay, Reggie Jackson. Really that is the sum and total of the Nuggets offseason. And I have gone over my objections to that frequently. I'm not, there's no point in me going over that again. The important thing is for the Nuggets to learn the lessons of this off season and identify what they need to do. First of all, and this is going to be offensive to some, not offensive, not offensive is the wrong word, is going to not sit well with some people. They're going to have to address Michael Malone and his emotions, because his behavior post game was despicable. He should apologize to Bennett Durando immediately for saying what he said was a stupid fucking question. That was unprofessional and it was also a sign that Malone is still, after nine years of coaching the Denver Nuggets and being a 10 years as a coach, still can't control his emotions. Number two, I am very concerned that this team no longer listens to Malone. I am extremely, extremely concerned that this is a thing. I'm concerned that this Nuggets team here, I mean, let's face it folks, that game six would have never happened last year. Game six would have never happened last year. And game six, when they were down by almost 60 at one point, it was, it was pathetic. And if a team is together, if a team is still listening to its head coach, what you saw in game six and game seven would never have happened. And when you have the best player in the world, these are things that shouldn't happen. Anthony Edwards in game seven had a terrible game. And when a team that's as offensively inept as the Wolves has a team, has a game like that where they still are and managed to come back from a 20 point lead despite Anthony Edwards having a terrible game. That tells you something about the state of the Denver Nuggets as it is right now. This team is just for me from my eyes is very stale. And it kind of manifested itself if we are honest with ourselves Nuggets fans. This manifested itself in the Spurs game, second to last game of the season. There was, all of us probably didn't want to acknowledge it, myself included. I put a great spin on it. I could put a great face on it, but we all need to acknowledge that when the Nuggets had the opportunity to get the number one seed and fell on their face completely against the blue a 23 point lead against the San Antonio Spurs, we all need to acknowledge that that was the moment that should have been completely eye opening for all of us. And it should have indicated to all of us that this Nuggets team is not the same team that we saw last year. This is not that championship team, be it not having Bruce Brown on the roster, be it from not having Jeff Green on the roster, which I don't think necessarily is true, but I definitely do think that they are, they have, it was demonstrable, how much they missed Bruce Brown this year. Low key, the low key MVP, not the actual MVP, but the guy who was behind the scenes lucky, the MVP clearly of the Denver Nuggets. And what this did was it created a team that generally didn't respond to the same things that Michael Malone was saying last year. And my concern is that there is a lack of listening to Michael Malone. And when it gets to that point with a coach that is really, really, really concerning. And like I said, they lost by 26 points in game two, they lost by 46 in game six, and they blew a 20 point lead in game seven. Folks, that's not a reflection of the Minnesota Timberwolves, that is a reflection of something going on inside the Denver Nuggets. And as well as the Nuggets played through three, two, two and a half quarters, they played just as bad through the final one and a half quarters, and it cost them the game. In a spectacular fashion. And I think that is the first thing that the Nuggets need to ask themselves. They need to understand why this team apparently wasn't listening to Michael Malone. And because through games three, four and five, the Denver Nuggets looked like the much better team. And this team losing three games at home, very unusual. The team going into these-- I was super confident, folks. I was extremely confident going into game seven. I was like, they're going to win this. And if you would have gone through, when they can win up 20 in the third quarter, I would have said, yeah, the Nuggets are going to pull away here. The seven minutes left in the third quarter, they're up at 20. Things are good. And what happened after that was a team that probably hit a physical brick wall. They probably hit that emotional brick wall. And obviously, the Wolves play good defense. And those three things combine to the Nuggets losing that game. And I think with this all forces, everyone who follows the Nuggets, covers the Nuggets, and the Nuggets themselves, most of all, to question what they need to do. Calvin Booth has put his general managerial stake down with the drafted players thing. And I think the approach to this season costs them a year, and it costs them a year of Yokos' prime. They can't make that mistake again. They need to have a viable team with players who will play. They do not need to have another year where the starters play a whole bunch of minutes. You saw what happened to the New York Knicks. They broke down. Tom Thibodeau is, as I always said, he grinds his players bones into dust. And it happened again this year, of course, then they got just inundated with injuries. And by the game seven in New York, yesterday, they had nothing left. They had literally nothing left to give. And you saw that a little with the Nuggets. They had nothing left. They hit a wall. Their starters hit the wall. And if you have a scenario where you have to play that many minutes during the regular season and then amp out those minutes during the playoffs, you are going to have a tired team that's going to hit a wall. These are marathons. These are just-- you have to have the endurance to be doing this sort of thing. And sometimes it just catches up with you. And clearly it did. And when you have a team that gives the effort, they gave in game six, which actually, I don't think it was necessarily effort. I think they just missed literally every shot they took, which is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. And then you got to game seven. And they just-- you could tell there was a wall. There was a brick wall this team hit in midway through the third quarter, and it was done after that. And that would have been-- even if the Nuggets were able to pull that game out, man, I don't know how confident I would be going into this series to a series of Dallas. I honestly wouldn't. Well, Dallas looks like a fresher team. They only played six games against the Thunder. And it just looked like the Nuggets were hitting that physical wall. I think that sort of thing is something that needs to be seriously looked at and addressed. The Nuggets cannot over rely on their starters. There's just no way they can do that again. They can't be a team that rides yokech like a circus elephant and hats off them. That's a reference-- Nate Timmons is listening. That's a reference for you. And you can't have that scenario play out again. And I think the Nuggets, if they are good, will learn from this. And I'm going to address this in the second half of the podcast. There's just a lot of complicated things going on with the Denver Nuggets. They are in the second apron. It is not an easy scenario to get out of. In order for them to make moves, they're going to have to move a key player. In order for them to get anywhere near where they need to be as an improving team, a still improving team, a team that still sits at the top. They can't do this drafted players thing again. They can't do another off season of that. I think this season proves this. I think this is a semi-referendum on Calvin Booth's approach. You just can't keep riding that same thing and filling in at the back end with I'm a genius picks and hoping that that genius will keep playing out. It's just not a scenario that's going to work out for you. And it's going to be something that I think that everyone knows and looks at now and saying, like, we can't repeat the same thing we did last off season. All right, I'm going to get to more details on that in the second half of the podcast. But first, someone talked to you about Blanchard Family Wines, located between 18th and 19th, and Blake and Wazee. And beautiful, lower down down to Denver, Colorado. Just a couple of walks away from course field. Right in the middle of the area block, they're always online at bfwcolorato.com. They're on Facebook, book, and Instagram under Blanchard Family Wines. It's a great time to go down to get yourself some wine. I mean, honestly, the weather has been great. And getting down there and just enjoying some time in the dairy block. Or if you want to go to the Fort Collins location, their golden location, or their original location in Sonoma County, they're all great times to go down and just enjoy, like, maybe in the afternoon, have a glass of wine, lunch break, or pre-game it before you go to one of the fine restaurants in Lower downtown. They got reds, they got whites, they got reaslings, they got blends, they got everything you need in your favorite local wine bar. My personal favorites are the Pinot and the Cab, but they also got other great things with combination with Western slope wineries, which are all very good and would encourage you to try them out. Truly everything you need in your favorite local wine bar. Once again, they're located between 18th and 19th and Blake and Wazee in beautiful lower downtown to Denver, Colorado. Just a couple of blocks away from course field. Right in the middle of the area block, they're always online at bfwcolorato.com. They're on Facebook and Instagram and are Blanchard family wines. When you go in, are you talk to them, tell them Jeff Morton from CSG podcast sent you? I think Denver and I guess are going to end up having to trade a key player in order to, in order to get to the better team angle. It may be MPJ, maybe another player. I, the decisions need to be made 'cause of where the Nuggets sit in terms of the salary cap and where the team really struggled in this off season. Or not off season this season. The Wolves were able to build a team that was basically built to counter the Denver Nuggets. Shout out to Tim Colley. And when you have that scenario, you have a situation thrust upon you that is unique, where the team was effectively built to counter what you have with the best player in basketball. And we need to kind of internalize this folks and understand that I think tinkering around the edges, which is what Calvin Booth did this last season is not no longer valuable, but it's not in a do what the Bucks did kind of sense. Honestly, one of the biggest problems the Bucks had is this last year is they traded Drew Holiday. And they made the Boston Celtics a lot better by trading him to Portland and then having him bought out and then having him immediately going back to the Celtics. Sorry, I just completely butchered that. But him going to the Portland Trail Bears and going to the Celtics was their worst nightmare. And they did it for Damian Leleard, who is past his prime. The Nuggets can't be making deals like that. They can't be making decisions based on disappointment, but what you can do is inform where your weaknesses are relative to the team you just played. And I think if the Nuggets are smart, they will understand that look, we can't go a second year with drafted players. We just can't do this. We are a championship team right now. We cannot go into another off season with drafted players. We need to do something. And this is where the rubber meets the road with Calvin Booth. Though then the pressure was always going to be in the off season following the year after the championship. Because as Calvin Booth was saying in his interview with Kevin O'Connor is that in a very, and I think some would say the Nuggets sort of arrogantly approach this off season. If he wants sustainability and wasn't necessarily concerned about repeating, well, this is how it's playing out so far. But the problem is his precious picks did not get playing time. Let's just let that sink in folks. Calvin Booth's picks didn't get playing time. It was Peyton Watson who was here last year. And Christian Brown who was here last year. Christian Brown got the most playoff minutes. Peyton Watson was unplayable in this series. Peckett didn't get any playing time. Tyson Hunter didn't get any playing, Hunter Tyson, excuse me, didn't get any playing time. He gave a contract to Ziknaji who didn't get any playing time. There was a massive back end of this roster that didn't see the court. And that's not just the playoffs. It was literally the regular season. Think about that. And two of those contracts and the back ends of the roster that it was signed are devoted to guaranteed contracts that they didn't have to sign. Two second round picks that were signed to guaranteed contracts when it could have been the non-guaranteed second round contracts that are given out to the second rounders. They just made some strategic errors. Now I've already gone over my issues with the Reggie Jackson signing. And I think, identifiably speaking, the Nuggets cannot go into another year with Reggie Jackson as their backup point guard, their sole backup point guard. And they can't have another offseason with Jalen Pickett as the guy behind him or Colin Gillespie. This Nuggets team needs a vet backup point guard. What they basically had Bruce Brown doing this last year, they need someone like that in the second unit who's going to be a dog, which is clearly what this team needs. But the Nuggets were just not good enough. They weren't good enough to beat the Wolves with all the other considerations in front of them. This Nuggets team is currently constituted, was not good enough to beat Minnesota Timberwolves. Yes, it was a seven game series, but each loss wasn't close and each victory wasn't close. That is a weird series. So how do the Nuggets solve this? To answer, I think the sacrificial lamb is going to have to be a Michael Porter Jr. Because Jamal Murray's coming up to the last year of his deal and I don't think the Nuggets can afford to lose someone who has such a huge cog of their offense like Jamal. Now Jamal, I don't know if he's going to get necessarily the contract extension that he wants, but the Nuggets I do think are intent on keeping him and he's a huge part of the offense. I don't think they can get away with getting rid of Jamal. The sacrificial lamb in this entire scenario is obviously going to be Michael Porter Jr. We'll see what happens. But the Nuggets cannot tinker on the edges. There can't be another, we're going to draft some players and that's it scenario. The Nuggets have to free up space and they have to get probably in the trade market, players who can fit that will make them better than the Wolves. Because right now they are basically just under the Minnesota Timberwolves and I would just mean to hair under the Minnesota Timberwolves. The series went seven games. Tim Connolly successfully built a roster to beat the Denver Nuggets. So how do the Denver Nuggets counter the Wolves? And this is something that the Nuggets cannot go into another off season just saying, well, we'll just handle it during the year. Obviously coming up, they got Jamal's and Aaron Gordon's extensions coming up. They got financial issues that they need to address. The sustainability portion that Josh Cronke and Calvin Booth have also preached this last year is really being put to the test right now because you cannot waste another year of Nicole Yokos' prime, you just can't do it. You can't do it. You need to maximize Yokos' prime as much as possible. And you know what, I would love it. I would love it if Nicole Yokos wasn't even in the MVP conversation next year. Because every time he's in the MVP conversation, it means he has been lifting an unreasonably large load. You cannot have this happen again. The Denver Nuggets need to go into another season, helping Nicole Yokosch and this team be great. You cannot have Nicole Yokosch be the guy that is the MVP of the entire league because he's lifting a team on his back. He did that in 2022. He did that at the end of 2021 and he did it again this year, this Nuggets team is a better team than that. In the years where he doesn't win an MVP, this team is better because you don't need Yokosch to be burning himself out like that. And my concern coming into this year was burnout. And what I saw in the second half yesterday, game seven was a burned out Yokosch. And I saw, basically, I frankly saw that in game six. You know, Yokosch was able to rise up and he had some tremendous games in this series. Games three, four and five. Yokosch played tremendous basketball. He played a tremendous first three quarters of game seven. But he hit a wall and that's a reflection of the amount of workload that he's had. And I've said this and I wrote an article on it. Just I wished the Nuggets took this season a little more seriously. And now is the test. The test is now. It begins at the draft and extends into free agency. The Nuggets need to make a declarative statement that they are in it to win it and maximize Yokosch's prime. He is coming into year 10. How many more years of his prime does he have? They're treating him like Tim Duncan. And they need to treat him like the unicorn that he is. And I don't think the Nuggets were serious coming into this offseason and they better be serious now. You cannot get away with sitting on your hands again. You can. You've got to do something that is good, that is sub substantive, but not panicky. You cannot be the bucks. But you can make something good, a move that is substantial enough to make yourself better. And I mean, people are asking me for ideas. Honestly, like I said, the only player they could probably plausibly trade is Mike Porter Jr. I don't like it. I like Mike. As a player, I think he's got a bad ramp for the Wolves series when he was, it was just him and Yokosch in the first, in the Lakers series. People have forgot about that conveniently. This Nuggets team needs to be able to compete with the Wolves and the only real asset they, what's the quote unquote asset? And you know, I hate that word that they can trade is Mike Porter Jr. And that's it. There's a really plausibly that's it without sacrificing the soul of the team, which is basically Yokosch, Marie and Gordon. You can't, and I hate that, but it's the only thing that I can see. And they need to get rid of Zignodji's contract. There's, Zignodji needs to, I mean, I know he has negative value, but you can't have a guy you can't play on this roster, making $8 million a year. You just can't. So, all right, I'm gonna break this down a little more in coming episodes. Honestly, I know everyone's burned out right now, and I don't even know how many downloads this podcast is gonna get because quite frankly, I'm sure everyone is taking my advice and trying to stay away from social media as much as possible. That's a good thing. It's good for your mental health. Odd, so we'll be getting more into this in the future. And I'm gonna have other thoughts and other guests on to talk about this. Once everyone's cleared their heads and gets clear of the playoffs and gets off of social media. So, all right, thank you all for joining me on the latest more cast. I'm gonna be back in a couple days with another episode. Goodbye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - This is the story of the one. As head of maintenance at a concert hall, he knows the show must always go on. 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The Denver Nuggets season ended disappointingly 98-90 to the Minnesota Timberwolves in game 7 of the NBA Western Conference Semifinals. On the lastest Mortcast Jeff talks about the changes that need to happen for the Nuggets to get better than the Wolves.
