Are the Nuggets Wasting Jokić's Prime? Plus: Portland's 5-Guard Mess and Steph Curry's Uncertain Future

Untitled project from SquadCast === Jose: ​[00:00:00] All right, it's time to talk basketball. I'm Jose Salviati, editor at thePeachBasket.net. He is Steve Purciello, a host of, or the host of Celtic Chalk Talk. Not a host, he is the host of Celtic Chalk Talk. He's also a longtime educator, vice principal, high school basketball coach, and athletic director. And together, we are the Shot Clock Pod, the Shot Clock Pod was born out of the content in Steve's 13 Rules random NBA thoughts articles, which he publishes weekly. Steve and I have exactly 24 minutes to discuss what's on his mind around the NBA. Today, we will not be discussing his latest 13 Rules random NBA thoughts article. We're gonna be discussing one that he has been r- wrote a while back. Over the last couple of weeks, he has been sharing his thoughts on the changes in the East and Western Conference over this pretty wild off-season. So we are going to continue that conversation on the West today. But before we get to that, if you are listening, we are grateful. Thank you. Please know that you are listening to one of a [00:01:00] few independent fan-driven shows on the Peach Basket Podcast Network of shows. We're not owned by a big media company, which means what you hear comes straight from real fans. No agenda, no you have to talk about this, avoid that. We just talk about the game we love. If you believe voices like this should be heard, the best way to support us is simple. Keep listening, tell a friend, like, comment, subscribe. It all means the world to us, and we're grateful for all of it. When this episode ends, head over to the Peach Basket Podcast Network. Head over to thePeachBasket.net, check out more fan-run podcasts, and help this independent network grow the way it started: organically, one hoops fan like yourself at a time. We're grateful you're here. Thank you. All right. So we are ready. I'm ready to continue our conversation on the West. We got more to talk about. Steve, are you ready? Steve: Ready Jose: Let's do it. I'm gonna start the clock now. All right, so last week we focused on the West, and there's a lot to talk about in the West. Obviously one LeBron James move, we talked about that, might [00:02:00] come up again today. We talked about the Spurs and Wemby's extension, we've talked about last week, and we'll link to that show if you missed any of this. The Oklahoma City Thunder se- second apron casualties. We talked about the Lakers, and we talked about the Minnesota Timberwolves. More to talk about. We're gonna start with a team that won the NBA championship, won it all not too long ago, but just seems to be in a bit of disarray. And that's the team that plays in Colorado, the Denver Nuggets. Now, I gotta ask you straight here and we'll talk about what the, the Nuggets did and didn't do, but are they wasting the final years of three-time MVP Nikola Jokić? It kinda looks like maybe. They lost Jonas Valančiūnas, Tim Hardaway Jr., they acquired Marvin Bagley, Tyus Jones, Bruce Brown, and who knows what's gonna happen with Peyton Watson. What's going on, man, in Denver? Steve: They're on the, on obviously the downside of the mountain. [00:03:00] When-- a couple years ago when they won the title, the Kronkes, they're the owners, wanna spend money to keep it going. That's when they should have tried to keep it going for the next year. In fact, they didn't wanna, pay and pay the tax and all that, so they kept salaries down, and they didn't bring players in. Now it's a couple years later, they are paying tax, and they are, I believe they're in the second apron, and it's getting late. Murray gets hurt a lot. Al Gordon is hurt often. So it's very hard. These guys are getting older. They're not getting better, it's not a great situation. They're trying to put Band-Aids, on an open heart. It's just not a good situation. Jokic, yeah, they are wasting his best years. He's loyal. He appears to be loyal, and he'll Jose: Yeah Steve: till the end. But I don't think, unless something crazy happens, I don't think [00:04:00] there'll be many more titles Jose: That is sad. I, I'm surprised and I hate to admit it, but I'm gonna admit it. I did not know that the Nuggets were owned by Kroenke. This is the same Kroenke that moved the Los Angeles Rams from Los Angeles to St. Louis. I did not know that this guy's empire extended, Steve: Oh, it's Jose: into basketball. Yeah, apparently. He's not well-liked here in LA because of that move. But yeah I didn't know that. O- obviously he had some success in St. Louis with the Rams. They won it all, and obviously he's had some success in Denver 'cause they won it all, so good for him. But th- this is not the, this is an ownership with kind of a problematic past across different franchises, right? Steve: Well, sports are interesting and I know we all get caught up on trades and we get caught up on general managers and co- and coaches and all that, but [00:05:00] if you wanna learn about teams, generally look at ownership. The Knicks this year were an exception because their owner's not the best in the world. But most times the good owners can win. And the Kronkes obviously are a business, are in it for the money and some ownerships are in it for the money. Let me just explain. If you're under the cap and you're not a tax team, and, can get the money... In other words, all the teams that pay tax, it's divided up among the teams that are not paying tax. So you're gonna make money. That's why Michael Jordan made a lot of money with bad teams, so there's a lot of ways for ownership, and you gotta analyze that. Are they willing to spend to win? Denver, I think he's thinking about it now because I guess Jokic's contract's coming due and he doesn't wanna lose [00:06:00] him, but they're not very big on, on, on the money sp- they weren't very big on the money spending, and they wasted best years Jose: Yeah. Yeah it, well put. I have no no words, nothing to add to that. Oh well put. I'm still rocked by the fact that Kroenke owns the Nuggets. I did not know that. But let's stay in the We- obviously all this whole conversation is in the West. Let's stay with with a team that kinda like the Nuggets in a sense that they've had a lot of potential, they just haven't met it. Whereas the Nuggets obviously raised the banner that one time. This team recently has not, and that's the Houston Rockets. So you wrote a lot about what they have done and what they haven't done. I wanna key in on how important Fred VanVleet coming back is important to them because he was missed last season. They lost Dorian Finney-Smith, they re-signed Tate, they [00:07:00] signed Marcus Smart, who was in spots pretty good for the Lakers last season. Bogdanović also brought on, who I think might be at the end of his run. And of course, they got 39-year-old Kevin Durant. Does the... D- does it all hinge on VanVleet's return for the Rockets? Is he that important to this team? Steve: I think it's important. I also think it's important that a guy like Sengun takes his game to the next level. Jose: 嗯。 Steve: I, I think there's a lot of factors. Last year, they-- by the end of the season, they seemed like a dispirited group that just were tired of each other and just weren't happy. You had Durant starting that stuff where he was from a a, a fake account knocking teammates and, a lot of different things went on. The other thing too, they got Durant, a good scorer. By the way, he played more minutes last year than he played in quite a few years. But scorer and all, but not a leader. they do [00:08:00] need a VanVleet and they... and the other person which don't overlook getting Marcus Smart. Marcus Smart likes to win, he'll do whatever it is to win if he's healthy. So that could help. The sha- the hard part is Smart is gonna be a bench player, and VanVleet, we don't know what he's gonna be like without a-- with the knee. Those are the guys, not your Senguns and not your Durants that are leaders, and that, that's a shaky thing. And I think Udoka last year was wearing on his players. I don't know what reaction is gonna be this year to him. And then you got the other factor, Durant's 39. How many more years is he gonna be as productive as he was last year? I-it's just, there's so many factors. Do they have talent? Yes. Thompson is one of the best defensive players in the league. I like Jabari Smith as a complementary player. They've got some talent, but [00:09:00] just... I don't feel that they're ready to make that next step Jose: Yeah. It, there, there's a lot going on there and I think, use, I think you used the word disengaged or something. A- and that's definitely how it looks i- in Houston, which makes it all the more interesting that there's a rumor going on. A- and there's, obviously this is rumor mill time that Russell Westbrook, who's currently unsigned there, there's been some interest bringing him into Houston. If you are a disengaged franchise, why would you consider bringing in the guy who is a phenomenal player, but you look at his last three stops, th- there's been disengagement there. There's, it just doesn't seem like this is the right guy for the Houston Rockets. What do you think? Steve: Of course not. I think Westbrook is the perfect player 'cause he's cheap, but the perfect player for a team that's not very good and buying a year or two. And yeah, [00:10:00] you might not be able to develop one player 'cause you're using him, but he's exciting and people will come to see. I don't take him too seriously when it comes to winning. So he's good in that role and that maybe Houston needs to do it. I don't see that. I think you look at the best player on a team and then you try to decide do they care about winning or they care about themselves? I don't know if Houston, those players are concerned about the winning or themselves at this point. So that, that's not a good situation to be in Jose: Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. Tough situation which is odd because Houston, like you said, has great players, really good players. We'll see how things play out this season, this coming up season for Houston. Let's move to the Phoenix Suns. The Phoenix Suns I think started off pretty well last season petered out a little bit. You called out that they appear to be improving, but in very [00:11:00] small increments. So they're improving at a snail's pace, which, I'd rather do that than go in the opposite direction or not move at all. This year, they signed Luke Kennard Miles Bridges in a trade. They lost Grayson Allen and Royce O'Neale. So no Allen, no O'Neale. You bring in Kennard, who was really good for the Lakers last season and Bridges, who I think is a solid player. That's a better team. What, is this a playing team at best? Is this, maybe, may- maybe a ceiling maybe is finishing sixth or fifth potentially? Is-- What do you see? Steve: Yeah, maybe. I doubt it, but maybe. There's something to notice here. There's a guy on that team That his teams are usually decent. Every other team hates him. Every team in the league hates him except his teammates. You know who I'm talking about, right? Dillon Brooks. Dillon Jose: about Dillon Brooks? Steve: Yeah. you know what? He, y- [00:12:00] he's a pain in the neck. But you know what? He wins. Jose: Yeah Steve: teams overachieve when he's around. They don't underachieve. Jose: Right Steve: there's a lot to be said about him, and you're bringing in Miles Bridges, now you've got another legit scorer. So you're improving. They do have a problem with size. They're not real good with big but they're improving. The-- Bridges, it's on his last year of his contract, so he's gonna be on his best behavior. He and Booker, they're gonna get you some points. And Brooks will get his 18 to 20 a game. So now you got something that's developing. I and I missed the the other guy from Houston that they got a couple years ago, the guard. They-- I missed him, but he can score also. You know who I mean. I can't think of the name off the top of my head. The one they they traded, they... He was the second or third pick in the draft. I can't... Oh, God. My mind has slipped. But anyway, he could score. He played with Houston. He's a guard, he's a shooter. Gr- great shooter. But [00:13:00] anyway, so they got some pieces. don't know if they have the big s- the size, but they have some scorers that can play. Did you figure out who I was talking about? Jose: I spent some time looking up Dillon Brooks' numbers, so I didn't I didn't go down that rabbit hole, but we'll see if we can get that before before we end the show. But, I'm fascinated by Dillon Brooks because he is the kind of guy that every NBA champion has. Steve: That's right Jose: He's just a baller, man and he- he's the kind of player who y- you, like you said, right? If he's not on your team, you hate him, but if he's on your team, you love him. I think back to ML Carr. Steve: Jalen Jose: G- oh, Dy- well, Dillon, great, yeah. All right. All right, very good. So That, Steve: is Jose: that box is checked Steve: Brooks is a much more skilled... Karl was decent in his day, but Brooks is a much more skilled player that appe- gets under people's skin and he's successful. That's the only thing you can say Jose: Yeah and that's what I was gonna call out. Last season he scored, or he averaged [00:14:00] 20 points for the first time in his career. So now not only is he a, pest defensively who gets under your skin but he's dangerous. He's a scorer. So yeah, he's he's a fascinating player. He's, A- and like I said, e- every NBA champion has a player like that. We're not saying the S- the Suns are NBA championship ready, but they do got a good piece in Dillon Brooks. All right let's talk about a team that's, man has really gone through it lately. And that's the, the Blazers. They were involved in a big trade during the off-season, of course. They lost Chauncey to this, their c- head coach, to this weird federal gambling thing. So there's a lot of weirdness going on. But now that the dust has settled in Portland, they are incredibly guard heavy, right? So they traded for Ja Morant, and they had a lot of really good guards to begin with. So when that trade happened, my first thought was, "This is a first domino. You gotta get rid of some of the guards to fill out your roster." But nothing's happened. Nothing but crickets out of Portland. [00:15:00] And so they're super guard heavy. How are they gonna make that work? They've got Ja Morant. They traded away Jerami Grant. And so they've got, and you called this out, Damian Lillard, right? Don't forget he's coming back. Jrue Holiday, Morant, Shaden Sharp, Scoot Henderson. What? What? What? What are they gonna do there? What are you gonna do with these players? Steve: That's an interesting situation. They could be decent or they could just, fall apart. The first thing before we talk about it is you have to talk about ownership, and it's Tom Jose: Oh, Steve: who doesn't want them. And right now they're going through a crisis of they want repairs done to the arena. Dundon won't-- doesn't wanna pay anything, and they're negotiating back and forth. And if you're a player on the team, you don't pay attention to ownership or any of that. But what they have to be concerned about is they're gonna move the team. That could very well happen. that, that [00:16:00] becomes a concern. And Dundon as the owner has done a lot of things that have turned off players. Like in the playoffs, he didn't take his two-way players to, to their game on the road. He's done a lot of things that don't... Even with what he did with Tiago Splitter, he did a great job last year. He's now in Chicago because Dundon interviewed everybody in the country me. But he interviewed everybody to find a coach. And he f- ended up with Mick Norry, which is a good choice. But the way he did it has to upset players. So there's a lot of stuff going on. And I'll just say this, Damian Lillard came back 'cause he loves Portland. What happens if they're out of Portland in a year or two or Jose: Yeah, it's wild, right? Steve: have to stay there for three or four more years. But my point being, it's not good. And think about the players have to uproot family and all that stuff. So there's a lot on the team's besides basketball. five [00:17:00] guards, and they're not trying to trade one of them. I was surprised when Jaylen Brown was on the market. I thought they might get into that 'cause he could play the three get rid of one or two of those guards, just to To do something to get themselves a little bit better. And also get away from having five guards. You don't have a lot of minutes here for five guards unless you use one of them at a three and Jose: Right Steve: It gets a little better. But i-i-i and then what is Danny Alvia? He's not a, he's not a four. You got a lot of issues here and they've gotta, they've gotta figure it out. They did re-sign Robert Williams, so they do have a decent Klingon and him are decent. But there's just issues that non-team wise that could hurt them. And by the way, Morant and Lillard probably will be the two starting guards. How do you-- what do you think Will Aviya be recognized now as the best player as he was last [00:18:00] year? And how will that work out? There's a lot of questions Jose: yeah Steve: in this situation. Think about... Go ahead. You wanted to ask, Ed? Jose: no I, I, that's a great point. A- and my th- my knee-jerk is that Dame Lillard is the face of that team because of the history. So when you have Portland versus the Celtics, it's gonna be a picture of Dame and a picture of of not Jaylen Brown the other guy. Steve: Tatum Jose: Jason Tatum. But the best player on the Portland Trail Blazers is Anfernee. Th- that's it. So Ja Morant is, i- it's gonna be a weird situation Ja Morant finds himself in and that's gonna be the biggest challenge, I think is massaging that ego and getting Ja to fit. 'Cause I don't know, I don't know how he fits. 'Cause he's not the best player, he's not the face of this team, and he was both when he was in Memphis. So that, that's gonna be tricky Steve: And Scoot Henderson was playing good basketball by the Jose: Good point. Steve: season, What minutes are gonna be for him? So there's so much going on and [00:19:00] there De'Aaron Shar- Sharp is another player that can score. Jose: Yeah. Steve: are there for him? Jose: Yeah Steve: there's so many... It's a mess Jose: Yeah. Bottom line. Steve: and Jose: Yeah. Steve: And Jose: I think that's Steve: I'd be remiss not to mention Camara, who's one of the best defensive players in the league. Camara, whichever way you wanna say it. But, it, they've got talent, but I don't know. Jose: Yeah. Steve: how that's gonna Jose: It's messy and that's... You hand the keys to a rookie head coach. That's rough, man. That, that's rough Steve: After firing a popular head coach Jose: Right. Steve: job in a bad situation. So Jose: That's rough. Steve: Yeah Jose: So we're gonna put a pin or a period at the end of Portland by finishing here before we move to the Warriors in the time that we have. You started by saying, a lot of times successful franchises, directly linked back to the owner. Good owners tend to win, bad owners tend to not, right? And there's some one-offs. If I, I Googled Blazers owner weird decisions, and it's a [00:20:00] long list. I'm not gonna read it all to you, right? Refused to let two-way players, you called that out. Required team staffers to check out of hotel rooms hours before team buses left to bypass late checkout fees. Come on, man. Canceled free playoff T-shirts for fans attending home games. Forced out prominent voices like play-by-play announcer Kevin Calabro, And it goes on and on. That's wild. So you've got spotty ownership, you've got a, a head coach, and you've got a weird guard-heavy situation. Good luck to Portland. The, the Warriors are in a different spot altogether. And it's sad to see it end like they did, like it's ending, I think. I get the sense that the Warriors put a lot of their eggs in the LeBron basket and it didn't pay off, and now they're left with, an exciting rookie, Jaxson who won MVP in Summer League, which means absolutely nothing. But he does look like he's gonna, be certainly a rotation player for them. But is this what Steve Kerr signed back up for? It's messy in, in, in [00:21:00] Golden State. Let's look at what they did. They re-signed Porziņģis De'Anthony Melton but of course, they're old, and they're waiting on Jimmy Butler to return. What do you envision for the Warriors? Steve: there's two stories I thought. of all, if you watched poor San Francisco last year, or Golden State, you felt Steve Kerr checked out quite often. He gonna be that this team is not... If they're a play-in team, they'll be lucky. Is he going to be re-energized? And then the other story and it's really a sad one in a lot of ways, the Steph Curry situation. Jose: Yeah Steve: Because you really can't start rebuilding if somebody's making 70 million, it makes it hard. And you-- he wants to stay with one team for his whole career, Jose: Sure Steve: really have some, some issues there. He can stay but it's really not good. And does he wanna go somewhere and chase a ring as LeBron did? [00:22:00] Or is he very happy finishing it out with Golden State? So th-there's a whole bunch of things. They're not all good things. Hopefully Kerr is energized and wants to coach. Hopefully I... curry's just a problem hanging over the franchise you don't want him to retire 'cause he, he's great to watch. but when he's there, that's a problem. It's a real problem. And they've gotta, they've gotta figure it out and what they wanna do. And by the way, Curry gets hurt a lot more now as he g- as he ages, so what are you gonna get out of him, 50 games? It's just not a good thing. And a lot of those guys, Porziņģis, Horford, Curry, Draymond, they don't like to play back-to-backs. You got some... and Jimmy Butler hopefully comes back, but he's not gonna play back-to-backs either as he's trying to heal. So i-it's a whole, it's a whole who knows type situation Jose: Yeah. Yeah, and it's sad, right? Anytime you see a, a [00:23:00] dominant franchise on their last legs we've seen it, we've seen it in Boston, we've seen it in LA, and it's, y- you rarely go out on top, right? It just, it doesn't happen where you win it all and then y- you walk away and you blow it up. Let, let's let the next run, the, the next group of players give it a shot. That's just not how it happens. You win it all and then you get old, and we all watch it happen, and it's it's kinda sad. This is the last year on, on Curry's contract. He's unrestricted free agent at the end of the year Steve: he's supposed to be re-signed this summer, but the logical thing is you trade Curry and start over. Two problems. Curry probably doesn't want it, and he deserves, say in where, what happens to him. Jose: Yep Steve: other problem is Steve Kerr's got a two-year contract. If you're gonna start over, you need somebody there for four or five years, and I don't think Curry's gonna want to-- Kerr is gonna want to win [00:24:00] 25 games in a season, and I don't Jose: Yeah Steve: gonna handle that. So the direction of the team through Kerr is not the direction that they need to take. There's so many, like, conflicting things going on here that it's not gonna it's not gonna end good for anybody Jose: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tough times in Golden State. Unfortunate. It would've been nice, I think, to see LeBron there and see him and Curry and Draymond and the whole that, that whole that d- that whole that dynamic would've worked out. I think it would've been fascinating. But on we go, it didn't work out. You heard the shot clock go off. We have suffered another shot clock violation. That's okay. It's what we do. That is it. Our time is up. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Make sure to read Steve's entire 13 rules or any NBA Thoughts article. We will link it wherever you're watching or listening to this today to get all of his thoughts on the East and the West. Go back a couple of weeks, you'll get them all. And then, of course, join us next week for more NBA Random Thoughts. Steve will talk [00:25:00] then Steve: Talk to you. Take care