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One More Guy, Peyton's Rubicon, and Asset Commandments

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Denver Nuggets face a pivotal offseason as DeMar DeRozan officially joins the roster, but lingering questions remain with just 14 players under contract. Should Denver risk another season shorthanded, or must they secure a reliable 15th man to support Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray’s title ambitions? Prospective options like Bruce Brown, Jordan Hawkins, and Gabe Vincent are evaluated for their fit and upside, while salary cap complications and buyout scenarios add urgency to the decisions facing management.

The conversation focused on “asset commandments” for the next two years: the critical use of the 2031 unprotected first-round pick, the need for a key contributor under age 25, and the future of Cam Johnson. A key theme that emerged was the fallout from letting Peyton Watson go and whether prioritizing Cam Johnson will haunt the franchise. Can the Nuggets pivot quickly enough to remain contenders, or have they crossed a point of no return with their roster moves?

 

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One More Guy, Peyton's Rubicon, and Asset Commandments

Locked On Nuggets - Daily Podcast On The Denver Nuggets

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Locked On Nuggets - Daily Podcast On The Denver NuggetsOne More Guy, Peyton's Rubicon, and Asset Commandments. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.

This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. This is Jake from Lockdown. When the game is on the line, the best no end to pass. Because the right assist can change everything. And off the court, it's no different. That's where your State Farm agent comes in. Whether it's protecting your car, your home, or helping you prep for the unexpected, they'll help set you up with a game plan that works for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. The cover options are selected by the customer, availability and eligibility, buried by State. Thank you for making Lockdown your first listen every day. For your second listen, find the Lockdown NBA Podcast where there's no off season. West Matt and Hayes keep you up to date on contract negotiations, rumors, and everything you need to be the most informed NBA fan. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

Tomorrow Rosen's officially a nugget. So there's 14 guys on the roster. I'll tell you why the nuggets have to sign a 15th guy. I'm also going to tell you about asset commandments for the next two years. What the nuggets must and must not do with the assets available to them to pivot towards a future. And why the nuggets crossed a Rubicon with Peyton Watson. That's all coming up 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. My name's Matt Morathay for joining us here at Lockdown Nuggets. We're in the comments section every day is Doomsday. Appreciate you guys being with us here on a Tuesday night. I was unable to get to a show on Tuesday afternoon.

I had both kids had things. I had to go take my daughter to her wellness. Check up and talk to the doc. And then I had to take my son to go get his learners permit, which he just barely passed. Seas get degrees, baby. Don't worry. Got a lot of time before he's allowed on the streets of Colorado. Appreciate you guys being with us. You can check me out on line at HP basketball across all the things. You can also join our discord at Lockdown Nuggets at supercast.com. If you want to hear about how Christian Brown may not be healthy, we have somebody in there that is very focused on the fact that Christian won't say he's healthy. If you want to hear about, if you really want to invent about KSE, if you're just like I'm so mad, that's a good place to go. You will be welcome there with open arms. It's also a really fun community on game nights. It's a lot of fun. Glad to have those guys. And not just guys, those folks along for the ride at Lockdown Nuggets at supercast.com on today's show. I'll tell you why the Nuggets cross the certain Rubicon with Peyton Watson and why I don't think it's probably going to work out well. I'll also talk about some asset commandments.

There's certain things the Nuggets can and cannot do with what they have available to reshape the roster. All right. Let's start here. Demarder Rosen is officially a Denver Nugget. That was announced on the NBA Transaction Wire, first noted by Vinnie Benedetto of the Denver Gazette. And then it was announced by the Nuggets on their social media pages. You can go check that out and they release the email. Ryan is on vacation for our Carigno 55 who's asking tonight. Ryan is on vacation still for the rest of this week. And it's not swipe as night. So I'm with you. Demarder Rosen signs there's 14 guys on roster. The Nuggets have one open roster spot. And there's three guys on the graphic that I made for this that I wanted to kind of talk about. We can go ahead and like the comments actually mentioned Bruce Brown. I would be totally fine with bringing Bruce back. I don't really understand not bringing Bruce back. I don't get it. It's not like he was great. You got to bring Bruce back. There's all these metrics that I could throw at you as like,

hey, Bruce was not good last year. Even when it looked like he was pretty good, he was bad. Totally fine with like the notion that Bruce is not. Bruce did not have a good impact season. I don't think that that's necessarily untrue. But I also just think Bruce is so good for the locker room and everybody loves him and he loves Denver. And you need guys that want to be Nuggets. And I think it's good to have those guys around. And I just think look, Bruce may not be a backup point guard, but he's also somebody who can dribble. I think you need at least one of those guys. So if they chose to make Bruce the 15th guy, I would be fine with that. What I will say, they cannot go, they should, no, I cannot, they will probably, but they should not go into the season with 14 guys. This just needs to be a, they should just pay for the 15th guy and deal with the whatever X amount of luxury tax dollars that entails. We know that they're probably going to avoid the apron by the deadline, whether that's whatever blood sacrifice they have to make to get off of Zignagis Dail, they will do that. So I don't necessarily think that that's a hold up here. And yes, adding another roster spot

does make it harder to get under the second apron, but it just can't be that hard given where they're at. I just think they need another guy. And I will say that my understanding is that it's not like the team doesn't know it's short on ball handling. This team is not like, no, no, we're good there. They're like, no, that's something we got to address, but they haven't been able to do it. And so they're going into the season with not enough. So go find one. And there's three guys I think they're worth taking a look at. One is Jordan Hawkins, who was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies today. There was a report today that the Grizzlies are likely to waive any number of guys, including Jordan Hawkins or Walter Clayton Jr. Either one of those guys should be a pickup for Denver if they come available. Hawkins in particular, I will say this, Hawkins is an absolutely cracked deadly shooter. There's no reason to think that he will not be a great shooter in this league, if he is able to hold on. Two, I'm at the point of there's two things that I will absolutely not do. Sign someone the Miami Heat Let go.

There's three. Sign someone the Miami Heat Let go. Trade for someone, Boston's willing to trade you. And the third is you should never ever pass up on a former Pelican, Nikhil Alexander Walker, Dyson Daniel, CJ McCullum. The list guy that goes on and on and on of guys that have gone to the Pelicans and the Pelican's been like, oh, this guy's not good. And then they go somewhere else. And it's like, oh, they're pretty good. Jordan Hawkins, the Pelican's been out on for a long time. I think it's worth taking a shot. So if Hawkins is available, if he gets waived, that's a young player with upside can compete for, like put him in there with KJ Simpson and the cage match, one on one's in one's and let him try and figure it out. I think that that's like not a bad option here. Somebody says, isn't Hawkins pretty similar to Julian? If you can add another Julian, good. Like just, I'm not, you want to pure point guard, there's just not many of those. Steph Curry killed most of them by shooting from 35 feet. So everyone went, I want to do that. That's cool, right? So that's an option.

Gabe Vincent is probably going to wind up with my meat but he hasn't yet. And until he does, I do think bringing Gabe Vincent in and being like, hey, we'll bring you in on a guaranteed deal. You can work your value back up. And we'll have more money next summer because they probably will for a number of reasons. Yes. Yes. Gabe Vincent's defensive profile is excellent. A lot of this is like, oh, but this, that and the other. And it really just comes down to like the Lakers did not know how to use him. The Lakers were a mess because of their injury situations. Gabe Vincent is not a player to put around Luca Dachic in any capacity. And his impact is simply not going to be felt there. He would be great as a backup point guard in Denver. If Gabe Vincent is at all willing to take that call, then I think Gabe Vincent should be on that call as well. Walter Clayton's the other one, high upside. A part of that draft class that I think is going to be under a lot of scrutiny over the next months along with Jordan Hawkins. But I do think that there's probably a good opportunity to go ahead and add them. Sky Falcon says, why not keep the last

by open for a possible one for two trade the deadline or maybe a buyout option becomes available? Well, to get into buyout territory, they're going to have to be able to get under that second apron and they're going to have to, I think, actually get past the first apron in order for them to be able to eligible because otherwise, you can only sign by out guys that may less than the middle of a exception. And those guys are not going to be available. And I just kind of think, look, you can do both. If you reach a point where there's a trade, you wave Gabe Vincent or Jordan Hawkins or whoever, you wave them. You need contracts that you should be able to wave. What you should not do is just be like, well, we can't do that because we might want to use that spot for a player later. Fine, use it now and then wave them later because you need guys now, like this roster is not enough because you lost Peyton Watson, Tim Hardaway, junior, Ambers Brown, and Jonas Valenzgunis. Now, look, I don't think that any of those guys are a tremendous loss outside Tim. I think Tim, very specifically based off of what he was last year's a huge loss. I don't even think Tim Hardaway, junior as far as the vast,

the overall who he is in this league right now, who he will probably be for Miami is that much of a loss, but he was awesome for Denver last year, right? You need guys, you just need minutes. Like you need minutes and if you're, if you're gonna dedicate dead minutes to Ziknaji, if you're gonna dedicate dead minutes to whoever probably loses from Jillion Strother versus KJ Simpson versus whoever, at these guys. But that's what you should do. It's take a swing on one of these guys and be able to handle this. Taylor says your best player is supposed to be your point guard. That's not true, that's absolutely not true. That's not true. But also, hey, it's okay to ask that Jamal Murray not play 45 minutes a night. That's a reasonable thing to ask. If Tyas Jones is unplayable and I don't know if Tyas is or not, here's what I have about Tyas. Tyas had four really good years in the league,

two really bad years in the league for Wolba got lost franchises and hasn't been good in a year and a half. I don't know if Tyas is good anymore. I don't know. I want him to be, he's actually a floor general, he's a pure point guard. I love those guys, those are the guys I like. I just don't know if he's playable. If he's not playable, you're screwed because now your entire backup ball handler is just a martyr Rosen and that's not fair to them are either. So that's not fair in any sort of capacity anyway. Nogath Bayer says, can we trade our first round pick for Tyger Rome? I don't, I've been asked a lot about Tyger Rome. My understanding is that the Grizzlies will not move, they will not move Tyger Rome or Cam Spencer. That both those guys are like, yes, we are in on these guys. Be great, Ty would be perfect. But also I will tell you, my understanding,

is that the 2031 pick that was acquired for Peyton Watson, who we'll talk about later on, that pick is not meant to be used on a bandaid. It's not meant to be, oh, we need to address a roster hole. So we're going to use this first round pick. That pick is being saved for a reconfiguration of the Nuggets identity around the Coli Yokech headed into 2028 and beyond. That is my understanding of what the intention of that pick is. Maybe they changed their mind, maybe they trade tomorrow. But my understanding is that that pick is to be used for something broader and greater and more significant. And if you want to say here and go, they can't do that. It's not going to work if they'll never happen. There's no guys, blah, blah. That's fine. But that's a reason why I do not think that they would trade a 2031 first for a short term or bandaid option. I think Tyger Rome's excellent, but I also don't know that's like, I don't know that you're like, we're all, we're good. If we get Tyger Rome, I don't think Tyger Rome is like,

now we got it, I don't think that's it. I think it helps. It helps a lot, but I don't think that's like, all right, we're set now. So I don't think that's the thing to look out for. Okay. Coming up, I'm going to tell you about the asset commandments I've been thinking about as far as the Nuggets can on it, must do or cannot do X. We'll talk about that coming up on Locked On Nuggets. The problem of finding clothes that you can live it all day, be comfortable and do whatever you need to do, whether it's just chilling, go into meetings, playing golf, being on the move, that problem has been solved by Kozierth. The everyday polo is the answer. It's lightweight, built to move with you, just easy to wear wherever I've got it on right now and it's fabulous. Plus the Kozierth essential socks, they're at Zappen's socks, they're exactly what the name suggests, soft, supportive, comfortable enough that you stop thinking about them halfway through the day.

Plus Kozierth backs everything with a 10 year warranty and hassle-free returns. So if something isn't quite right, you're covered. That makes trying them for yourself an easy decision. I've got the Kozierth everyday polo in blue and in black. Check them out at Kozierth.com. Use the code Lockdown for 20% off. That's right. Lockdown for an exclusive 20% off. And if you see a post purchase survey, please mention you heard about it right here, Kozierth.com. Back here on Lockdown Nuggets, appreciate you guys being with us. I got to hit a button real quick. Back with you on Lockdown Nuggets. Thanks for joining us, appreciate you guys being with us. All right. So I have a couple of things that I think that we have to say that I want to make clear that if these things were to, if I say they cannot happen, then they were to happen. And if they, if I say they must happen and they don't, that I'll have to like come on

the show and be like, I said and then criticize, right? Like these are like, hey, I just want to get out there that I said this before. Because a lot of this is what you don't want to do is you don't, there are, there are people in media and there's people in the, in the Denver market that do this a lot where they say, you got to do this. And then the team does it and they're like, wait, not like that. And it's not fair, right? Um, let's start with that 2031 pick. That pick's got to become a player by 2028. So I know if you're listening to this, you're like, I don't want to wait till 2028. I want them to get a team that can contend around Yokech tomorrow right now. And you should, you should expect that because you have Nicole Yokech is the best player in the world. Okay. But I think it's reasonable to be like, look, this market is in flux markets in a very weird place. Um, I think there's a, I think there is a. Miss Nomor being presented that like Jalen Brown sets the market on stars. And I do not think so.

I think Jalen Brown was a very specific situation with a very specific set of circumstances. For his team with him and his play style times usage rate, time salary, time's personality. I think that that it was not a one, it was not like a, oh, couldn't get anything better for Jalen Brown. I think there was like complicated things going on on the Jalen thing. Um, so I do want to give them a little bit of runway here where it's like, look, if it takes you until the summer of 27, okay. But if you don't get anything by 27, that pick has got to get you better be working the phones for whatever it is that you're going to do. There is a level of this that simply this is and this happens a lot when I have had conversations with various people around the league of why didn't you do this? And they go, Matt, that that wasn't available. Like there wasn't a deal. Like he and they would tell me incompetence. Like this is beyond the nuggets. They would tell me like this is what I got offered for this guy.

Would you do that deal? And I'm like, well, no. And they're like, yeah, like the deal wasn't there. Or like we thought we had this guy. And then the owner said, no, we got to the goal line and the owner pulled it. That happens or the agent got involved. Like that happens a lot, right? But there can't be excuses beyond 28. And really it's it's got to be like you better have that guy like locked into your system by the by January 1st, 2028. Like I'm it's I mean 27 here. Like you better be entering camp with that person so that they are locked in with what you're trying to do. For whatever it is that you trade along with a 2031, whether that is trading to my own Murray or Aaron Gordon or Cam Johnson. Or whoever. I don't think there's anybody Christian Brown. If they trade whoever they better and then and they know it's like what what could they get with a Christian Brown in a 2031. I hear you crazy things happen, right? But they better have converted that into something that you can be like, okay, this is a fresh pivot.

This is a significant addition. This is a legitimate move. We are now talking about the nuggets in a very different light than we are right now. Like you better turn the corner on this by 2027 by using that pick. What it can use it with any other pick you want. Any combination of first and second. That's fine. Like I don't care what it takes. But you better get there. Because that's how important that move is in terms of letting Peyton Watson walk and only getting back that first. It was an unprotected first versus getting Chris Don and a protected first round. Or that's actually been taken away by the league, right? legitimate question there. Is that better? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if that's better. It depends because it depends entirely on what you can get with a 2031. And we'll never know what you could have gotten with a protected pick from the clippers that may or may not have been taken away. Or a protected pick from the box that may or may not be taken away for Gary Trent or whatever.

We won't know that, but we will know what you do with the 2031. And if the unprotected nature of that was important enough to get that in return, no matter how you felt about Peyton Watson, which we'll talk about in the third segment, you guys do something with it. It is that important. Sorry, my voice is like on the, I am about to lose it. So I'm holding on for your life here. Cam Johnson can't be a salary dump. So this was the fear that I had pretty consistently. And I'm no longer as afraid of it. I am still afraid of it. But I will just say like you can't get to the deadline. Find out that you have won 45 that you're on pace for 47 to 45 to 47 wins. We're not good enough. We're better off if we get under the luxury tax and dump Cam Johnson for nothing. Now it's almost impossible to do that because everybody's roster, everybody's salary space has taken out. You can't dump them into nothing. That option is no longer available to you. So you'd be taking back salary for it.

But through whatever means that you do, even if you're like, well, we're not going to get under the tax, but we are going to reduce our salary bill and go way low into the first apron. Nope, not good enough. You cannot, you have legitimately presented a position that says, we believe in Cam Johnson more than Peyton Watson. We believe in 31 year old Cam Johnson who has missed significant time with injuries. More than we believe in Peyton Watson. Okay. Now I can get there. I can get to a lot of positions. You can, I am very good at devils advocating. I am not somebody that I see things from a lot of angles. It's one of the good things and terrible things about me because I'm always like, well, this and that and also this other thing and this other thing at once. That's like everything everywhere all at once is very much my brain. But you have made a polar binary choice, which is Peyton Watson is not worth it. Cam Johnson is because you could dump Cam Johnson and retain Peyton Watson and

put him into the same amount and still save money. So you made that choice and that's fine. That's okay. You can make that choice. But you can't salary dumping. You don't have to extend them. I don't think you should extend them because if Nicole Yokech is unsigned next summer and has told you I'm going to I will resign whenever you want me to and Cam Johnson is unsigned next summer. Do you know how much cap space that frees up even with their cap holds? The amount of money they could theoretically clear to reconfigure the roster next summer. So I don't think you should extend them. But you can't salary dump them. If you get to December or January and it's like we're only going to win 47 games and Stan Cronkies like why am I paying this amount? I'm luxury tax. What are we doing? You better find somebody that's willing to give an asset return for Cam Johnson. I'm not saying you even got to keep him. I'm willing to accept that like look you're you were a first round out last year

in the most pathetic way possible. If you come into this season and you're worse and you're not going to clear 50 wins with Nicole Yokech. I can't sit there and be mad at Stan Cronkies for telling you to dump salary. I can be mad that he put you in this position originally by not just being like pay everybody. Pay everybody keep all the assets and then we can trade them as much as we need to. I'll pay the I'll pay whatever. Fine. Right. I can be mad at that. Can't be mad though if it's like this roster is not worth this. Reduce the salary bill. But even if that happens you knew this was coming. You better get good return on Cam Johnson. You can't salary dump him. You need a key contributor under the age of 25 by 2027-28. So by the start and next season you have to find one because now this is what you're you're what left with. Christian Brown who's overpaid and is a role player of role players. Christian's absolute ceiling from where I sit right now is like he can be worth the

$25 million a year that he's paid. If he becomes a fringe all MBA selection gets back to finishing at the level that he did previously and shoots 36% from three. That is an acceptable $25 million a year player. If you were a defensive stalwart, if he lives up to a defensive potential he's a good not great shooter where it's like he's not easily right around league average. It's fine. And then if he's back to being an elite finisher if that gets back all right he's worth like 25 million by the end of this contract. He's got to make up for this year right. That's fine. That's totally okay. You're never going to be like he's a key contributor like future piece. And you let Peyton Watson walk who could have been that. Again, I explain all the problems I have with Peyton Watson in my reservations right. I also said you should keep him and not and not Cam Johnson because of the upside. We'll talk about that in the last segment. Right and that's okay too. Julian probably not going to get there. Nobody else on roster. Duron Holmes probably not going to get there. Good.

Unlikely. Maybe it's one of those guys. Maybe Julian makes a lead. Maybe Duron makes a lead. Maybe they both make leaps. Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be great? But the odds are very low of that. You better find somebody who is a significant contributor you can believe in who's under the age of 25 by the start of next season. That's got to be a must. All right. Coming up. The nuggets decide to cross a Rubikama Peyton Watson. And in the wake of that decision, there's a lot of places this boat lands that are worse off than where they started. We'll talk about that coming up on Lock on Nuggets. Today's show. It's brought to you by Odo. Running a business shouldn't feel like you're trying to connect a bunch of systems that were never designed to work together. One app for accounting and another for inventory and another for sales. And somehow none of them talk to each other. That's where Odo comes in. Odo is an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together

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Back here on locked on nuggets, you are locked on. I got thanks for joining us where every day is Doomsday. I'm trying that that line out in order to sneak it in the transcript. So I get we get up in the thing. It's Doomsday gets closer in theaters. I'm trying to go see Acme versus Coyote. I really want to go see that this weekend. That's like a thing that I wanted to catch this weekend. But college football, but I was back and NFL's back too. It was pretty tough. Good luck to everybody on Monday, by the way. I think the wrong does we're going to win that game. All right, the nuggets crossed a Rubicon with Peyton Watson. So if you haven't yet, go read Ben DeRanda's excellent story on the Peyton Watson situation. We've talked a lot about a lot of the dynamics on here on this show before. You can read that in its entirety. So I have said, and I will kind of like, I'm going to link it in the episode description, by the way. Just so everybody's got it. So I don't know who leaked that the nuggets

thought Peyton could play and didn't. I said this, and I said that I hope it wasn't somebody inside the nuggets because that would be a stupid. And B, I thought it was pretty irreprehensible. I'm still not sure who leaked it. But I can say that I do think that the nuggets did believe that Peyton could play and didn't. And that was confirmed by Ben as reporting from five, he said, different league sources. Now, I've made it clear like, I disagree. I just think of a player as like, I don't feel comfortable on a bad hamstring. You need to be understanding of that. Guys can't play on it. This is not like, like, I don't understand the point of this because it's like, you watched Aaron try and play on it and he couldn't. Like Aaron couldn't play on his busted hamstring in 25. You know what this looks like. Now they've got more access to the meckles and then they can be like, yeah, but just that and the other. I still, I don't care. If Peyton Watson did not feel comfortable playing, shouldn't play. He should be able to play with a level of comfort so he can beat the type of player that needed him to be and not a shell of himself.

And that's where I come in with. But in doing so, right, whether it was leaked by the nuggets, or allowed to leak by the nuggets by them, tipping their hand to whoever did leak it, regardless, the information is now out there. And in doing so, that's one of the problems here is the nuggets drew a line. The nuggets in doing the way that they approach this, in trading him, in sign in trading him before September, over 5 million a year, which is 25 million across or 20 million across the four years, in doing so, and in letting it be known by whatever mechanism that they did not think. They thought that he could play and chose not to. That is a, like that is a, hey, we draw a line and you're on the other side of it. We are drawing a line past you. You were with us and we're saying no. And that's very dangerous to me.

The correct way to handle this, is you nice them out the door, is you go, honestly, we didn't think we had a starting spot for him. We're still committed to Christian Brown at the two. We don't see him as a, as a shooting guard. We're committed to Cam Johnson at the three, and we have, we have Aaron Gordon at the four. And we think Peyton's long-term future is at forward. He deserves an opportunity to grow. So we found him a spot where he can be happy, and have a starting opportunity, and be able to spread his wings. We didn't want him in conference, because we're so worried about it. And we were happy to get a pick back for him, but this is mostly, we understand, we have invested in Peyton, we know what he's capable of. We didn't, we simply did not have an opportunity, to keep him. That's like the way to do it. Everyone's gonna be like, oh yeah, if you wanted to keep him, you would make room for him.

And they're right, but you say that anyway. That's how you present it. Because now, if Peyton Watson makes you look dumb, he makes you look dumb personally. Not just in your assessment of, we didn't know if he would be this good. We thought he could be, but if it didn't know, that happens all the time. Lots of teams trade guys that go on to be superstars. The Dallas Mavericks let Steve Nash walk. He won two MVP's. The Houston Rockets move Kyle Lowry. He became a franchise centerpiece for the Toronto Raptors. On and on and on. There are these stories of teams that let a guy go because they were like, we didn't really think he was that good. And he wasn't that good with them. And then he was amazing with the next team. That happens. But this is different because you crossed a line with him. I'm not saying that you were over the line in anything that you did. I'm saying you made it very clear. Hey, you got to be in with us. You got to be a foxhole guy. And we don't think you're a foxhole guy.

And that's personal. And Payton is going to let him know it. Payton's got love for everybody in the organization from Josh Kronk, David Adlement, and Nicoli Yochich all the way down. He's got love for everybody in Denver. And he's going to be all smiles when the calves come next season if he's healthy enough to play. He's also going to try and rip their throat out. And if it doesn't happen next year, he's going to keep coming back and trying to do it every single season. Because like you have made it personal. You've made this very clear that your position is not just we weren't willing to pay that much. They did offer. I will say that. They held firm to an offer. Again, that's fine. And if it was just, you could even do that. You could even be like, look, like leak through the media, talk to Ben Duranon and give this quote on background. A nugget source says quote, we had a number. And it's our belief that with this new management, we have to be fiscally disciplined by not exceeding

what our projection show value to be worth. I don't think anybody's going to freak out over that. That's what the CBA requires of you is to be like, no, it's going to be this much. Now again, I've said this at the time on the show where after they traded him. And I'll say it again, I think you keep him. Because I'm just like, you keep him. And you see what he becomes. And then you can trade him later on that contract. And probably get a first round pick for him later anyway. I don't think, I don't think Peyton's value depreciates and you needed the minutes and the assets. And if you were going to trade him, you needed a player back. I, I have stated what I think the intention of the 2031 pick is. And I understand the logic of that. And I'm still like, you had all the leverage. You needed a wait to make sure that you had a player. Oh, you couldn't do it because of the, of the second apron. You wait until you grind them down into nothingness until they're like, okay, we'll send out whatever we have to for another team to take Zeke. Great. You, you solve the problem for us. We get a player back and you get the guy that you want.

That's the cost to do in business when we ever shifted free agent rights. Because letting him walk in this manner is like, we really wanted the 2031 first because we have long term plans. But also like, it's fine. That's not advisable. We'll save a works out for them. Go read Ben's piece over the Denver Post. Appreciate you guys being with us. I'll be back with you tomorrow. We'll talk some more, we'll talk preseason. Nuggets announced their preseason schedule. I'll kind of give you some things we'll be looking for in preseason. We'll talk a little bit about whatever else is going around the league and maybe have some more clarity on the potential of one of those guys in Memphis joining the Denver Nuggets. Appreciate you guys being with us. Hope you guys have a great day. We'll see you guys again next time on Lockdown Nuggets. This is Jake from Lockdown. When the game's on the line, the best no way to pass. Because the right assist can change everything. And off the court, it's no different. That's where your state farm agent comes in. Whether it's protecting your car, your home, or helping you prep for the unexpected, they'll help set you up with a game plan that works for you. Like a good neighbor, state farm is there.

Covered options are selected by the customer, availability and eligibility, vary by state. Thank you for making Lockdown your first listen every day. For your second listen, find the Lockdown NBA podcast where there's no off season. West Matt and Hayes keep you up to date on contract negotiations. Rumors and everything you need to be the most informed NBA fan. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day.

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