Dave DeFore (2:23)

I believe it's like 40 days as we're recording right now just to. Not to make you feel like it's a long ways off, but, well, media.

Adam Mares (2:30)

Day to me, man. I mean we're only a couple weeks away. That's the start for me. At least I get something to talk about at that point.

Dave DeFore (2:36)

Yeah, I mean, well, we've got. I think we've got stuff to talk about, but it's not about the Nuggets. Luckily, yeah, you're not going to catch the Nuggets in any sort of cheating scandals involving excess money or payments. Right. So last time we saw the Nuggets, they, they pushed the eventual champs Oklahoma City Thunder to seven games. That, I mean, that was an amazing series of basketball, right. And it could have easily had landed on the Nuggets winning and then going on to, you know, to face the Pacers in, in the finals. This team is now totally different, though. You know, for the last couple seasons, we've talked about how they lack depth. You know, they, they kind of let some of these more expensive veterans walk, you know, or trade him away. What do you think about the new look? Denver Nuggets?

Adam Mares (3:29)

Yeah, I love them. I mean, I think to your point, last year was probably their weakest roster that they've had over the last, you know, since Jamal Murray returned from his injury and they won the championship. It was the weakest of those three years. And they still pushed the Thunder to seven games. And they did that despite firing their head coach three, three games before the end of the year and their general manager. It was a completely dysfunctional season. And the first thing they did was they brought some stability, you know, a new front office in with some continuity. Ben Tenzer's been there for 20 years, David Adelman been there for majority of the Okachera, and so you have some stability there. But then of course, the big move, which I did not expect, was Cam Johnson replacing Michael Porter Jr. And to me, we can spend the next five, 10 minutes talking about all of the different, the ways I think Cam Johnson is going to change the dynamic of the Denver Nuggets.

Dave DeFore (4:20)

I mean, well, let's do it. How does he change things? I mean, he's obviously what we would consider a higher IQ player, right? Yes, I, I think it's very easy to say that he is a much more solid defender, especially on the perimeter.

Adam Mares (4:34)

Than Michael Porter Jr.

Dave DeFore (4:36)

But what else does he, does he significantly change for this team?

Adam Mares (4:41)

Well, first of all, it's versatility through that iq. So it's not just, okay, he reads the court a little bit better, but through reading the court, and this is something, by the way, Michael Porter's been in the league a while and I know the team would grow frustrated with him. With, man, we've gone over some of this stuff year after year after year, and you're still not reading it at the degree that we need you to. And so when you're talking about problem solving in the playoffs, teams are going to throw different coverages at you. You can't time out every play. Let's make an adjustment. Here's what we do. It's we know every adjustment there is based on every coverage you throw. So we all have to re to it. When you have one guy that can't do that, it limits your flexibility and you have to, you know, sort of shorten the playbook. With Cam Johnson, he does read the court. He thrives on reading the court well and understanding how this works. So now you have Christian Brown, Aaron Gordon, Cam Johnson, three guys who I think are now elite at reading what their role is as the defensive coverage has changed and that allows you the flexibility and then the skill set. This sounds like a small difference, but it's a big one. Michael Porter could not screen. He's too tall and narrow and he has a bad back. So you could never use him as the screener in options. You would always have to have him coming off of screens. Cam Johnson's a bigger bodied guy with the higher iq. He can be used to that. So now I look at Denver and say their entire playbook just got multiplied by five because you can run that those same plays they've always run with any player in any position. And that's what keeps your continuity and that what's what makes you so dynamic and difficult to cover.

Dave DeFore (6:09)

What about the bench? Because, you know, I think everyone's huge takeaway from last season in general, especially the playoffs, you got to have depth. There's no more league where, okay, if you got seven guys in the playoffs, you can make a run. You got to have nine, 10, hopefully 11 guys. To be honest with you. Just when you consider how, how many injuries these teams pick up, how do you feel about the additions that they've made to the bench?

Adam Mares (6:34)

I think when the moves were first made at the beginning of the summer, I was ecstatic about it. Just because the contrast to what we saw Denver go through, really, they had Russell Westbrook off the bench and not much else that would be consistent and Russell Westbrook consistent in his, you know, lopsided contributions. But now when they added Tim Hardaway Jr. You go, okay, that's a solid shooter. You should expect him to make shots and be in the right spots every single time. Valentunas, okay, that's a backup big. He spells Jokic. Bruce Brown, okay, that's a versatile guy who's won a championship with him. As we've gotten further removed from it, I think the bench is a little bit more of a question mark. Than what what I thought a couple months ago. It's no question better than what they've had for the last two seasons. So that's a, a positive. But when you go into a playoffs, Tim Hardaway Jr. Is not a defensive stopper. He's an offensive option. Valentius might not be in every series kind of guy in a playoffs. Bruce Brown hasn't been great for a couple years, so I think it gives you this depth in the regular season that's going to be very important to them. But come playoffs, they still need to develop guys like Peyton Watson, maybe even Jaylen Pickett, Julian Strother. So there's still question marks about what their playoff depth will look like.

Dave DeFore (7:42)

Yeah, well, the Bruce Brown thing is interesting because, you know, you can chalk up a couple of bad years to the injury stuff that he dealt with. And also he was on some weird team. I mean, you know, he wasn't going to contribute to Toronto because they weren't trying to win. So I'm not sure how much we can even take away from that. With Valentunas, I will say, you know, I've watched him in Euro Basket, he looks pretty good physically. And having him as your backup, I mean, this is the best backup center that they've ever had. During the Jokic run. As far as just one to one, right. Like you're going from yoke. Yeah, Jokic to, to Valentunas. The drop off offensively is just, it's a little bit closer. Right. So you're not going to die. It's a guy who can get you some buckets. They could actually feed him a little bit.

Adam Mares (8:24)

Eat clock.

Dave DeFore (8:25)

You know, I mean, he's going to maybe be able to give you some spot starts here and there in 24, 25 minutes and give Jokic a night off. You know, I, I worried because the, you know, the initial reporting was that he didn't want to play. You know, he wanted to go to Europe and didn't want to play. But it does seem like we've kind of gotten over that hurdle and come playoff time, I just don't think that Jonas Valancius is really going to play all that much for it to matter if it's his series or not. But I do think Tim Hardaway giving them the shooter off the bench. You know, I mean, look, if, if Aaron Gordon shots not falling, if, you know, Trishan Brown's shot not falling, you know, you've got a guy that you can put in there if you're down late and he's going to make shots and they're going to be open. His stuff off the elbow I think with Jokic is going to be fascinating. You you mentioned Michael Malone being fired with with three games ago in the at the end of the season. David Adelman, by the way, 3 and 0 in his coaching career. So undefeated right now. How long you think that streak's going to continue? You think they start out like 100 to start the season?

Adam Mares (9:26)

Man, it is kind of funny to think about his record overall as a coach and just like how successful it's been. Pretty good, but we'll see. I mean it's a big question mark, right? I mean he's he was great in the playoffs, very good. He did make some mistakes. But he is a young guy and so there's big questions. And then not only that, he has a young assistant staff. There's a lot of guys that have stepped up, moved up a chair for the first time ever. So it's a very inexperienced group all around in that way.

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Dave DeFore (14:31)

So Jokic is obviously going to get all of the attention, especially when people are talking about the Denver Nuggets going into the season. I mean, he just put together, what is it, five years in a row of having the best season anyone's ever had statistically. You know, I just don't know how much more there is to say about him. Like, does he have another level he can get to? And if so, what. What is that? What does it look like?

Adam Mares (14:54)

So I don't. I am one of the people that thinks he does not have another level he can get to. I think that. I think that he has kind of perfected the skill portion of basketball and he shot the ball well from three last year. If that. That would have to continue. One year is not enough to kind of prove that he's changed his shot. We'll have to see how that goes. But leadership is the big part. And this is where the Michael Malone firing, to me is most interesting, because I think Adelman is a good strategist, but I think he's a quiet guy in a way that might be good. Michael Malone was a big presence and he, he sort of, he got Jokic as a rookie. His absence opened up a vacuum for Nicole Jokic, in my opinion, to sort of step into that role more than he ever had. And we saw it in the late runs and we saw it in the, in the playoffs where he was coaching in timeouts, he was getting on teammates, he was being more vocal. Even after the season ended. He sort of called out Jamal Murray a little bit for just saying some of us weren't in shape, you know, the way we needed to be at the start of the year. And these are just things that he wasn't doing before. So where can he grow? I think he's perfected the game. Can he be better on defense? I don't know. He probably needs to be in the best shape of his life, which. Well, we'll see if that happens. But outside of that, it's just about leadership and saying, hey, it's now my job. I do my job perfectly. How do I get everyone else to do it perfectly? And we'll see if he can do that.

Dave DeFore (16:09)

Well, that's the difference between, you know, being one of the greatest of all time, which I think Jokic is, by the way.

Adam Mares (16:15)

I'm agreed.

Dave DeFore (16:16)

I'm not going to hold him back because of his teammates. But I do think that the greats, the greatest of the greats, they do get the best out of their teammates even when they're not on the court. Right. It's almost like inspirational leadership to a certain degree. And I guess that takes me to Jamal Murray. He did show up out of shape again and he dealt with injuries again. He's supposed to be the guy who's the all Star teammate, the all NBA guy. Is this the year? And if it's not, what then? But I want to start with, is this the year?

Adam Mares (16:49)

Well, I think with Jamal, the bill finally came due on all of these things, you know, like he had, he missed two years of injury and he comes back and it was understood that he would be a little bit behind the eight ball because he's coming back from injury. So he's out of shape. We get it. You win the championship, you play until June and then you go right into the summer where he's playing with Team Canada. You understand that he might be a little tired to start the year. So he almost had these built in excuses and then, okay, things happen. I think this last year was the year. Everyone recognized it. The media caught on to it. Okay, he's terrible in October, November, December, for some reason, and it hurts the Nuggets. Jokic is playing 40 minutes a night in those months just to keep the team afloat. Everybody caught onto that. But David Adelman mentioned it, Michael Malone before that mentioned it, Nikola Jokic after the season mentioned it. So I think this was finally the time when he had to be confronted with, yeah, you're not getting away with this anymore. So is it the year? I don't know. I mean, it's been several years. It's been like seven or eight years in his career that this has been the pattern. So I'm not going to give it to him until he does it. But I do think that he hears the noise in a way that he can't run from.

Dave DeFore (17:49)

So what does it look like if, if he doesn't come into, you know, camp in shape, if he's, if he starts slow at the beginning of the season? I mean, do they start thinking about the future and maybe they. Can we move on from him and, and reshuffle the deck? I mean, at a certain point you need your second best player to be available and to actually be the second best player on your team. I mean, Aaron Gordon has been the second best player on this team for a couple years. To me, because of Availability and just effort and, you know, all the other things that he brings to the table. But Jamal is supposed to be that guy.

Adam Mares (18:22)

I. I would say Aaron Gordon's been the second most consistently good player. But the thing is, is Jamal Murray is what makes them a championship contender. Jokic is great and they have a cast this year, and they've had it years in the past, but you have to have a running mate for the pick and roll. And Jamal Murray is a phenomenal one. Though it's so frustrating about him, is that he's actually among the best options that you could put with Nikola Jokic at his best. At his average he's not, but at his best he is. So what would happen? I think the team is good enough this year that they could survive him not coming into the season in shape. Maybe they're worn down in April and we don't really see. We can't really draw a correlation to what went wrong. But I think that if, even if he came into the season out of shape and got into shape as it went on, Denver would survive and be a juggernaut come playoffs. I just hope it doesn't take that because I think they'd be a lot better if they hit the ground running.

Dave DeFore (19:11)

You got to bank those early wins, right? Like, because what you want to do is in March and April, you want these guys to be able to take the nights off. And this has been the sticking point for the Nuggets the last few seasons. Like you mentioned, the slow starts for Jamal Murray, and you just don't have other guys who can step up. You know, like, no one's going to get hot to start the year because you just don't have those guys has on the roster at all. This is a team again, they just made these huge changes. Who's the guy on the roster that. That is most likely to maybe get moved? Whether that's to a salary dump, as this team sometimes does, or maybe it's a guy that they. They feel like they can just get an upgrade somewhere. I mean, is there someone that. That sticks out to you as a sort of movable piece?

Adam Mares (19:58)

So I don't think it's anybody in the starting five. I think the starting five is a phenomenally assembled starting five that you're gonna.

Dave DeFore (20:04)

Go to war with. Where would you rank the starting five, by the way? In amongst the league.

Adam Mares (20:10)

It's tough because, you know, to me, I think they're gonna have great chemistry, they're gonna have great numbers. And then when you go into a playoffs that's what will determine it. But you do have teams that are gonna have great numbers as well. Like Oklahoma City is gonna have a great starting five. So I, I just think they're in that S tier. Ranking them number one, two or three. I don't know. But they're going to be as good as anyone, in my opinion. Yeah. So who would get moved? I think that Zeke Najee is a guy that if they are able to move him, I think they would try to move him. Hunter Tyson is on basically an expiring deal. They've tried to move him. They have one roster spot as flexibility. But as far as rotational pieces that could get moved. I look at Peyton Watson and he's going into his final season. You know, he, he's con. He's extension ellible here. So he might not even be able to be moved depending on what happens with that. But he's a guy that I think Denver has to make a decision on and he's in a very familiar spot where I like him. I think he has a lot of upside, but he also has a lot of risk because he hasn't quite proven that upside yet. And his contract is due. So how Denver handles that I think will be interesting because if they do lose him or have to move him, they're going to have an empty cupboard for years to come.

Dave DeFore (21:16)

Yeah, it's tough to make room for a tweener with no offensive game. Right. I mean, his defense, I think, shows up immediately. I mean, the guy is all over the place. But if you can't score, you can't shoot. I just don't know how a contender can. Can have you in the rotation at this point. Right. Like, it's tough.

Adam Mares (21:35)

I could see him, though. I will say this, I could see him having a Jaden McDaniels type breakout year. Not this dynamic offensive player, but we're a guy. We're not talking about his offensive anchor. We're saying like, oh, yeah, he can do some stuff on offense. It might not happen, but I think that it's at least. And I can see that profile inside him.

Dave DeFore (21:52)

I mean, if he just becomes a better play finisher. Right. I mean, that's, that's the big thing. Stand in the corner, catch lobs. I mean, if he can just do those things consistently, you know, he, he's a much better player. What. What's the biggest swing factor for them? Is it just Jamal Murray being in shape or, you know, is it just supreme chemistry or is there something else?

Adam Mares (22:13)

I think it's probably Jamal Murray, to be honest with you, just because if he is an all star caliber player, I'd think Denver's the number one team. I mean, Oklahoma City's great. All these other teams are great. I think Denver becomes the number one team if he, if he is there. But the depth, to me, Peyton Watson's a big part of this. As I just mentioned, I'm not sold on Bruce Brown. I'm not sold on Val being great every single night. There will be matchups where he struggles. So they still need a steady contribution by the playoffs. And Peyton Watson, Jalen Pickett, maybe Duron Holmes or Zeke Najee, Julian Strother, they have a lot of guys that might hit. None of them, I think, are likely, but they all might. And they need to find one or two of those guys to hit, in my opinion.

Dave DeFore (22:52)

Is this the year you think they find out with these guys? I mean, obviously Michael Malone was reticent to, to play the young guys. I mean, it was sort of a sticking point down the stretch of the season. Obviously there's a lot of Russell Westbrook and not a lot of the. The young guys. I mean, is this the year that the organization focuses on that to start the season?

Adam Mares (23:11)

I don't know, to be honest with you, because I think you would like to say, yes, that's the time is now. And it's a new coach. But the truth is, David Adelman's a rookie for his job, right?

Dave DeFore (23:20)

Yeah.

Adam Mares (23:20)

And the team has high expectations. You go four and six in your first 10 games. It's not, oh, it's, you know, it's new coach, everything. We're figuring it out, it's panic, it's, oh, my God, what's happening. So there's a lot of that. And then on top of it, there are guys. As much as it's nice to have all of these question marks and say, well, only one of two of them have to hit. You can't give all of them an opportunity. So you're going to have to pick and choose your spots throughout the year. So I don't know. I think some guys are going to get a chance. Some guys are going to pop, and there's going to be some guys at the end of the year, we're wondering, was there more that they could have shown?

Dave DeFore (23:51)

Yeah, but they're not going to bring back Russell Westbrook.

Adam Mares (23:54)

No. No.

Dave DeFore (23:55)

Okay. All right. None of that.

Adam Mares (23:56)

All right, what.

Dave DeFore (23:57)

What's the most realistic outcome? Okay, what. What do you think is going to happen? Give me your prediction.

Adam Mares (24:03)

I'm Taking the Nuggets to win it this year. Anytime you say what's the most likely outcome, the field is more likely than any individual team, including Oklahoma City. But I think that Jokic is phenomenal and when you give him the right pieces, there's nothing you can do about it. Last year they had two shooters, just two. Jamal Murray and Michael Porter, who hurt his arm in game three of the first round and couldn't shoot for the rest of the playoffs. So they really were down to one shooter against Oklahoma City and took them to seven. I just am such a believer that if you give him the right playmaking and spacing around him, he can do anything. And I think the team did that this year. So I think the Nuggets are going to be phenomenal. I think they're going to win the title. If you're just talking about raw, safe as bet. I think they're going to be a two or three seed in the Western Conference and be the most consistent version of the Nuggets we've seen of the Yoko chair. They've never won 10 games in a row with since Jokic got there. They've always been this inconsistent team. I think this is the year they look more consistent from October through April where you go, yeah, we just know what we get from them every night.

Dave DeFore (25:00)

I have Denver and Oklahoma City on a tier by themselves. I mean, I think that when you, when you look back at that series that they played against each other, I mean, they were clearly the two best teams in the league and Denver got just so much better this off season. I mean, just the Cam Johnson upgrade to me was enough that I think they, if they had this team, they possibly, probably beat Oklahoma City. Right. Like they had no depth whatsoever and we can't re litigate it, but. Right. They were so close to being able to make it to the finals.

Adam Mares (25:34)

I don't know how many other teams could have gone through the dysfunction that team had last year and still made a playoff run. I think, Yeah, I think 99% of teams, maybe every other team in the league would have had the coach in front office on those terms, fighting and that much dysfunction and rust and everything else and just folded and packed it in. But Denver somehow have managed to make a run. So what happens when the, when those things are away, when there's a good culture around the team has been. By the way, last year nobody saw each other, Dave. They got to media day and you'd ask them questions about each other and they're like, I haven't Talked to him all summer, haven't seen him. Michael Malone, what's Zeke Najee been like? I haven't talked to him all summer. Nobody's seen each other this off season. They've been working out as a group. 11 guys at Rico Hines working out in LA together, coming back to Denver. So it's been a commitment by the team to say, hey, we weren't in a team last year, we're going to try to be a team this year.

Dave DeFore (26:20)

I mean that's. It makes a huge difference. Chemistry to me and Adam, we've been talking for years about basketball. I think chemistry is the one piece of team building that gets overlooked by NBA teams. I mean, you just think like we collect enough talent, it will all work out. But I think the Nuggets, especially when you have a player like Jokic where it does matter, I mean you have to know how to play with Nicole Jokic in order to thrive. And it looks like they added some guys. I mean I, I'm high on Cam Johnson. I'm very high on Tim Hardaway Jr. Joining this team. You and I have talked about that this summer. I just think his shooting ability and how open he's going to be. I mean he hasn't been this open maybe in his career. You know, I, I do think he's going to have a big year.

Adam Mares (27:02)

So.

Dave DeFore (27:03)

Most realistic outcome According to Adam Mares, the Nuggets win the title. Guys, go and check out Adam dnvr. It is not only the, the best Denver Nuggets coverage that you could find out there, some of the most fun the, the post game and especially after a loss, you gotta go and watch DNVR postgame shows. Adam Mares, thank you so much for joining me guys. That's going to do it for today's show. We're going to be back with way more team previews, probably more stuff involving the Clippers. So stick around. The season is coming up fast.

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