big honey and the nuggets

couple of not unexpected but less than ideal shams bombs

Denver and star Jamal Murray are working toward a four-year, $209 million maximum contract extension this offseason, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. Nuggets will present the deal to Murray – a 2023 NBA champion and one of the best clutch players – and sides expect agreement. pic.twitter.com/tOZ7UBWuli

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 27, 2024

Denver’s Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is declining his $15.4 million player option for the 2024-25 season to become a free agent, sources tell me and @Tjonesonthenba. Caldwell-Pope – a two-time NBA champion – is expected to receive interest from multiple teams with salary cap space. pic.twitter.com/R1P8fhqBfn

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 27, 2024

still seems like KCP re-signing at a higher but not totally unreasonable AAV is a strong possibility. hopefully the bruce brown situation was instructive

kevin, congrats

Denver is trading Reggie Jackson to Charlotte with three unprotected second-round picks, source tells ESPN.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 27, 2024

heh

https://i.imgur.com/lshNrjj.png

our long national nightmare has ended

Keep getting locked, but… Denver is trading the Nuggets’ own seconds in 2025, 2029 and 2030 to Charlotte of move off Reggie Jackson’s $5.2 million salary for next season, league sources told @YahooSports.

— Jake Fischer (@JakeLFischer) June 27, 2024

wait they’re TRADING three picks to offload reggie?

yeah

oh…

seems like a lot just to offload $5m

he’s really bad and they’re up against the apron. but still

Holy fuck bro please keep the beard and mustache this is aura pic.twitter.com/BhZOSVBKZ7

— moose (@MooseRantanen) June 27, 2024

new era/aura

oh no

so close to zangief cosplay

feeling pretty bummed about this off-season and the team’s trajectory. it seems likely now that KCP will walk and the nuggets will get nothing in return. the team is in a tough spot because under most scenarios, re-signing KCP (which they can do at any number since they have his bird rights) puts them into the second apron and severely limits their future flexibility. but losing KCP risks capping their ceiling and squandering some serious championship equity.

I’ve thought for a while that while he’s been great for the team, KCP is probably the most expendable starter. he’s an excellent defender and shooter, though both of those skills are highly dependent on his mobility and he’s about to hit his mid-thirties, and maybe losing him a year early is preferable to two years too late… but if the alternative is getting nothing of real value in return, that’s a bummer

yeah letting him walk sucks is prob the right move but they really need to hit on some guys

New cba succcccks

if i were an nba team i would simply not pay my role players max salaries

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope intends to sign a three-year, $66 million deal with the Orlando Magic, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. Massive pickup for the rising Magic, acquiring the starting shooting guard of two NBA title teams. pic.twitter.com/fhu04mauIx

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 30, 2024

sigh

we’ll see if there’s another move there, but that has not really been the MO of this team. I’m pretty despondent and mad at ownership. worried they’re just going to take jokic’s prime for granted

idk what pretty similar means here

Denver offered KCP a salary pretty similar to what he ended up getting from Orlando and I’m told the Nuggets offered three years. The Nuggets definitely tried here

— Tony Jones (@Tjonesonthenba) June 30, 2024

they also offered a contract in us dollars

I honestly am not sure how plugged in tony jones is — he’s kind of the stopgap beat reporter for the athletic but he’s primarily a jazz guy. I’d be shocked if the nuggets matched and KCP chose orlando, but I guess anything is possible

No state taxes

yeah honestly if that’s what it came down to, fuck him

https://i.imgur.com/B8ooBaK.png

they did… ?

🚨🚨🚨

THE DENVER NUGGETS ARE SHOWING INTEREST IN SIGNING RUSSELL WESTBROOK (per @ShamsCharania) pic.twitter.com/kXNIeLK4eZ

— Nuggets Lead (@NuggetsLead) June 30, 2024

please execute me

oh no

I’m so sad about the KCP thing man. guy decided he had no interest in contending for a championship and preferred a few extra bucks. really goes against everything I thought I knew about him. good riddance

ugh

mostly mad at the kroenkes I guess :/

There’s a genuine case to avoid the second apron if you’re Denver. Matt’s not wrong. I just fundamentally disagree because we know this five-player starter core can win the title. We’ve seen it be the best group in the NBA. And removing KCP without a replacement REALLY downgrades https://t.co/6NNXCAoUIz

— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) July 2, 2024

there’s an interesting dynamic playing out here where there seems to be a clear divide between national writers, who are mostly pillorying the move, and local writers, who are sort of sheepishly defending it. there are probably some access factors at play but otherwise I find it pretty baffling

yeah isn’t that usually the dynamic, riskier for local writers to just kill the team

local writers are hayseed rubes is how i break it down to an extent

The Nuggets and Jamal Murray have not yet agreed to a contract extension. Negotiations are still ongoing, and there’s a possibility that this becomes a bigger story than anticipated after Shams declared an expected deal on draft night.

— Ryan Blackburn (@NBABlackburn) July 8, 2024

this might get interesting. I guess I had assumed the front office would just roll over, but I can totally understand the FO wanting to add some protections or offer less than the max, and I also can understand jamal’s perspective if he wants to bet on himself and thinks he can make an all-NBA team

tough one. this years playoffs dropped his stock a bit. prob one of those guys thats worth 35-40m per year but may fracture the relationship if you dont offer the full max or whatever

seen windy waggling his eyebrows over this situation a few times

one thing I hadn’t thought of, which the DNVR guys pointed out on their podcast today, is jamal is on the team canada roster. would sort of be malpractice to sign a guy who gets injured a lot right before he plays a huge tournament

True. But messing around backfires sometimes, all these guys are different how they handle being ‘slighted’

they tend not to handle it well

paul george broke down what happened with leaving the clips on his pod and it seemed like more or less he got sick of them negotiating with him, tbf according to his telling they were being kind of ridiculous about it, they did eventually come around to what he wanted which was what kawhi got but by then he had decided he wanted a no trade too and the rest is history

I mean the no trade request was pretty nuts. I’d ask for one too, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen

he just wanted them to show him the love, if they had given him the kawhi contract in the first place it wouldnt have come to that, maybe they didnt really want to sign him tho

Hahahaha Jokić doing Jokić things for Serbia pic.twitter.com/f98EvPjHwt

— Katy Winge (@katywinge) July 12, 2024

he looks even more svelte than normal

Dude Daron tore his Achilles first summer league game :( :(

cool guess I’ll just die

Aura +1000000 pic.twitter.com/9BDYcOI95y

— THE JOKER(S) 🃏🇷🇸🏆 (@SerbsInSports) August 10, 2024

the serbian basketball team getting hammered before accepting their medal has been the best thing to happen to me all month so I made a lil edit to celebrate pic.twitter.com/q02Gvux0TR

— furiosarah (@slothanova) August 13, 2024

my king

lmao

Crazy visual pic.twitter.com/Ii7bl1x0nz

— Mick (@andy__mick) August 14, 2024