There's Always Next Year

 The Blucifer Brothers are back. We're giving out all star break report cards to the Nuggets on a three game slide. We're recapping Ryan winning an absolute crap ton of money on the Super Bowl and me losing an absolute crap ton of money on the Super Bowl because the world It's all about balance. Dan, play that funky music. 

All right. We are back here on a beautiful, beautiful Thursday night in the mile high city. I am Kyle Poland joined as always by my brother, Ryan Poland. We are produced by super producer, Dan, the man and Ryan, let's just get into it. Uh, we had a. A betting, uh,  for the NFL playoffs. And we did 58 bets for the Superbowl and you absolutely smoked too many. 

That's first of all, well, but I just mean in real life also, you absolutely smoked me. Um, so what, what were your, what were your real profitable things? What was kind of your Superbowl breakdown? Cause you also crushed in the live betting market, uh, in, in some pretty positive ways. Uh, as well. So, you did give out Chase Young fastest sack.

I think that deserves a quote, uh, as well. Cause, um, that's ridiculous and beautiful all at the same time that that happened. Um,  so Yeah, I mean,  if I had to pick a favorite of my wins Which is hard to do. Um, it's like picking a favorite child. Um,  but if I had to pick a favorite, I think I would pick, uh, Mahomes First Rush Direction Middle.

Because I did double down on that one in the podcast, which Dan clicked, clipped for social media. So if you were following us on, uh, the social medias, which Dan's, uh,  Dan and, you know, other people affiliated with Dan do a wonderful job of maintaining. Um, I  think that's my favorite just because it was it's ridiculous.

I mean it was what plus 400. Yeah  But you're right the chase young fastest sack at plus 1200 which Dan and I both bet in real life You were using an app that it wasn't offered on so, you know That's no fault of your own, but, uh, it was a very fun win and he got it early and we looked at each other and we're kind of like, Oh, that was pretty quick.

And then I started thinking about it again in the third quarter and was like, I don't think there's been a sax. It's that it was one of those things where you're like, the only thing that could screw me is a linebacker blitzing up the middle and just being unblocked. Like, you know, like, cause young,  they were technically, they technically put their hands on him.

But barely. Yeah, he wasn't unblocked. Yeah, but, but. He was lightly blocked. It was sort of, it was sort of one of those linemen that like is falling down and swipes at you as he's going to the ground. Like it was not a real block. Wasn't his best one. So, yeah. Yeah. Um, at what point uh, did you know that the Chiefs were gonna win that game? 

Cause you were, you were, you and I were talking about it at halftime, and we were like, man, it feels like the 49ers should be winning by 20 right now. And the fact that they are not is  a bad, bad side. And then Patrick, you got a terrible pick right out the gates. And I was like, okay, maybe this, but then they didn't get any points off of that.

And I was like, okay, that was the moment for me that I was like, all my 49ers bets are screwed. I was like, this is awful. I was like, they're going to poop their pants. I can just feel it. When you get no points off of a pick after you should have already been up 20. The football guys just don't give with too many hands, but when did you, when were you like, Hey, cause you made some money live betting the chiefs as well.

Yeah, yeah, I did. I did take him and I took him honestly, I think probably, I don't know exactly what their peak would have been in terms of their live odds, but I think, um, I took him plus 1 58 or something like that.  And so  I'll be honest, having held that ticket, I was very worried in overtime. Like I think, you know, I, we watched it together.

I came back upstairs, you know, I was, I was, the game got really good. And so I wanted to really experience it with the, the crew and, uh, And, uh, but I experienced that third quarter sort of like everybody was downstairs and then migrated up and I just stayed there because it was like, you know, you could really watch the game when you're sitting down there by yourself.

And I was like, Brian is without child. And there were a lot of children at this Super Bowl, which, uh, is nice for us as parents. I think Dan and I appreciate that because they can play with each other. And so Dan and I's viewing experience from our perspective, that was probably the most I've gotten to pay attention to a football game in which Bodie has been conscious the whole season.

But I do see from your perspective as a childless football watcher, that it was a bit chaotic at times. With some of the, uh, you know, games that are being played, just general volume of two year olds is pretty high.  And the Superbowl is always a little chaotic, you know, you're most likely watching it with some people like for us live bettors, like it is sort of taking me out of my  to really be like, yeah, involved in talking to other people while I'm gambling, I've watched a lot of these.

Games with people but they sort of know the deal We're gonna be pretty quiet for the next eight hours because ryan's gonna try to make some money  Uh, so it's uh, it certainly was a different. It was a great experience I mean, I love I love being around my my nephew bode and uh  You know, most of his friends are pretty chill.

Um,  but, uh, yeah, I mean, Dan's got a very cute baby. So A plus baby, uh, Odie was liking that baby. I was surprised. Bodhi was liking that baby, huh? Bodhi had some baby time.  Um,  yeah.  You were still nervous in overtime.  Absolutely. I was not confident.  Once like, once they only got the field goal. Yeah. Like, honestly, I'm not here to kill Kyle Shanahan for taking the ball.

No. But if you're gonna take the ball, you go for it on fourth down.  You just put your foot on their neck and be like like honestly if you're gonna take the ball I would go try to score a touchdown and go for two and be like you have to do both Like you don't get to just you don't just get to kick a field goal and we play again Like this is not you know You you do that because you're confident and he did not act like a confident coach which is why people are giving him so much shit, but I I was pretty  Uh, and honestly, mostly because the Chiefs never looked that good.

Like, obviously the drive in, in OT was pretty ridiculous. Uh, and Mahomes had his moments where you just are like, that guy is unbelievable. But when you think about who he's throwing the ball to, it's still like, this is what we talked about the whole season. And Adam, friend of the pod texted me early in the year, and he's a Chiefs fan and was like.

Don't sleep on the Chiefs and I told them I'm like I'm not sleeping on the chiefs I'm sleeping on the Chiefs supporting cast and I still think that that's true They just stepped up when they needed to they made big plays and patrick mahomes is unbelievable and the defense was good enough So, you know what we said in the lead up of the super bowl is true And I don't think your 49ers pick was wrong necessarily Like I didn't bet a single dollar on the actual outcome of the game before the game kicked off. 

I uh  I think my biggest takeaway is Tom Brady is right. This is the worst era of football ever. All these Chiefs championships should have an asterisk next to them. It's not like back when Peyton and the boys or even back in the day when Papa Ed, Terrell and John were slinging that thing around. When football was football and they could, you know, be fully padded up all the way in June and they were doing two a days and there was just.

Uh, you know,  A high level of, uh, of football IQ. Now, I mean, this watered down product, um, I guess it's good for Jackson and his TikTok that, that this, it had broke this way, but I mean, if you don't put these as, uh, two of the largest asterisk titles, uh, that have ever been one, I don't know what to tell you.

You know, that's what I was cousin Sal  Billson in podcast after the Superbowl was talking about how, like, you have to give it to Patrick Mahomes because he has just dealt with the most distractions. You could basically possibly imagine like his dad gets DWI  before like a week before the Superbowl just shakes it off.

Jackson Mahomes just being a jackass on TikTok 24 7, shakes it off, doesn't bother him. His wife getting roasted on the internet for being stupid, like, eh, it's fine, whatever. It doesn't bother him. Like, the guy is just the ice king, man. Everything just slides off that guy. He is unbelievable.  And  I was watching something on social media today.

I've just been getting in these Instagram rabbit holes. But it was a video of him. About the Super Bowl. I'm furious. It wasn't a single podcast. I was so mad. It wasn't about the Superbowl. Okay. It was when it was Baker and, um, Mahomes when they faced off at Texas Tecton, um, I think it must've been Oklahoma  and it was like 72 to 68  and Baker was like, I had, I scored.

Um, I scored a touchdown on every single second half drive and barely won the game and Mahomes had like 700 yards passing and there's this video on the Highlight package or whatever when he makes one of those just like rolling the wrong way cross body cross field throws And you're just, you have to be in awe.

Like, I don't know, the whole GOAT conversation is so stupid in sports these days that it's almost not worth getting into. But he is the best quarterback I've ever seen play football. Like, I've, I don't think that that's a debate at this time. Like he's probably not the best quarterback I've ever seen, but he is doing things on the field consistently that nobody else could do.

And that's like, you know, whether his throwing mechanics and his velocity is as good as Peyton Manning, like, I don't care, honestly, like he's better at quarterback than Peyton Manning is. Like, I just think that that's true. So I, I, uh,  I must've been watching the Broncos when you were not, when Jake, the snake was around.

Cause that's the finest quarterback I've ever seen, Ryan. Alright. Uh, and Patrick has nothing on him. Uh, Patrick would, wouldn't even be on my Mt. Rushmore or Broncos QBs. I've got Jay Cutler, John Elway, Peyton Manning, and Jake the Snake. Baby. Alright? There's not enough rock. Yeah. To cut Jay Cutler's face.

Well, and that would also be a problem. You know, we don't have enough room for, for Peyton's forehead and  Jay's cheek. There's no reason, there's no, no room for Patrick. That was, yeah, Patrick said before we just, on a serious note to kind of wrap this up. Patrick is just stupid good. And as a Broncos fan, I hate, and it's this, this time of, of year in the Broncos, you know, media podcast time where you go.

And every team in the NFL who was not in the Super Bowl, all of their local podcasts and local radio do this and they go, what can you learn from what the 49ers and Chiefs have done here that they could help the Broncos? I'm like, well, you could have the greatest offensive coach of all time and hit on every draft pick.

Uh, or you could have just the, uh, transcendent quarterback. Um, so those are good strategies. Uh, the problem is pretty much everyone's trying to do that, dude. Like it's like when people have conversations around the trade deadline in the NBA and they're like, you know, this team really needs like a 6 7 can defend multiple positions and just knock down open threes I'm like, yeah, every contender needs that dude every percent three year D got really changed the dynamic of this Yeah, that's why no one trades them That's why the Bulls were asking for like 12 first-round picks for Alex Caruso.

Like, because they're like, ah, yeah, everyone wants him. Like, overpassed. And in the end, no one did. Thank God. No, the most impressive thing to me, and I guess we really can wrap it up on this, is like,  The chiefs,  I don't know that they deserve credit for the team building that they've done because it has been like, it feels like Patrick Collins is winning with the bare minimum,  but getting to the bare minimum does deserve some credit, right?

Like you do, there is like a basic threshold that you have to meet of competitiveness to just. Be this good for this long and they're not wasting Patrick Mahomes Which is like the only thing that you can ask of a franchise to be like, okay When you get blessed with one of these guys, like don't screw it up like you did notice  Where it was like, this was the first year that Patrick Mahomes money was Patrick Mahomes money, and it's only gonna go up from here.

But it was like, oh yeah, you're not on like a BS rookie contract. Like, we don't, we can't just have a cheat code. And the Bengals are about to experience that. The Jags are about to experience that. Like, the Chargers are Going to experience that. Like all these teams where it's like, yeah, you had unbelievable talent because you had a top-five quarterback on a rookie contract, like, yeah, it's easy to improve your draft.

Whereas like the draft that much more. Yeah, you have to hit like you can't make picks you can't miss picks you Yeah, so they deserve some credit there. Yeah, so Um also use check over four and a half receiving yards, man  Just early got that one out of the way First, yeah, first drive and catch in 30 yards.

First draft.  Uh, um, all right. Both teams lost a fumble. Like we gave out some winners and you're saying you lost money and you did, but you still had some winners in there.  You know, if you're not first, you're last, right? No, I was last.  Speaking of a team that is not first, uh, but they're also not last. Uh, the Denver Nuggets.

They have limped into the all-star break, Ryan. Uh, they have looked about as disengaged. Uh, it looks like, uh, when they had the one seed wrapped up, and then Jokic got mad about the Kendrick Perkins thing, so he just didn't want to win MVP anymore. So he stopped trying and then the rest of the team was like, well, if he's not going to try, like we're going to be the one seat, no matter what, none of us should try.

Uh, and we're going to lose if he doesn't try. Yeah. Uh, the Kings game last night was. Uh, a real depressing game to attend. Uh, I didn't enjoy much of it at all. Um, it, you could feel it in the second half that you were like, Oh, we're going to lose like a hundred percent. We're going to lose here. Um, so it's easy to get.

Overly negative, um, I think, with a three-game losing streak. So, I wanted to throw some players at you, and I wanted you to give me your honest grade. And I'm not gonna throw the whole roster at you, because what do we care what you, like, Jay Huff.  Um, the only one I'll say, uh, uh,  uh, is I would have given him higher marks.

Cause he's always funny on the, uh, no, he's an a, he's an a, I got nothing against Jay Huff, come on, um, Colin Gillespie hit one three last night. And so I'm giving him an a, um, for the season. He scored, he scored an NBA game multiple times, and that's more than I thought. So, uh, but, uh, okay, let's start with a hard one.

He has, he was injured to end the all-star break. He was injured during it. He's had some unbelievable highs. We are of course, talking about Jamal Murray. What would be your breakdown of a year that a lot of us thought was going to be the year of Jamal because it is a contract year and making an all-NBA team would be insanely profitable for him.

Um, and he just seemed set up to do it. He's had some hamstring stuff,  but he's had some clunkers as well as some unbelievable games.  What, what would your grade be? For him, uh, this first half.  Yeah, he is really hard. Uh, you didn't, you didn't toss me the softball here. I think,  um,  so, it's grading on a curve a little bit, right?

Because I think part of what you have to grade is the two-man action with Jokic. And that is so much more unstoppable than any other action that we run with Jokic that he deserves some credit for that because he's so unbelievable that that clearly is affecting why Jokic is so good in that action, too.

They're both good individually, but they're together. He gets Jokic some free points in that, too. It's not just a one-way street. So, yeah, and I'm gonna give him a B I think. I'm not like, I'm not overly enthusiastic, but I think he recognized how long of a season that was, and I think he came out,  and I think he wanted really bad to be playing at a extremely high level.

He really was like, almost forcing things, and um, He wasn't necessarily in like great shape to begin, like all these guys are working their way into shape through the season, you have to be, otherwise, you're not going to be able to make it through the season, so I'm not saying that he didn't try hard in the summer, like don't say that, I'm just saying he wasn't like, I don't think he was physically in a place where he could be forcing it and it go well.

You know, like sometimes you're in a place where you can just do whatever you want physically and sometimes you're in a place where you have to be like, yeah, I actually can't do that right now. I'm actually going to hurt myself if I do that as opposed to help myself. So I think there was some of that, and then he had the injury, which really sort of, I feel like derailed a lot.

Um.  Because he's a builder, right? Like, he builds through the season and I think that's really where, um, we've seen him build through playoff series. We've seen him build through games. Like, often his first half is kind of trash and he builds through those. So, like, I think his whole career arc has sort of been in that swing and I think that derailed that a little bit. 

I do expect this to be a big second half from Jamal. I sort of think, uh, he needed the all star break, maybe more than a lot of these guys. He's sort of banged up. Yeah, I think he was tired. Like, I think they're all tired, which you know, you sort of laid out in that open, but  yeah, I, I'm going to go B plus.

Um, He's had great nights. Uh, he sort of made a push a little bit, especially towards the all star voting to maybe, uh, collect some votes there and sneak his way on.  But he just wasn't consistent enough early in the year to make that happen. So,  I don't know. What, what, that's my, that's, that's my thought. B  Yeah, I think that's, I think that's a little high for me.

Um, I, I think I'm going to give him a C  Um, Oh boy. I think that doesn't  It's hard to grade him. Like you said, he's a tree player, because  if you just look at, Hey, this is a max contract guy for us. And he's not an all star,  um, and wasn't particularly close.  And has like these inconsistent games and isn't an every night showing up. 

I think regular season Jamal is always just going to get a lower grade. My grade is not reflective on if the nuggets are in a must win regular season game to get the one seed or the two seed. Jamal Murray will go the F off. I promise you Jamal Murray will go the F off and I promise you he'll make the right decisions and he'll get guys involved and he will be unbelievable in the playoffs.

I promise you Jamal Murray. If healthy will be unbelievable,  but based on what I have to grade him on right now,  I don't know that I've seen tons of growth from what we know Jamal Murray to be. I was originally going to go see, and then talking about the two man game with you. Uh, that swayed me. And I do think he's had some really good playmaking games.

Where maybe that part, that shows a little growth to me, but otherwise I'm like, listen,  when this guy gets loose, or he's really engaged in a game, he's going to mess a team up. He just, for whatever reason, doesn't have the ability to do that. Every night in an 82 game season, which like you said,  if I had a trade off and you told me Jamal Murray can be an unbelievable regular season, but he's going to James Harden and beat it in the playoffs and run out of gas, I would choose this version of Jamal. 

I would clearly choose this version of Jamal, but if I'm grading on what I've seen so far,  if I was doing the parent teacher conference, I'd be like. Don't be worried about your kid. He's going to ace the final exam and he's going to end up with an a minus in our class. But right now he's kind of turning in work late.

He's day he's messing around. Yeah. And, uh, therefore he has a C currently, but he's not going to be a C student. He understands all the material. Don't worry when he wants to try, he turns it on and we'll be just fine. So, um, yeah, I would give him a C.  My next guy I wanted to see plus yes C plus and a B plus for you.

Um, my next guy plus really matters. Yeah, a lot of those and it does feel better. I agree. Um.  My next guy, um, I figure let's just get him out of the way. Um, Nikola Jokic. Um, where would you, uh, put his, let's just get the top two out of the way. And then I think there's some interesting, more interesting ones here.

But where do you put Jokic?  Um,  I don't know. I mean, A A uh, 100, he is like, he's that fucker, uh, that's valedictorian in your class that somehow has like a 4. 8 GPA. Like how did that happen? Were you, were you going to college this whole time? Like, I don't know, I mean he's had some stinkers of games, including last night, but I don't think you can ask anything more of him. 

He's doing exactly what you would want him to do. I think he's being more vocal. He's being more assertive and what he thinks, what he knows should happen. Like, I,  I think that  everybody has sort of eased their way into the season, him included, but he did not, it was not an out of shape Jokic, it was just like.

Sort of passive games and weird stuff where he was taking eight shots and like that has to count against him at some point But there's no way in hell i'm giving yokich anything other than an a so yeah, i've given a and it's weird because  Um, we're waiting on word of whether or not we'll get to vote for the MVP this season.

Um, from the NBA, we haven't heard anything from silver yet one way or another. Um, but, uh, nothing definitive, nothing that we can really say out right. Um, but if I had been in that ESPN straw poll, I devoted for Shay.  Um, I, I, at this mid season point, I'd vote for Shay. Um, and I don't think Jokic  has, I think his. 

He's had more games where it's kind of that yoke it from the pre MVP, where it's like that Sacramento game felt like a pre MVP game where for some reason he's just like, I'm not going to shoot that much. Like he, he was fine when he wanted to score on Sabonis, he did like he missed a few threes that were frustrating to him, but like. 

He was, he was totally fine. And, you know, you look at his stat line, it's not that bad, but like, he's had a few more games of that to where I wouldn't put him as the MVP and I wouldn't say this is the best regular season Nicola Jokic I've seen. Once again, you know, the caveat being just like Jamal, I don't need to see the best version of him.

And I think there's a reason where as guys progress and consistently  kind of compete for championships, they stop competing for MVP because they are literally like, I am tired. I am not going to give a crap in November. I am going to naturally ramp up and Yokochi even talked about it. In the season and his, the trainer talked about it like, Hey, our plan is to get him. 

In  the best condition and feeling the best he can in may not in the beginning of the season That's not what you can't peak for six months. Like that's just not how the human body works So like yeah, it's just it's natural for them to have some Peak or valleys in the I the last thing I will say on yoke I think and I think this actually goes to yoke and jamal in terms of Like the potential evolutions of their game and I think it applies maybe more to Jamal But I didn't say it then but the  I was listening to Jalen Williams or yeah Jalen Williams talked about Shay on the Thunder and you bringing up Shay for MVP.

I actually kind of agree with you I don't think yoke is I he's in the conversation and I think he probably will win But right now I agree with you. I would have a hard time voting for him over Shay  The, but what Jalen Williams was saying about Shea is that the biggest growth that he's noticed in his game this year is he sees like that second pass, which I think is more of what Jamal Jokic has always done an unbelievable job of seeing, like, where the ball should go after he throws the pass the first pass.

But Jamal is starting to see that too. And I think that's the playmaking stuff that doesn't show up on the stats sheet that you're sort of talking about with Jamal where like it that stuff is important, but it's Harder to see like you have to be watching the game and understanding what's going on In order to see that sort of stuff.

So I don't know. Uh, yeah, they uh, the two of them it's  Like the Lakers game wasn't that long ago, right? Yeah. So  like, and they absolutely fucked them up. So it's like, sometimes it's, you know, the, the NBA season is. Sort of weird in that it's really easy to overreact to whatever's happened in the last week.

Uh, but  You're right that he hasn't been playing as well as he  hasn't  Two years ago, but he's still in a yeah. Oh, I mean, he's still thrown unbelievable passes we've had, you know, unbelievable game winners, you know that all the things um  Okay. Uh, I want to get into, I maybe only want to do five guys. Um, we could do the whole eight man rotation, but, um, I, some of them, I just don't think are, are wildly interesting.

Um, so, uh, my last guy from the starting lineup, um, is going to be Aaron Gordon. Um, where do you put Aaron? He kind of came on, um, at the, at the last part he's been.  Really pretty aggressive. Um, it feels like he's stepped up his intensity, um, a little bit and he's  Obviously our most important defender. KCP is our best defender, but Aaron Gordon is our most important defender, if that makes sense. 

Um, so what, what say you, the defense, I think the defense is where grading him gets hard  because it's so hard. Like, I, we go to a lot of games and we watch all the games, but it's hard for me to even like, really understand what's going on on the defensive. Like, I know he's so good at defense, but it's hard for me to grade his defense in a real way other than just on what I see.

Um, so,  but I really value that. So my grade for him is probably going to be wildly inflated. The offensive end, he's been, I mean, he just donks all the time, right? Like he,  he gets found for those whatever, six to eight free points at the rim a night. He hit that. Step in fucking three last night that almost like sort of gave us some false hope late in that Sacramento game That  you know the threes the free throws have started to look a little bit better recently The threes have started to look a little better recently like  The offensive stuff has always been a little bit off and on with him.

And it's hard, like, his role is hard. Because if Jokic and Jamal are cooking, and if Mike is hitting threes, like, he's not touching the ball a lot. So, his offensive rhythm is always  hard to judge, too.  So, I think, all of that being said,  I'm gonna give him a B I, like, the offensive stuff, I just need him to like,  Sometimes, especially late in the year, last year, and definitely in the playoffs, and he would get a little guy on him, and he would just  Grab the ball and put his ass under the basket and then donk on him.

Like he started to do more of that recently, but that's the stuff that I miss and I think he's, you know, would bring this to a full, uh, a, uh, grade here.  Yeah, I'm going to give him a C. Um, I think I agree with you that he's come on the free throws started looking better. His three point shot has looked a little bit better. 

And I don't know if it's his doing or if it's Jokic encouraging it or whatever.  I've seen too much Aaron Gordon isolation.  Number one, our offense is good because we're not an isolation team. Um, and number two, if we are going to play isolation,  uh, there are better options than Aaron Gordon. And to your point, the thing that I think has  missed is sometimes he will get a smaller guy on him and he'll go, I'm going to attack right away.

It's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how you do it. You throw it to Jokic, and you go post up under there, and he will throw you a perfect pass, and we don't, there's no double team that could come, there's no, you know, whatever, like, there's too much time where there's possessions where I go, man, Aaron Gordon has had this ball for a while, and it ends in a like fadeaway 10 footer.

And I'm like, Oh, this is Orlando magic, Aaron Gordon, that people were like, I don't know if this offense is good enough to be a number one. And  I fully expect that stuff to get cleaned up. And it's not like, you know, when Jamal and Jokic go to their two man game, it's not like Aaron is like clapping for the ball or doing anything.

Like he knows when it's that time, but there's just, I think there's been some second quarter, third quarter runs.  Where they've given up runs because it's just been  a lot of Aaron and maybe, like I said, it's by design and maybe Jokic is requesting that and he wants a little bit less. I  mean,  it is a waste of an offensive possession.

Anytime Jokic does not touch the ball,  free throw line or pull up  that's in the half court. That's a waste. They have to double, they have to show you something, and Jokic is always going to make the right decision, and so you're going to get an open shot.  Now, you can decide whether or not those are being knocked down, or you know, you want to try to go a different way, but you're always getting a good shot.

And so,  that's where I think Aaron's had some games where he's called himself out for, you know, intensity level, that kind of stuff, early, and then now his intensity has come up.  I just feel like sometimes he's been, uh, doing things a little bit outside of himself. And like I said, I don't think that's a selfish thing or something that is a sign of a locker room problem or anything of the sort.

It's just what I've seen so far. 

Yeah, I don't think I don't think you're wrong there. And I think where we're sort of talking about the same thing is when you're talking about isolations.  I like that. But in the context that you're describing,  it's not necessarily catching the ball 2 feet from the rim.  Or he might not be though But like it has to be a specific type of mismatch like you can't let a guard get underneath Aaron Gordon like he's not he doesn't have a tight enough handle to do to like take those five dribbles and then cross over and take a crab drill like it's gonna If if they bring anything or they see anything like that turns into a turnover too many times So I agree with what you're saying I think you just have to find the right type of mismatch and give him the ball in the Best possible position.

And I think, uh,  yeah, I think we're on the same page. I'm just being more generous with my grades.  And that makes sense, right? Like he's a little bit below Murray for you and he's a little bit below Murray for me. It's just, you had Murray up higher and I had, so, um, all right. Uh, now I want to get to the bench.

Um,  I want to start with  think will be a positive.  Peyton Watson,  um, what's kind of your grade? He came out like gangbusters. Then we had the like, uh, is Peyton Watson getting pissed Malone off so much that he's not going to play this season?  And then we have Peyton Watson. This second half has been.  Our best bench player, in my opinion. 

Um, so where do you kind of land on, on the Peyton Watson train?  Yeah, I, this one is hard for me because Nuggets fans were just creaming themselves over him. So part of me is grading against those people. Uh, like I do, those people are probably giving him like a whatever. Either an A or they're pissed and they're giving him like a D.

They're giving him an O, right? They got it. A standing O is what they're giving.  I, uh, yeah, I don't know. I think  he's been average to me. So what is that? C minus. C is average. Yeah, B. I think I'll give him like a B minus. I don't, his, him on offense pisses me off probably more than anybody else on the nuggets.

Uh, he tried to absolutely hammer a dunk on somebody last night that was the dumbest shit I've ever seen. Like, he just makes these plays that I'm like, this isn't AAU, dude. Like, you won a fucking NBA championship last year. Like, will you make a basketball play? Like, you don't have to be trying to get on whatever Instagram.

Like, just make a play. You're super athletic. He's young as hell, right? It's just young mistakes that are making me mad. But honestly, it's been so long since Mike Malone, Michael Malone has allowed anybody to make him rookie mistake that it's just pissing me off more than it probably should. Uh, so I'm going to give him a B minus because of that,  um.

He's, he's going to be my, uh, my highest graded nugget besides Yogic. Um, he, uh, by the way, if we would've gone through KCP, I'd have given KCP an A minus, so he would be below KCP.  Um, but, uh, I'm giving him a B So he's first team, first team, all defense.  Uh, but I think. Offensively,  um,  like I already trust Peyton Watson more than I trust Christian Brown in the half court.

Um, I think he has like a one dribble pull up that I feel pretty confident in. He's been really consistent from the corner. And granted, he's got some benefit of getting some yokeage minutes. Um, early, so, you know, you're getting wide open looks from the corner, but  that's still not a, we've seen a lot of role players to Michael Green, uh, not knock those down on any consistent level, um, when given wide open corner threes, so I trust him there, and  I feel like he's taking the challenge of guarding the deer and foxes, guarding all those guys, and I think that those reps, you are  immeasurably good for him because we're probably not unless there's foul trouble. 

Playoff rotations are going to be tighter that we're not going to be asking him to guard De'Aaron Fox.  But it means that Kevin Herter is going to be in hell because we might ask him to guard him. And that guy is going to be in absolute hell because he's used to dealing with D'Aaron Fox, Luka Doncic, like he's gotten some really big time things.

And obviously his wingspan is stupid. Um, so to me, he just has done all of the things to show you. This is a guy who's going to play in the playoffs and can have a similar to what Christian Brown did last year, where it's not every game we need him to show up, but you need him to, you need to go once in a while where you walk out of the stadium and you go, Hey, I know Yoko and Murray both had 30, but that was the Peyton Watson game.

Because he just hit some threes. He lost his mind. He was blocking shots. He was yelling. He was getting  the bench gets fired up when Peyton makes big blocks, makes big defensive plays. You can tell it's like Christian last year. They really like him. They like the effort. They like that. He does the little things and that he listens to them and, you know, respects the veterans.

So to me, I. I see where your grade is coming from, especially like it can be easy recency bias wise to forget  some of those games that happened in the first half of the season where he was, he was catching DNPs like there, there were times where he was not, he was not turning any homework to  get a grade.

So I think I, I do think that the thing that  we maybe.  Differ on some here is like you're talking about trusting him to do something on offense I trust christian brown to just pass the ball  like that guy is so scared of anything on the offensive end that he's just like oh i'm just out here to Let's just transition.

What's your, what's your grade for Christian? Let's just go get into it because he's my, he's my, he's our last one and I'm going to give him a D  and it's, that's probably generous. Like I, I think,  listen, it, sophomore slims are real. Uh, this used to happen in the NBA all the time. Like, the rookies would play well, they'd go into a slump at the 30 game mark, and then they'd come back out of it and have a big second half, and then they would play like shit their second year.

Like, that is a real thing that used to happen all the time. Um, so I'm hoping that this is, that's what this is. And that he's just, he was injured early in the year, he had that calf thing, calves don't really go away. So like if he's still dealing with the lingering injury thing, that would make his passivism on the offensive end a little bit more respectable and the defensive stuff like he's still trying, he's just sort of out of the positions that he was normally so good at finding himself in last year.

So it's. It's been frustrating to watch on all fronts. Cause he is just, I mean, they, they're daring him to shoot anything on the offensive end and he's can't do it. Like he hasn't been pulling the trigger and he hit a couple in a couple of these games down the stretch, but it was few and far between. So,  yeah, I, I'm going to give Christian an F,  uh, it doesn't, it doesn't bring me joy to fail, uh, one of my, one of my favorite students from last year.

But, uh, do you think you need to start calling him brawn again? He was maybe, you know what you might be onto something.  Hey, Christian, you can earn brown back. All right. You're brawn to me again. All right. And I'll accept no feedback on the podcast about it. There'll be no apologies. It's going to be brawn.

Uh, but so  last night, Ryan, I don't know if you, if it showed up on TV,  but he went to the free throw line.  And  it wasn't his routine from last year. Like you could tell he was scared to shoot a free throw at home  and he missed both of them.  And I was like, Oh my gosh, he's broken.  And then in the second half, he was just out of position. 

All the time on rotations and was giving up unbelievable. Like last year, he was just always in position. And even if it was a bigger guy that he got switched on to, he would stand up. He would do a good job of not fouling and he'd make them shoot over it. And those things appear to be gone on the defensive end.

We talked about the open floor stuff. And for some of the reasons for that with DJ and. Um, Reggie Jackson, but like  he's shown no evolution in his game and that's why I think I highlighted the Peyton Watson, Hey, one dribble. I'm pulling from 15 if it's like end of the shot clock, if it's the end of the shot clock, I want Christian Brown to throw it into this stance.

I'm like, at least it will take them some time to get the ball, to get it back and we can get set on defense. Cause I'm like, if he has the ball and has to do anything good offensively,  I have no faith in him in the half court. And I think that that's something where  it can be hard, and I'm going to call it  the Jordan Bell Syndrome.

I'm sure there are other examples. But remember Jordan Bell? Everyone was like, what a steal of the draft for cash considerations. Jordan Bell, what an athlete. That guy was so key for the Warriors winning. He was out of the league like four years later. And it's cause he saw that early success. So he's like, I don't need to evolve my game at all.

I can jump. I can run. I'm good. And with Christian, it's like he hasn't, he has no other move. Everyone knows he's either taking a set three pointer or he is going all the way to the room.  There's absolutely no other option for him. People are stepping in and taking charges on him way more this year because they've seen him.

They know what he's gonna do where he could get away with dunks last year. He's not getting those. And mentally, he looks a little bit broken. Like I said, when I saw the free throws, I was like, Oh boy, this is bad. Like  he's a good free throw shooter. Like, and there's no reason to be looking different than your routine.

And that's just a sign of someone who's lost and is searching for and trying to change everything up. And that's a good thing. Like he cares so much that he's trying to. But, sometimes you can just get lost in that, and you don't want to be frustrated. You went on the road in Miami, and you absolutely messed Jimmy Butler up. 

Like,  I would like you to remember who you are, and, like, I feel like I just need to Rafiki him. Hit him on the head, remember who you are, and he can come back to Pride Rock and and get things going for the Nuggets, because it brings me no joy to give my boy an F, but he has been  immeasurably bad.  Yeah, I think with Christian, the hard part to me is that you don't even necessarily need him to take a step.

You just needed him to do exactly what he was doing last year.  Like,  he, he played amazing in some of those playoff games.  But we didn't even need him to do that.  Like it was perks. It was bonus. Like, I think the frustrating part is that it feels like he's taking a step back, which is like, what are we going to do?

You know, it's, and it feels like controllable, like mental mistakes.  That it's like, it's one thing if you're just broke from grief for a while. Some of it I think might be physical. Like, I think some of the explosiveness to get to the ring. That's true. If his calf is messed up, like, I do think some of that.

And then it becomes a mental game of like, can I do that? I haven't done it in a while. And then it's like. I only get so much tick like am I really gonna try right now? Am I gonna go into the lane on this guy? Like I think he's thinking too much right now Which it's hard as a role player in the nba Like people talk about it now that we get so much content from these old nba heads that most of them were honestly role players So like they talk about it all the time about how hard it is to come in off the bench cold and like have a good game and I think  You know, it's I'm  I'm not giving up on Christian.

No, I don't think he I I think he has a lot of um  the right sort of things for us to be A really good team. So i'm not like he fills a lot of the gaps that we need we need guards who can guard um, and he hypothetically does that so um  Yeah, it's it's gonna be an interesting one though, because if he doesn't step up he Suddenly becomes a very tradable asset to somebody who might want to give him some more minutes and let him sort of evolve Into whatever he could potentially become.

Yeah, unfortunately, uh, as long as he's on a rookie deal, we're never trading him Um, I, once he gets, once he's up for a second one, then maybe, uh, well, if you're packaging him and somebody else, you can probably, uh, get off the salary and, uh, but, um,  All right. We've given out some player grades here.  Now, Ryan, I want to wrap this up.

Final question.  End of the season, the Nuggets will be what seed in the West, if you were a betting man?  What, what seed do you think the Nuggets will end up? I am going to mark them as a betting man. I'm going to mark them yeah.  You would never. Um, I'm going to mark them down as a three seed. Um, I think the Timberwolves and the OKC Thunder are too young and like kind of motivated by the regular season.

I think they'll get past the Clippers. You already see Kawhi has now abductor stuff. It's a matter of time with older teams. Um, and I just don't think that the Clippers, like the Clippers aren't scared of being in the four and they would much rather do whatever they can to avoid us for as long as possible.

Um, and if the, you know, if the Thunder are a two,  then I, I think there's something to be said for the Clippers team to go play the Timberwolves.  And be like, yeah, we're going to put Rudy in pick and roll with all of our perimeter scores. Um, I know everyone's real excited about his regular season, but we've seen this in the playoffs before.

Uh, we know exactly what we're going to do here.  Um,  so there might be some jockeying, but if I had to say, I would say three, I don't think they're going to get past the, the, the Timberwolves or the.  Thunder, 

uh, 

hmm.  This is really putting me into the test here because I don't trust the wolves I'll just walk you through and I'm thinking here. Yeah, I don't trust the wolves. I  I just think that they're like one weird Injury slash like Carl Anthony Towns stretch away from losing five straight and you just can't do that  The Thunder just so young So like they're relying on a lot of young guys that this season could start getting long, um, in these games when it gets nut crunch time.

Like Shea is unbelievable in the clutch, so  they're, you know, he, he will save them a little bit there. And I don't necessarily think that the wolves have that guy, which is another reason why I'm sort of fading them even harder than I'm fading the thunder.  So when I'm talking myself and I agree with you on the clippers, like I think we'll get past the clippers So when I'm thinking about it, it's a one or a two seed Like do I really believe that the Thunder could be the one seed  and I think the answer is no  Wow  I'm gonna and I did give out the division odds like two podcasts ago and I haven't looked at them yet But they're probably very tasty right now.

Yeah Yeah  Uh, because I just think that this team really cares about the 1 seed. I think they know how important that home court was for them last run. And I think  they're prob I'm hoping that this 1 2 3 Cancun into the all star break sort of pisses them off and they come out firing and are like, alright, like now we are the defending champions, like it's time to go prove it. 

And they go on a little bit of a run here, but  That is some homerism for you right there to end the podcast. Hey, I'd be thrilled by it. And I clearly see a world in which that, that occurs. Um,  the, the only tough thing with the Thunder is now they put themselves in a spot where they don't have a tiebreaker, uh, there.

Um, because we peed down our leg when we were up nine with two minutes left at home. Um, so  the, the, that, that worries me there, but I, uh, I would not be shocked if the Nuggets went on a, you know, at some point in the second half of the season went on another, you know, 12, 13 game win streak and we're kind of got rolling a little bit here.

Um, but  that is our podcast. Uh, we  thank you for listening. Please share, rate, subscribe. Thanks to Dan the Man for producing and we will talk to you next week. 

Blucifer Brothers is a Crab Shell Media podcast.