The long national nightmare has come to a close. Yes, Ja Morant has fallen victim to Adam Silver's decisive hammer of justice, the guillotine if you will. He is now ned Stark of the NBA. You are not going to believe the amount of games Ja Morant has been suspended four Just to remind anyone, if anyone needs to be reminded,
which I'm sure you don't. Jamorant has now been involved in three separate alleged incidents allegedly involving guns, including, as everyone already knows, the one incident where he filmed himself at the Strip Club with the gun in his hand. I'm tired of talking about this, but here we are. Adam Silver has weighed all the evidence and looked at league president and came up with an absolute nuke. Eight games, including the six he's already missed. So it's two games
punishment now for Jahn Morant. Wow, how could you be so bold? Adam last I checked John checked into a rehab center in Florida. He was planning on working on his addiction issues. Some reports were that we wouldn't see Jaw for the rest of the year. Miraculously, because Jahn Morant is like a Marvel character. He was cured of all addiction issues and found new coping methods and adopted new coping methods in six days. Congratulations, that is a miracle.
Then yesterday John Moran gave an exclusive interview to Jalen Rose, who I think I said, gave the only reasonable take go on the matter. Here is a clip asking Jahn Morant, what was up with the gun in the strip club?
You at the spot shotgun Willies. I've been there. You were holding a gun and we both know how dangerous that can be. Whose gun were you holding?
Well, the gun wasn't mind. No, it's not who I am. I don't condone and any type of violence.
J'all was just filming a rap video. That's all it was. He was just being an NBA young boy. Here's a clip of Jamran answering what it's like to have your inner circle question.
What's it been like for you to see people criticize you're in a circle. What have you learned about how you should move with your team going forward?
I feel like in the past we didn't know what was at state and now you know, finally me having that time to you know, realize everything, have that time alone, I realize that, now, realize you know what I have to lose. Now I can't wait to be back out there on the floor. Now you know, knowing what my punishment is, and you know I accept that, and I feel like I deserved you know that punishment for you know my mistakes and you know what I did.
The whole four minute interview did feel like a masterpiece of public relations. A lot of apologies, a lot of my faults, a lot of I take full responsibilities, a lot of I need to change, and the promise of the reformation. He had done some anxiety breathing in order to get himself right when he finds himself overwhelmed by life. So basically, John Marant went to Quebec like me. He
went to the monastery to learn some breathing techniques. He did some yoga, he ate breakfast in silence, and in six days he was a changed man, just like I was a changed woman in my six days in Quebec, when I felt grounded and peaceful and was meditating for about three weeks. And now I am not meditating, I am not peaceful, and I am in need of Quebec again. That's human nature for you. Adam Silver called Jaw's behavior irresponsible, reckless, potentially very dangerous, not enough to do.
Anything of note to send a message that playing with guns in a live stream in front of hundreds of thousands of people may not be great in a country where we've already had hundreds of mass shootings and it's only March.
Yeah, like eight games. Doesn't really feel like he finds it to be that dangerous. Jaw's gonna be back March twentieth against Luca and Kyrie potentially Dallas Mavericks National televised game. Do you think Adam Silver really cares? Do you think Adam Silver is concerned about Ja Moran's health and wellness or do you think he's concerned about us seeing Jah Moran on the basketball court as soon as possible, Because I kind of feel like it's the last part and
I like John Moran a lot. He's one of my favorite players to watch on Planet Earth. I've said that a bazillion times. I care deeply for this person's health and wellness. Accountability is a big part of that. I don't want to talk about this shit again. Thankfully, for us, we probably never will, right because John Moran is fully healed and we will never run into any more Ja
Moran issues from now until the end of time. Good for Jog, Good for Adam Silver that they have found a speedy solution to something that usually takes most people with these types of issues. Yeah, six seven months, huhz whatever, business as usual, just like Adam Silver likes it. Let's move on. So I saw something fascinating last night. Scroll in the timeline ran across the CBS Sports article and the title was Nuggets open door for King to make a genuine push for the number one seed in the
Western Conference. That sentence is not a sentence I am familiar with. Think about the Nuggets and the Kings battling for the number one seed twenty four months ago, thirty six. I mean, what in the actual fuck is going on with life as a King's I don't even think I'm a stand I don't know. I'm a supporter. I'm riding for them. We've been holding multiple tickets on their futures to win division, win the West. I would be ecstatic
if they grabbed the number one seed. I would make a lot of money if they would win the number one seed. But if you look at the standings. The Kings and the Griz are currently four and a half games behind the Nuggets with fifteen games to go. Seems insurmountable, right, Yeah, No, Nuggets are reeling. They have lost four in a row
despite being completely healthy. I mean, if you call what Jamal Murray is fully healthy, including losses to Chicago who LEDs to struggle bust and I think they lost by twenty Toronto, lost to Brooklyn, and lost to San Antonio, the worst team in the league that was supposed to be the cupcake part of the schedule. Here's where it
gets hard. Now they've got problems on the horizon. They face a sixteen win Pistons team tonight, having lost to a seventeen wins Spurs team last week, and then after this Pistons game, they face a stretch of seven of eight games against playoff teams, including the Bucks, Sixers, Suns, Warriors, and Nicks. Rot row. That's not old boy. If you can't beat the Spurs, you're not gonna face Yannis and
come out on the other side victorious. So say the Nuggets, for hypothetical sake, go three and five over those eight games, and say the Kings go six and two, for example, all of a sudden, there's only a game between them with two weeks left to go, two whole weeks. So I thought maybe we would do a little dissection, a little analysis on what's going on with Denver, because nobody is talking about this, and I think that they should. This is supposedly gonna be the best team in the West.
This is the team everyone has had said circled their calendars. This is the team. They are dominant. Jokic three time MVP. Everybody else is just a step below, right. No, everyone thought that they had a good trade deadline. I thought so myself. They added Reggie Jackson, added Thomas Bryant to he filled these holes in the lineup. But it turns out and then they did not address what was ailing
them in the first place. They lost Bones Highland and they bring back Reggie Jackson, which, let's be honest, was not an upgrade. That was a big time down grade. Reggie Jackson is not very good. Yeah, Bones Island had some issues in the locker room. But don't don't we all don't we all that thought they were getting a backup center that could help Jokic in non Jokic minutes, protect the rim and not get destroyed. They got neither one of those things that they thought they were getting.
Let's look at these players a little closer. Reggie Jackson is a disaster. He's an absolute dumpster fire right now on the Nuggets. He might be the reason that the Nuggets have had this swing in the standings. This is horrible. He's in negative fifty nine and twenty minutes a game. He's only played ten games. He's negative fifty nine. They're five and five in the games that he's played. That is a team that is in the playing hunt. Keep in mind, the four top plus minus players in the
entire NBA this year are his teammates. Not shockingly, he got a DMP coach's decision the other not chalking. He's horrible. I can't say enough about how bad he is. I don't know why they did that. I don't understand it. I really don't. According to Zach Lowe, Mike Michael Malone, I like to call Mike Michael Michael Malone is doing this bullshit with this three small guard lineup. And it's Reggie which he lost me there, Murray and Bruce Brown.
What are we doing. They are getting absolutely cooked with those three men on the floor. Obviously, obviously Bruce Brown is the only guy who can defend. Out of those three, Jamal Murray's probably the only one that you can consistently rely on to score. The rest who knows. Who knows. It's like one of those random tins of popcorn you get. Who knows? Is it gonna be Is it gonna be Carmel in there? Is it gonna be shit?
I don't know.
That's basically what that three guard lineup is. The bigger issue is than the Nuggets have a Jamal Murray problem. So we know he's missed two years. That started the year slow. That's pretty normal, right, He got cooking mid season and that was that no, and he's his old explosive self. Then he banged up his knee again. In the last four games, all losses. As you might remember, Uh, he shot thirty two percent from the field and averaged sixteen to three and six, which is very very much
down from his twenty point average across the season. But what's worse is that he's pretty much Reggie Jackson plus minus in those minutes, and in those games he's a negative fifty one in those games. God Lee, it is hard to watch too. Jamal Murray and Reggie Jackson are hard to watch. Jokich, course, is his usual terrific self. Thomas Bryant was supposed to relieve a little bit of the Yokic burden. It has not worked out at all.
I have no idea why I like Thomas Bryant. He's getting four and a half points per game on twelve minutes with a negative four plus minus per game. That's not what we were looking for, especially for a team that must go to the finals in order for everyone to think that they are success. Uh. Maybe getting Yaka Pertle would have helped you. I don't know. According him alone, he says, I ain't going nowhere. Uh, I'm gonna find guys that are ready to fight with me, because right
now we're just in chill mode. We've got to find a way to get our swagger back. We've gotten away from who we are. I don't know, man, Maybe bringing in Reggie Jackson wasn't a good idea. Maybe playing them all at the same time is not a good idea. I think this team could be dangerous. They need to figure out what they're doing with the guard position. They
also need to find another wing. Most likely, I could see them catching the Warriors in the first round and getting sent home in five Night Night Sleep Mask, See you later. They need to ditch that three small guard offense. They need more consistency from Jamal Murray. Thankfully, they've got Christian Brown, who's a rookie from Kansas, playing excellent. He's been incredible, pretty much the only bright spot from this team in terms of players that are showing out towards
the end of the season. Very high basketball IQ, very high motor, can rebound, can shoot, a player who's going to compete on both sides of the ball. I don't think that the Nuggets are going to give up the number one spot in the West, but the fact that we're even talking about it is concerning. It's a very fun, very wide open West this year. If they keep losing, oh boy, all bets are off.