Heck, sure, they Cam. The Nuggets can get their season circled, as long as they’ll maintain Cam Johnson not off course. And contributing.
Full disclosure: The basketball wonks in the Grading The Week (GTW) offices were fans of the Michael Porter Jr.-for-Cam trade last summer. Again, not as a result of it was a good swap of skills. It wasn’t — the Nets bought the man with the larger body and much sexier upside. It was a “win” as a result of it bought MPJ’s bloated contract off the books and enabled the Nuggets to seize the cap house to land three extra veteran gamers (Bruce Brown, Tim Hardaway Jr., Jonas Valanciunas) within the course of.
But what’s usually mentioned about Christian Braun applies to Johnson, too — he’s bought to show up offensively inside the stream of the offense, not get down when the photographs aren’t falling, and discover methods to contribute when the second finds him. Because it inevitably will.
Cam Johnson’s rebound — B
From final Saturday by Friday, the up-and-down Johnson responded well to the moment. In three video games previous to the Nuggets’ go to to the Lakers on Saturday night time, Cam was averaging 12.7 factors, 3.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.7 3-point makes per contest. He put up 17 factors and three treys in a rout of Houston and added one other 15 factors in an enormous win at San Antonio late Thursday night time.
Here’s why that issues, and why coach David Adelman has remained in Johnson’s nook by thick and skinny this season: The Nuggets seem like a title contender when Johnson contributes offensively — and are extra of a play-in stage group when he doesn’t.
Heading into Friday night time, when Johnson scored at the very least 11 factors in a sport, the Nuggets have been 15-4 (78.9% win share), and 26-22 when Cam was 10 factors or much less.
When Johnson made at the very least 5 subject targets in a sport, the Nuggets have been 13-4 (76.4% win share), 28-24 when it was 4 makes or fewer.
When Johnson drained at the very least two treys, they have been 13-6 (68.4% win share), 28-20 in any other case.
“It’s been a tough year for the Nuggets in the clutch, which is something that we’re not used to seeing.” former Nuggets coach Michael Malone, now an ESPN analyst, provided up on the “NBA On ESPN” halftime show Wednesday. “And they’ve got 17 games to go to try to figure it out.”
They figured it out in San Antonio. If they’ll get Johnson discovered for the stretch run and the postseason that follows, maintain on tight.
Broncos’ free company begin — D
Oh, we’ve heard all of the caveats by now. There’s time. You simply went 14-3. The choice wasn’t that nice. The locker room is filled with good gamers and good guys who get what Sean Payton, Davis Webb, Vance Joseph and Darren Rizzi are all attempting to do. And we get all that. And we get that, as of final Friday afternoon, per OverTheCap.com, the Broncos nonetheless had $22.3 million cap room for ’26 to play with — even after bringing nearly all people again.
Yet there are good the reason why Broncos Country was greater than somewhat alarmed on the alacrity with which GM George Paton and coach Sean Payton appeared to sit down on their respective palms through the opening days of the NFL’s free-agent signing interval.
Why? Two phrases: Rookie contract.
QB Bo Nix has a cap hit of $5.1 million in ’26 and $5.9 million slated for ’27. That’s going to alter. Joe Burrow had a $9.87-million cap hit in 2022, the third of his four-year rookie deal. On Burrow’s second deal, that cap number shot up to $29.7 million ’24, $46 million in ’25 and is slated to be $47.99 million in ’26. If Nix continues to development upward, and well being allowing, he ought to, the Broncos are going to have one other Russell Wilson-sized cap quantity to cope with in a number of years.
Which is why they could remorse not spending whereas they have been in a interval of flexibility “between” big-time/franchise-level QB cap numbers. Especially when you’ve bought a Super-Bowl-worthy roster that’s, fairly actually, just one or two playmakers away from profitable all of it — and just one or two offensive playmakers specifically. But, hey, we will get admittedly panicky within the GTW places of work, so possibly that’s simply us. Although based mostly on our emails and social media exchanges since Monday night time, it’s positively not simply us. At all.
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