My eyes are also on Spencer Jones, who is officially a Denver Nugget this year. The news came in yesterday that the Nuggets, this was not, I told people on the show over and over again, people were concerned that we're going to lose him this year. I don't think that was ever in risk. The only question was, could you get him on a multi-year deal? That would be great for Denver. You lock up a minimum contract for years to come,

who's a playable player. And they weren't able to get that done. You know, Spencer Jones, I think, is eager to test his own free agency. It's going to be restricted free agency, but test his own

free agency and just see, maybe there is a little bit more money. Can you drive that price up a little

bit? I think Denver obviously wanted to get something done, but Denver didn't have at this stage. They didn't have any maneuverability other than going into the tax. And I don't think the Kronkies looked at this as a scenario that was we're going to go into the tax and maybe put ourselves behind the eight ball in future years just to give him an extra million dollars a year.

They, I believe the team is looking at this and saying, let's see what happens.

We value him a lot.

We look at the market and we'll see. And they still have matching rights into the summer.

So if he ends up getting an extra million, two, three million,

Denver might have to bite the bullet and pay at that point.

But I think Denver's approach to this is, why prepay where you're guaranteed to? Why would we ever do that? Well, because I think Denver still controls his rights, is my point. It's not like this kind of beat a little. if they're looking at this and saying going over the tax is going to hurt us

you know at least how they view it's going to hurt us and limit us in the future, then why don't, why don't we not flinch? Let's go to the summer and let's see if he can actually get more money and free agency. And I actually think it's a decent gamble in terms of I'm not so sure that he is going to get meaningfully more elsewhere. And I think Denver will be able to match him in the off season. Yes. And he will be restricted for agent. Most likely, presumably, of course the Nuggets would have to offer a qualifying offer. There is one small catch here. It will probably work out in Denver's favor, but worth going over. There is a starter's criteria qualifying offer.

I believe it's 41 games started on the season, means that your qualifying offer bumps all the way

up to 5.9 million, which is probably more than Denver would like to offer Spencer Jones,

just as far as the QO goes. So what does that really mean? Well, you'll notice that Spencer Jones

is not in the starting lineup tonight. I wouldn't expect to see him in a ton of starting lineups. In fact, I would say no more than six from here until the end of the season. That's probably the number. So that the Nuggets can tender that cheaper qualifying offer. What's interesting about this one to me is so a couple things. First of all, I know everybody's, it's fair if you want to like freak out no did they drop the ball because now they didn't lock them up for multi years let's just see how it plays out it's entirely possible that this is not an issue a non-story at all and Denver just gets him back and they have him for this year he's now good to go and he'll play for the nuggets for the rest of the season into the playoffs everything else but

that part of it is what's interesting to me because i think denver has been very earnest with him

he's started he's played a lot of minutes it's like he's been given any opportunity a two-way

player could possibly ask for but the nuggets in doing so like i don't even know if this was on

their radar 20 games ago about like oh my god are we ever going to get close to this 41 game limit? But now you're at a point where you could totally foresee a scenario where, well, should we start Spencer or should we start Zique? And does it make that much of a difference? Probably not. We're going to start Zique. And if you're Spencer, you're looking at that going, hold on. You know, it's one of those things where Denver reasonably should protect their own interest in this case. And if you're Spencer, do you get a little upset if that happens for one game? Denver wins by 10. It doesn't actually make an impact. But it could just be a thing that creates a weird situation for David Adelman to have to navigate.

And that's why I say, I think this is a small L for Denver, not getting a multi-year deal done with him.

But looking ahead to this summer, I don't think Spencer Jones can be a type of guy that teams are splurging over in restricted for agency, especially in this CBA environment.

You know, he's, if he gets more than a minimum, like he might.

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