Adam Matas

You have to have athleticism and you have to have some dogs.

And Julian Strother, no matter how much better he improves at this, I don't think he'll become a dog on defense, like a plus defense.

He's still going to be an offensive player who maybe is adequate defensively.

So for me, that puts him in an eighth, ninth role.

And so even if I look to next year, he continues to play well, continues to get better.

I still think that he's a bench guy that in a playoff series might be extremely limited.

And that's fine, though.

Because you need those guys.

There's those guys on Denver's roster right now we're excited about.

Tim Hardaway is one of these guys where it's like, yeah, man, I think in the playoffs he's going to give you some offense.

Is he going to give you rebounding?

Is he going to be a mark on defense?

Yeah, I don't think those things are going to tilt right, but you still have a value.

So I think it's meaningful that Julian is playing well right now.

Because quite frankly, I didn't think he had this many good games in a row in him.

Or maybe do the Peyton Watson thing with him and just pick up the qualifying offer next year and play it out and say, hey, we'll just see how it goes.

Honestly, it might be how this plays out.

Brucey B looks back to himself.

This one, I think, is actually more meaningful than the Julian one, even though you could argue Julian's had higher peaks than Bruce over this last little stretch.

Bruce, his role and what he's been doing a great job of recently is actually the exact role that the Nuggets will need him to do in the playoffs.