Bruce Brown is a reli­able condi­ment-mak­ing entrée mon­ey. But like ranch dress­ing and ketchup, the man goes with almost every­thing. And everyone.

We’re hap­py for you, Brucey B. Hon­est. Con­ven­tion­al wis­dom said the Nuggets’ do-every­thing for­mer sixth man would land a bag around dou­ble the $7.8 mil­lion max that Den­ver could offer for ’23–24. Indi­ana tripled it.

BB11 did what 98.6% of us would do in the same sit­u­a­tion. Hav­ing bet on him­self last sum­mer, and won a ring in the process, this time he took the cash upfront.

After mak­ing $15 mil­lion over his first five sea­sons in the league, the Pac­ers guar­an­teed Brown a whop­ping $45 mil­lion for the next two, includ­ing a report­ed $21.95 mil­lion in ’23–24 with a club option to follow.

It’s a short career and a long life. Brucey went from a parade to plen­ti­tude in about 15 days. Which is a pret­ty dang good fort­night, no mat­ter how you slice it.

The great­est com­pli­ment you could leave BB11 is the way he made the tough stuff look easy. The sec­ond-great­est is that watch­ing him leave, even though we all knew it was com­ing, still hurt like the Dick­ens. Brown was a self­less, stal­wart, salty skele­ton key, capa­ble of unlock­ing almost any­thing you threw at him. The Boston native could han­dle the ball or bang down low. He could go small in a big line­up or big in a small one.

To top off a cham­pi­onship core, the Nuggets need­ed a Tor­rey Craig who could land his shot against elite defend­ers and an Austin Rivers who could actu­al­ly defend elite shoot­ers. Brown offered both in one package.

BB11 and Ken­tavi­ous Cald­well-Pope were — and are — the sort of ruth­less­ly effi­cient, cold, 3‑and‑D assas­sins that flipped a so-called “soft” ros­ter into an impen­e­tra­ble stone wall, giv­ing an already-good bas­ket­ball team a foot­ball mentality.

Brown was Will Bar­ton with bet­ter shot selec­tion, defen­sive chops and sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness, one of the great fin­ish­ing pieces in Den­ver sports his­to­ry. Brucey took the Nug­gs to peaks they’d nev­er touched. The Nug­gs helped make him rich beyond belief.

We’ll always have Miami.

We’ll no longer have Niko­la Jokic feed­ing BB11, though, and more’s the pity. Like Jor­dan, LeBron, Mag­ic, Bird, Wal­ton, the Big Hon­ey pro­vides team­mates instant ele­va­tion, a star who makes role play­ers good and good play­ers great. Every rota­tion the Jok­er touch­es turns to gold, with run­ning mates look­ing any­where from 15% to 30% bet­ter than they might if paired with any oth­er big man in the game.

To both the eyes and the met­rics, Brown and Jokic went togeth­er like a ham­mer and pick. Per NBA.com track­ing data, the Nuggets post­ed a 120.1 offen­sive rat­ing — as, in points per 100 pos­ses­sions — when­ev­er the two were on the floor togeth­er dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son, with a plus‑9.4 net rat­ing as a duo. The net rat­ing for that tan­dem in the post­sea­son hopped up to a plus-10.4, with an offen­sive rat­ing of 117.3, dur­ing that 20-game sprint to glory.

Brown’s on-off plus/minus dur­ing the play­offs, a Bas­ket­ball Ref­er­ence stat that mea­sures his team’s suc­cess when­ev­er a player’s on the floor, was a plus‑4.4 net — that was the third-high­est total of any Nuggets rota­tion reg­u­lar, trail­ing only Aaron Gor­don (plus-20.6!) and Jamal Mur­ray (plus‑9.9). When you go with every­thing, almost any­thing works.

As the page turns. Chris­t­ian Braun, the floor is yours. Remem­ber Game 3 at Kaseya Cen­ter? The bull­dog who went right at Jim­my But­ler? The kid who put up 15 points and four boards in 19 min­utes? That’s got­ta become less the sen­sa­tion­al excep­tion and more of the beau­ti­ful, reli­able norm.

With vet­er­an Reg­gie Jack­son back in the fold to back up Jamal Mur­ray at the point, Brown’s depar­ture leaves the biggest holes on three major fronts: treys, defense and sheer chutzpah.

As a rook­ie, the 6‑foot‑7 Braun showed flash­es of nail­ing the lat­ter two parts of that equa­tion, no prob­le­mo. At his peak, the for­mer KU Jay­hawk was a per­fect pest, the kind of guy you love when he’s on your side but fans of the oppo­si­tion want to punch in the kiss­er. The jumper, though? The jumper — Braun drained 35.4% of his triples dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son, then was just 2 for 10 in the play­offs — still needs work.

Still, if you’re look­ing for a life­line, it’s in the chem­istry that Braun’s already formed with the Nug­gs’ two best big men. Get this: Accord­ing to NBA data, Denver’s most effi­cient two-man com­bo dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son among duos that played at least 20 games togeth­er was not, in fact, Mur­ray and Jokic — it was Jok­er and Braun, with a plus-19.2 effi­cien­cy rat­ing in 48 games. Of the Nuggets’ five most effi­cient two-man pair­ings last sea­son that also logged at least 20 appear­ances, Braun was a part of two of them (Jokic-Braun, No. 1; Aaron Gor­don-Braun, No. 5).

When you win a title, every­body eats. Can Braun become that per­fect condi­ment? The Nug­gs still have plen­ty of expen­sive, pri­mo dish­es on the menu. With­out a lit­tle ranch dress­ing at arm’s reach, it’s gonna be tough to repli­cate a cham­pi­onship meal.

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