Last things first.

The Nuggets, the NBA cham­pi­ons in 2023, and the Lak­ers, cham­pi­ons in 2020, have been in a bob­sled race to nowhere over the past month.

While there is still time for a few ros­ter moves, it’s fair to ask: Which team has had the worst offseason?

The Nuggets, in a salary cap straight jack­et, lost pop­u­lar 3‑and‑D guard Ken­tavi­ous Cald­well-Pope as a free agent to the Orlan­do Mag­ic. Not the Mag­ic with Shaq and Lil’ Pen­ny, but with Franz and Paolo.

The Lak­ers hired pod­cast­er J.J. Redick as head coach. And they couldn’t con­vince Klay Thomp­son to take their four-year, $80 mil­lion offer, despite his father, Mychal Thomp­son, a Lak­ers broad­cast­er, recruit­ing him to come home.

The Nuggets were unable to swing a deal for Paul George or Alex Caru­so. Instead, they trad­ed six sec­ond-round picks to draft Dayton’s DaRon Holmes II and receive $5 mil­lion in salary relief on Reg­gie Jackson’s contract.

The Lak­ers land­ed for­mer North­ern Col­orado star Dal­ton Knecht with the 17th pick, but then became a fam­i­ly busi­ness. They draft­ed Bron­ny James 55th over­all — as far as I can tell he’s the first play­er select­ed in the last 25 years who is under 6‑foot‑2 and aver­aged less than 5 points per game in col­lege. And LeBron James eschewed the idea of tak­ing a pay cut when Thomp­son balked at com­ing, sign­ing a two-year, $104 mil­lion max deal.

The Lak­ers have no chance of win­ning a title next sea­son when LeBron turns 40. But it is get­ting much hard­er to make a case for the Nuggets as well. And Niko­la Jokic is in his prime at age 29.

Giv­en that con­text, the Nuggets’ have done some­thing they rarely ever do. They have lost to the Lak­ers, win­ning the hon­or of the worst offseason.

ESPN’s Matt Miller mocked CU quar­ter­back Shedeur Sanders to go sec­ond over­all to the Raiders in the 2025 draft. NFL Network’s Daniel Jere­mi­ah com­pared Sanders to Sea­hawks quar­ter­back Geno Smith. Smith, a two-time Pro Bowler, was a sec­ond-round pick in 2013. If Sanders goes top-five over­all match­ing Smith’s career would be a dis­ap­point­ment. Sanders is a ter­rif­ic pass­er, but he must stop hold­ing onto the ball so long this season. …

Are we sure Team USA’s men’s bas­ket­ball team is a lock to win the gold medal in Paris? With a start­ing five of James, Steph Cur­ry, Jayson Tatum, Joel Embi­id and Kevin Durant, they should be. But who will act as a true point guard and who will do the dirty work on the boards? Tyrese Hal­ibur­ton and Bam Ade­bayo could emerge as key figures. …

A lack of tal­ent remains why the Bron­cos are fore­cast to win rough­ly six games next sea­son. ESPN recent­ly ranked NFL ros­ters. The 49ers fin­ished first. The Bron­cos, gulp, sat at 31st, ahead of only the New York Giants. …

It is hard to take the U.S. Men’s Nation­al Soc­cer Team seri­ous­ly after their embar­rass­ing group stage exit in Copa Amer­i­ca. The World Cup will be on Amer­i­can soil in 2026, but why should we believe the U.S. can take advan­tage of it giv­en ques­tions about the under­whelm­ing coach, scheme and roster?

Nobody asked. But I believe the All-Star Home Run Der­by should just be Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani tak­ing bat­ting prac­tice. Not even the state of Wyoming can match those fireworks. …

Mail Time

Please dis­cuss the Nuggets point guard sit­u­a­tion. We can’t have Jamal Mur­ray total­ly used up before the play­offs. Jalen Pick­ett can’t be the answer, and they let Collin Gille­spie get away.

Had Beat­ty, email

With Reg­gie Jack­son gone, the expect­ed move is to add Rus­sell West­brook. He would bring ener­gy, atti­tude, and func­tion­al defense. But West­brook is an awful 3‑point shoot­er for a team that des­per­ate­ly needs to shoot more and more accu­rate­ly from beyond the arc. His strength? Cre­at­ing off the drib­ble on dri­ves to the bas­ket for a scor­ing-starved sec­ond unit. There is val­ue in that if he remains com­fort­able with a com­ple­men­tary role. But it is impos­si­ble to argue that los­ing Pope and Jack­son in exchange for West­brook would make the Nuggets better.

Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insid­er to get all our NBA analysis.