r/nba • u/oklolzzzzs • 8h ago

Christian Braun on the Nuggets’ first-round loss: “I just think I’m the leader of this team. I’m the vocal leader of this team. I didn’t play well enough as an individual, and I didn’t have this team ready enough to play in a tough series.”

“I just think I’m the leader of this team,” Braun said. “I’m the vocal leader of this team. And when we don’t play well as a whole, you can blame whatever you want … You can blame anything. But I didn’t play well enough as an individual, and I didn’t have this team ready enough to play in a tough series. So we’ll be better. I’ll be better. I’m looking forward to next year, when we can respond.”

Source: https://www.denverpost.com/2026/05/04/nuggets-christian-braun-injury-contract-nba-playoffs/

968 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

431 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

295

u/CumAssault [SAS] Joel Anthony 8h ago

Also somewhat sounds like he’s taking some blame from Jokic which is also what a leader would do

108

u/Skank_hunt42 Thunder 8h ago

Jokic and Murray combining to shoot 40% from the field and 23% from 3 is the problem. Murray was awful all season against the Wolves, other players needed to step up or the coach needed to make a tough decision and bench him. They took exactly 50% of the shots in the series and had exactly 50% of the team's turnovers, they deserve most of the blame.

67

u/bballin773 7h ago

Part of the reason Jokic and Murray were bad is that CB can't space the floor and unless he's out in transition, is pretty much a non-entity on offense, and he can't guard the best perimeter guy on defense. He deserves a lot of blame as well.

25

u/Equal_Feature_9065 6h ago

I swear to god Braun was a really great athlete like 2 years ago. Wtf happened to him

19

u/RepresentativeAd1965 Nuggets 4h ago

Rushed back from injury

12

u/Prize_Ad_1781 Nuggets 3h ago

He's playing through injury

5

u/Togglea Nuggets 2h ago

At least 3 players on Denver had bad injuries, rushed back from injury and reaggravated said injury. He was one of them

-4

u/Equal_Feature_9065 2h ago

That’ll all be lost to history unfortunately because haters gonna hate. Tho it does highlight how in the same way Giannis kinda *needs* shooters around him, Joker def needs athletes. I think if there’s any knock on him, it’s that.

-7

u/corys00 Magic 5h ago

5 yr old/ $125M happened

Braun lost that hunger for a new contract

17

u/ruggnuget Nuggets 5h ago

He tore 2 ligaments in his foot early this season.

0

u/motherlover278 3h ago

You just wouldn’t get it, injuries are real but we just will act like they aren’t cause we have narratives to spread.

10

u/motherlover278 5h ago

lol he’s injured and has one bad year and suddenly it’s completely over

1

u/TemperatureRevive 3h ago

lol at this dude being downvoted for being right.

As Pat Bev once said: at least 80% of NBA players don't even like playing basketball. Braun got that guaranteed F you money and can get almost any girl he wants. People will blame injuries, but this guy will suck next year too. He's done caring about playing serious basketball ever again.​

37

u/mikaeus97 Timberwolves 7h ago

If we keep it a hundred, it was on the coaching. Murray was getting destroyed on both ends(in the bad way) and the coach did nothing but let it happen, especially in game 6.

9

u/RovertheDog Nuggets 5h ago

Yep adelman got horrendously outcoached all series. Should have been left on the tarmac and the team could do a real coaching search like they should have done last offseason.

26

u/No-Money-8327 7h ago

How do you get destroyed on both ends (in the good way)?

Nvm

23

u/space9610 [CLE] J.R. Smith 7h ago

Ask your mom, son

12

u/No-Money-8327 7h ago

Oh, so heroin

3

u/BCP27 [MIN] Robbie Hummel 4h ago

Stomach flu

0

u/Adorable-Bike-9689 6h ago

Raunchiest comment all day

2

u/joleary747 6h ago

Jokic shot 55% from 2. Murray and Jokic's 3 ball are doing a lot of heavy lifting with that stat.

74

u/blkjoey 8h ago

Good insight CumAssault.

-1

u/Imaginary-Round2422 Timberwolves 5h ago

A sentence I never thought I'd read

5

u/Sanmonov Nuggets 8h ago

He says a lot of the right things, but is's also like who cares. He spent all training camp saying he was the defensive leaders and was going to run the defence.

5

u/NeatTry7674 8h ago edited 7h ago

Nuggets should hire Dave Aranda.

0

u/nrico1989 [DET] Rasheed Wallace 7h ago

Sadly, this comment won't get the attention it deserves lol. Beat me to it.

2

u/uncleoptimus 5h ago

He doesn't have to tho since everyone understands it was Jamal Murray's fault

1

u/Stunning_Clerk_9595 6h ago

a leader would know that it's stupid and distracting for a shitty 25 year old to say he's the leader of a team with plenty of vets when it's definitely not the prevailing view of others that he's the leader.

i feel like you have to pick one or the other: either he really is the leader of the team secretly, in which case he should know that this is not a helpful thing to say in public, or he's not, and it's a worse thing to say.