and out of all those situations, they navigated it the best. the only other team I'd make a case for is Utah with Deron, cuz they didn't wait, they just did the damn thing instead of letting it turn into a soap opera.

but yeah, Denver had a valuable chip, same as Orlando, Toronto, Minnesota, Memphis, that was determined to leave and out of all those teams they got the most value in return for their chip. you can try and credit Melo's handling of the situation for that all you want, but these things don't happen in a vacuum, management deserves credit for managing it well themselves.