There's a lot of talk about his number, number 15, and you know, him and Carmelo Anthony. I don't even know the whole story of what came out, but yeah, talk a little bit about your thoughts on that whole situation. Yeah, that's a funny one. I saw Melo was on something fairly recently and, you know, my first, it's interesting to think back because my first meeting when I was put in charge of the Nuggets in the summer of 2010 was to fly to Baltimore and sit in a hotel room where it was he, his agent, and one other guy that worked with him, and he asked to be traded.

And they gave us two teams, and I put that in my back pocket, went back to Denver. I was kind of, our front office was in flux at the time, and then I wound up hiring a guy named Masai Ujiri, now runs the Toronto Raptors, and then he and I, and another person named Pete D'Alessandro worked on that trade for about six months.

And so we got through the trade, and you know, you don't really think about much. You know, we had Allen Iverson for a number of years, and Ty Lawson wore number three. And so, you know, it's not anything that really ever crossed our mind. And so I was very surprised to hear Carmelo say that the other day because it wasn't something that ever crossed my mind.

I think Nicola has worn number 15 his entire career, even when he was over in Europe. And so, you know, I mean, it wasn't something that really crossed our mind. And, you know, to have Nicola, I think, ascend to the level that he's at, maybe that might get under somebody's skin, I guess, perhaps, but I don't know.

I think Nicola's always worn 15. It was never anything that we ever thought about, and, you know, I'm just happy that Nicola's on our team. What specifically was Melo upset about? Was it that someone else got to wear his number, his number didn't get retired? I'm not 100% sure.

I think, you know, Melo, he had an unbelievable career with us, and he really put the Nuggets back on the map in a really positive way. I think that there was a, you know, it's interesting when a player wants to be traded from a team, and, you know, that creates certain feelings, and it took a while for our fan base in Denver to get over that as well.

It was an interesting scenario because that whole saga really started the summer before, the summer of 2010. That was when LeBron had left Miami, or excuse me, left Cleveland to go to Miami, and so player empowerment and movement was really kind of just starting to reach its peak, and I think that's great.

I think you guys have one shot at your careers. You know, we're kind of custodians of that career. We obviously have our own goals in trying to build our teams, but I always respect if somebody wants to go do something else, but for the city of Denver, I think they took it very personally, and that took a little time for the city to get over, and, you know, I'm sure Melo didn't like being booed for the first few times he came back because he did.

He worked his butt off for the city, and we had a great run in there. We made the Western Conference Finals in 2009. That was the only time we made it out of the first round, but, you know, I think over time hopefully the feelings dissipate. I think, you know, if he was to come back to Denver, I think he'd probably get a different reception these days, but from a personal level, there was never any animosity or anything kind of on our thinking about Nicola's number because it was just the number that he wanted to wear and the number that he's worn forever.

I think that it's been interesting to see his ascension to where he is, but, you know, to think that, for anyone to think that we gave a second-round pick number 15 and knowing that it would someday turn into this, I think that's a pretty wild statement.