LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Christian Braun is channeling some serious Sith Lord vibes these days. Your hate only makes him stronger.

“It’s honestly good for you, every once in a while, to get punched in the mouth,” the Nuggets guard told me over the weekend at the Gold Crown Field House in Lakewood, home to his summer 2026 youth camp with Flexwork.

“I’ve said it a couple of times. So it’s good for me to personally get written off. It’s probably good for the team to get written off.

“But like I said, I wouldn’t write a (Nuggets) team off that won that many games and has been there, has won a championship, has done all those things. So we’re excited. And obviously, we don’t really care what other people have to say.”

Good thing. The Nuggets have been taking it in the shorts from pundits far and wide ever since they went over the NBA salary cap’s second apron in order to keep Spencer Jones out of the Thunder’s clutches. Tim Hardaway Jr., Jonas Valanciunas, Jalen Pickett and now Peyton Watson are officially out; Marvin Bagley III, Lonnie Walker IV and now DeMar DeRozan are officially in.

“Really excited to play with another All-Star and learn from him,” Braun said of DeRozan.

“I’m always very confident in what our front office does and the team they’ll put together every single year.”

On paper, the Nuggets will go into preseason camp older than a year ago at this time. Maybe wiser. But maybe not, well, better. And in a Western Conference where Oklahoma City’s roster is still loaded and San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama is only 22 and just getting started, the smart money says the Mile High title window’s about to snap shut on Nikola Jokic’s Hall-of-Fame fingers. That Denver’s become Milwaukee West. No wonder CB can get a little cheesed off when you bring it up.

“I mean, we’re going to add enough pieces, obviously. As long as we have Jok (Jokic), as long as we have Mal (Jamal Murray) and AG (Aaron Gordon) and that staff, we’re always in a really good spot,” Braun countered.

“I’m very confident in us every single year, no matter who we put on the court. With those guys, we’ve got a chance to win a championship, and that’s what we’re here for — to win championships. So we’re excited. We’ve got everything we need, as long as we have those guys.”

The Core Four is the Core Three now, mind you, and Father Time isn’t doing Nuggets Nation any favors. Gordon turns 31 in September. He played in only 36 games a season ago, as one of the bounciest players in the NBA battled calf and hamstring issues. Murray had a career year (25.4 points per game) and landed a deserved All-Star berth, but shot 35.7% from the floor during that ill-fated first-round playoff loss to Minnesota. Jokic became just the second player in NBA history to average a triple-double over back-to-back campaigns, but shot 44.6% during the postseason. He’s turning 32 in February.

The Nuggets need to get younger, longer and meaner around that veteran trio, and ASAP. All of which puts a little more hot sauce on Braun, a two-way threat who’s 25, rehabbing an injured ankle, and entering the first season of a five-year, $125-million extension. Especially with Watson, CB’s pal, getting traded to the Cavs as part of a five-team swap that landed the Nuggets draft picks in ’31 and ’32. P-Swat (pick 30) and Braun (pick 21) were both Hoovered up in the ’22 draft, and eventually contributed to the franchise’s first NBA title the following spring.

“Very excited for Peyton and everything he accomplished,” Braun said of his former running mate, who landed a four-year, $88-million deal from Cleveland as part of a sign-and-trade.

“I mean, every single day that I’ve been in the NBA, I’ve been with Peyton. Every single day we’ve competed, we’ve competed together. We’ve done everything together. We’ve practiced every day together. We’ve done all the rookie stuff together. So Peyton’s my guy. Me and his guys, his family, his friends have gotten close (with me) over the last four years, obviously. And he’s a guy that obviously supported me at every step. So I’ll do the same for him, always.”

Yet as the Nuggets chose to pay CB and not P-Swat at the end of their respective rookie deals, the former has become a Rorschach test for Nuggets Nation lately; You sort of see what you want to see inside that inkblot. The hot take is that the former Kansas star cashed in — Braun’s got a $21.55 million cap number for ’26-27 — only to promptly fall off his ’24-25 clip in scoring (12.0 points per game last season, down from 15.4 the year before), shooting (30.1% on treys, down from 39.7% the year prior) and defense (120 points allowed per 100 opponent possessions, up from 118 in ’24-25).

But there were caveats, too. For one, CB played hurt last season, and everybody knew it. One of Braun’s strengths is an almost sneaky explosiveness combined with reckless abandon — whether sprinting on run-outs, squirting free on back-door cuts, throwing his body into the paint, or rising high to finish open looks from beyond the arc. Braun tore ligaments in his left ankle last November and wasn’t quite the same after that. He missed 38 games. He spent three weeks wearing a boot. Then he dinged his calf in Game 1 of the Minnesota series. He managed three points in Game 6, as one of the most anticipated seasons in recent Nuggets memory ended with a stunning thud in Minneapolis.

From a 2026 lens, extending Braun while kicking Watson’s can down the road looks like an epic blunder that could cost the Nuggets another title in the Joker’s prime.

But hindsight makes Jerry Wests of us all. If someone told you a year ago that you’d only be able to pay either Watson or Braun the $20-ish million it would take to keep them, eight out of 10 Nuggets fans — probably more — would’ve given the money to the latter. Without hesitation.

Basketball-Reference.com tracks a stat called “Box score Plus/Minus,” or BPM — which, in simplest terms, measures points per 100 possessions a player accounts for in a game above that of an average player. Braun put up a +0.1 BPM score or better in 41 of 78 appearances (53%) during the ’24-25 season, and posted a BPM net-positive score in 19 of 51 (37%) career postseason appearances. Watson, by contrast, registered an +0.1 BPM in 23 of 68 appearances (33.8%) in ’24-25 and posted nine net-positive BPM games out of 29 playoff tilts (31%).

It’s fine to fault the Nuggets front office for not seeing 2026 Watson coming. But while it’s OK to talk about ancient history, it’s a weak look to keep revising that history to fit the narratives of the present.

Your buddy with the season tickets might not have given Braun $20 million a year ago, but he would’ve laughed you out of the bar if you’d suggested doing the same for P-Swat last August. And if he says otherwise, he’s lying.

That said, it also behooves Braun to get back on track, fair or not. If Watson becomes an All-Star in the East, Nuggets Nation won’t let No. 0 in blue hear the end of it.

And they need him. Now more than ever. Since the spring of ’24, the Nuggets are 10-4 in the postseason when Braun scores in double digits and 6-12 when he doesn’t. That’s an awful lot of pressure on one left ankle.

“Yeah, I think we’re going to put it in the past, and it’s not something I want to talk about anymore,” Braun said of last year’s injuries. “I’ve worked extremely hard to get past it and will continue to work on it, and (it’s) something that will continue to develop, continue to get better. So I’m not too worried about what other people have to say about it.

“I know who I am and the player I am. I know I’ll bounce back and be right where I need to be next year.”

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