👋 Good Morning!

Nikola Jokic is 1-0 against Luka Doncic and we haven’t even gotten to the NBA season yet.

In a matchup between Serbia and Slovenia ahead of the upcoming Eurobasket, Jokic and Serbia cruised, winning the game 106-72. Jokic had 10 points, eight rebounds and four assists in 19 minutes.

It’s not as satisfying as a win over the Lakers but I love seeing the joy it brings Jokic to represent his country. The only thing that’s more endearing is watching him with his horses.

— Justin Michael

The starters will play for a small stretch on Saturday. According to Sean Payton it will be roughly 8 to 10 plays apiece.

Obviously there is risk involved when your starting unit takes the field. That’s kind of the nature of the sport though. If you ask the players, a lot of them will tell you that preseason reps are necessary.

Football is violent and there’s no real simulation for the physicality. Getting conditioned to the contact and pace really only happens by playing. And while there is a lot of cardio and skill work done on the practice field, these days there’s far less actual contact. I’m not saying that doesn’t make sense but it just makes it tough to go into Week 1 and execute at a high level.

Just check out this quote from Quinn Meinerz: “If my first actual game rep is against Jeffrey Simmons, I don’t want that. So I’m glad that I get to play in these games, take the techniques that I’m learning and working on every single day and putting them into a game because it doesn’t necessarily matter if you’re executing in practice.”

A small amount of preseason reps are valuable going into the season. It’s the right call to try and get everybody in a rhythm in a live-game scenario before we get to the games that actually count.

You know that Sean Payton is going to want to look good in New Orleans, preseason or not. It’ll be interesting to see what he schemes up tomorrow morning.

Check out this great piece from Henry Chisholm on what’s on the line against the Saints.

Sean Payton wasn’t itching to move on from Devaughn Vele. But like I wrote yesterday, the depth of the team made him more expendable.

Read: Sean Payton explains why the team traded Devaughn Vele | by Zac Stevens

Sometimes you have to look at things in the big picture. Mike does a tremendous job of that in his weekly column.

READ: Black & Purple like a bruise: Rox seeking 5 more wins & a parade (of perspective) | by Mike Olson