DENVER — Nikola Jokić was still rocking the beard he started growing this summer at the Paris Olympics. Russell Westbrook looked surreal in a Denver Nuggets uniform but happy to address the media. Head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth spoke of the need to take advantage of opportunities. Jamal Murray spoke in a quiet monotone on signing a lucrative contract extension, while Aaron Gordon talked of the possibility of signing one.
On a packed and slightly condensed media day at Ball Arena, an early Thursday session leaked a significant number of topics and storylines to follow for a training camp and preseason opener against the Boston Celtics that’s somehow only a week away.
At the core, this will be the same Nuggets team we’ve come to know so well over the years. Jokić remains the best player in the world. He and Murray are the heart and soul of the team and will again be one of the best duos in the NBA. Gordon remains the workhorse on the heels of a traumatic offseason that saw the death of his brother and close friend, Drew. Michael Porter Jr. will be more important than ever this season, given the overall lack of shooting on Denver’s roster.
That being said, this will be a different Nuggets team in many ways from the one we’re used to seeing. Westbrook’s presence gives Denver a wild-card element it hasn’t had in recent seasons, and his acquisition is like a chemistry experiment: It can go well, or it can explode in grand fashion.
Gone is Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, leaving a sizable hole at the shooting guard spot that should be settled in camp between Christian Braun, Peyton Watson and Julian Strawther. In is Dario Šarić, and the hope internally is that the Nuggets have finally settled the backup center spot in the non-Jokić minutes. In also is the hope Denver’s solved some of the issues that plagued it and ultimately led to last season ending short of the NBA Finals run the Nuggets were anticipating.
“We believe that Nikola has a 10-year window of being an elite player, and that he’s roughly in Year 5 of that window,” Booth said. “That gives us a championship window, and it will be great if we can find a way to get another one. That being said, we know that it’s going to be incredibly difficult to win another championship.”
This isn’t the Denver team that won it all in 2023. That team was without a doubt the best in the NBA. It proved as much during the regular season and proved it more during the postseason. That being said, this Denver team is capable of winning a championship, though the margin for error is smaller than it has been in the past.
Jokić and Murray need to stay healthy for the Nuggets to reach their ceiling — that much is and has always been a given — and Murray not being healthy last spring ultimately contributed to their playoff demise. But here is what also needs to happen: The Nuggets need to have the best version of Westbrook, which has been a crapshoot pretty much since his Houston Rockets days. One of Braun, Watson or Strawther has to become a viable replacement for Caldwell-Pope, which isn’t a given. His value to Denver’s lineup, shooting, defense and low-stress usage within the offense was almost absolute to what the Nuggets did as a unit. Murray, for as good as he has been in the past, will need to prove an uneven playoffs and flat-out bad Olympic performance with Team Canada is behind him. Šarić will have a big impact in a condensed role because, at some point, the Nuggets will need to ease the usage load on Jokić.
Having the best player on Earth will always give you at least a puncher’s chance at winning it all. The Oklahoma City Thunder, Minnesota Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks look like the class of the Western Conference, but Jokić gives Denver a solid entry into that conversation. The defending champion Boston Celtics are obviously the class of the NBA, but Jokić’s presence allows the Nuggets to be a matchup issue for Boston in a hypothetical series.
How do the pieces fit? How does Denver adapt to the internal changes in its roster? How deep does this Nuggets team prove to be during the course of the season? Those are the questions that will ultimately determine Denver’s true ceiling.
“We know how difficult it is to repeat as a champion,” Murray said. “But I think the good thing is that we know what it takes to win a championship. So we have to take it day by day.”
In the past, Malone has talked about the San Antonio Spurs as a franchise the Nuggets want to emulate. Denver has dreams of being a dynasty, and what Malone knows is that dynasties aren’t linear. Of course, there’s the Golden State way, where you run off a cluster of championships. But there also is the San Antonio way, where sustained excellence over time becomes the rally point.
The Spurs never won consecutive titles. On multiple occasions, they were thought to be finished winning championships. But the Spurs reeled off five titles with Tim Duncan as their centerpiece, and Duncan and Jokić hold multiple parallels as players.
This summer, the Nuggets felt the effects of the NBA’s most recent collective bargaining agreement starting to ripple out. They tried to keep Caldwell-Pope from leaving for the Orlando Magic, but there was a limit to how much Booth could offer, because Denver was hesitant to break the CBA’s restrictive second apron. With Murray’s extension, the Nuggets are largely locked into their core for the foreseeable future, and any changes around their roster will likely come at the edges.
Booth knew these days were eventually going to get here. That’s why he pined for Malone to give Braun, Watson and Strawther extensive minutes in the past. Now, those three are primed to be key players on cheaper rookie-scale deals. To be one of those teams that can compete for a title year in and year out, the Nuggets know they are going to have to hit on the margins. It’s a reason they were willing to take a swing on Westbrook. And it’s a reason they have tried to be aggressive with the development of the younger players.
This is a season that likely determines how much staying power Denver has as an organization. Two years ago, the Nuggets climbed the mountain and won an NBA championship. Last season, the Nuggets were very good but ultimately not good enough. They certainly want to be good enough this season. They talked about that hunger Thursday.
Now, they have to go and prove it.
“I tell my players all the time that failure can be a motivation,” Malone said. “But we have to make sure that the failure of last year isn’t fatal. We have to come back with a mindset of attacking this season. We want to remind everyone of who we are.”
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(Photo of Nikola Jokić: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
