Nikola Jokić doesn't want to leave the Denver Nuggets. He said that after he didn't sign an extension with the team before this past season started, and he reiterated that after their first-round series loss. His commitment is, of course, a good thing, but what's not is the organization's failure to put another championship-caliber team around the superstar.
There will never be someone else to suit up in a Nuggets jersey like Jokić. You know that. The front office knows it, too. The Kroenkes know it, which led to the sudden firing of Michael Malone and Calvin Booth before the 2024-25 season ended. That didn't have the effect they hoped it would.
Here Denver is, fresh off an embarrassing playoff exit against a team that wasn't at full strength for the majority of the series. Neither were the Nuggets, but they still had Jokić and Jamal Murray for all six games.
The abrupt ending to the season left Denver with even more questions than it had last May. Yet it's still facing the all-too-familiar dilemma of not wasting Jokić's unwavering commitment to the Nuggets.
Nuggets can't afford to fail Nikola Jokic any longer
Denver thought that last offseason's maneuverings were enough to vault the team back into the true contender category, giving it the power to go head-to-head with Oklahoma City in the playoffs. The Nuggets didn't make it that far.
Injuries were an issue throughout the season, and that trend carried over into the playoffs. That's not a justifiable excuse for Denver's shortcomings, though. Years from now, when the Jokić-led Nuggets come up in basketball conversations, the 2023 championship will be the highlight, but stemming from that, people will talk about how they failed to build off that momentum.
Not having enough depth in 2024 and 2025 was a big issue, which is why the Nuggets set out last offseason to change that by trading Michael Porter Jr. to create the financial flexibility to sign players like Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown. That depth helped keep them afloat as the injuries piled up, but it still wasn't enough.
Nuggets are in a tough position entering the offseason
Outside of extending Jokić, Denver will try to find a way to keep Peyton Watson. However, to do that, it will need to trade a player like Cam Johnson or maybe even Aaron Gordon. No one wants to see the latter scenario play out, but he hasn't been healthy in the last two postseasons. To keep P-Wat, that might be necessary, and even then, a trade wouldn't be easy because of his health.
In retrospect, extending Christian Braun over Watson seems like it was a mistake, but who knows what the future will hold? You might not want Denver to wait around to see if next season will be different for Braun, but a trade would be complicated, since the first year of his extension kicks in next season. Other teams aren't jumping at the opportunity to take on that contract after this past year.
Denver will have to get far more creative than it was last summer to upgrade the roster around Jokić, and that will mean at least one tough goodbye, if not more.
It's still too early to know who might be available this offseason (outside of Giannis Antetokounmpo), but the Nuggets will have to do their due diligence on any and every player. They can't afford not to, with Jokić still playing at the level he is at 31 years old. Time is ticking.
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