Kroenke Sports Entertainment owns teams across multiple sports, and they're all doing well. Really well for some, like Arsenal, who just won the championship of the English Premier League. They also own the Los Angeles Rams, who came up just short of making it to the final two in the NFL. But the Rams are making a splash to shake things up for a run with their franchise quarterback, and the Nuggets should steal that page out of the KSE playbook.
The Rams are expected to make a trade for a defensive stopper, a two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, Myles Garrett. The Nuggets need that same mojo to shore up their defense this offseason, or they're opening themselves up to the same peril that befell them in the first round of the playoffs against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Nuggets need to take advantage of Jokic's window
It's not exactly the same comparison, as the Rams franchise quarterback, Matthew Stafford, is 38 and more than likely at the end of his window. But that isn't stopping the Rams from trying to take advantage of it while they still can.
KSE needs to look at the Nuggets and Nikola Jokic in the same light. Championship windows open and close in a year or two in the NBA now. Since 2018-19, including this year, there will be eight different winners in eight years. No repeats on the list, let alone a back-to-back.
Joker is still in his prime, and he should be there for another couple of years. The Nuggets have a slim path to building through the draft with their lack of picks, and to be honest, that path would take much longer to play out, potentially closing the books on another Jokic and Nuggets championship.
A splashy trade would be worth a try this summer
The Nuggets should try a splashy trade this summer involving Jamal Murray. Murray just had the best regular season of his career, but he had a poor playoff showing for the third year in a row, and "playoff Murray" hasn't really been seen during that span. And that was just on the offensive side.
Murray was really bad on the defensive side of the court. The Timberwolves guards had a field day getting to the rim, including Ayo Dosunmu's 43-point explosion off the bench.
Shaking things up for a defensive stopper like Jrue Holiday or Derrick White, plus some combination of other players or picks to make it work and deepen the Nuggets, may be the best way to keep the window for Jokic open a little longer.
The Nuggets and Murray aren't going to magically get better at defense. A defensive upgrade, in the same light as the Rams trade, would probably do the Nuggets good.
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