The Denver Nuggets have one wildcard they can play in their bag of options, and that's just forging ahead and paying whatever the fines come out to be for building a championship squad for one year around Nikola Jokic. But they probably won't use it.
The Nuggets have a long history of being cheap, and why would they decide to change now, when they're potentially close if they were healthy?
They were missing Peyton Watson for the entire series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Aaron Gordon for three of the games. And of the three games Gordon did play, he only looked like himself in the Nuggets Game 1 victory.
If the Nuggets think they're close with this roster, if healthy, they shouldn't hesitate to play the wildcard. Just pay the fines and build around Jokic.
The Nuggets could let Jokic's window close without a fight
Paying the fines and building a squad while Jokic is still in his MVP window and at his prime seems like the easy thing to do. Yeah, sure, I'm not paying the fines, but the Nuggets should be willing to pay them for the three-time MVP.
The talk of winning an "organic" title would still apply. Realistically, the Nuggets wouldn't be going out and signing a top-tier free agent. It's almost as organic as you can get in the NBA now.
They would be re-signing Peyton Watson, potentially keeping both Christian Braun and Cameron Johnson, cutting Jonas Valanciunas, and using the $8 million in savings to sign someone like Marcus Smart if he escapes the Los Angeles Lakers under his player option.
The Nuggets could only need pieces in free agency
Gordon and Watson are the Nuggets' two best defenders. Playing without them against the Timberwolves definitely exposed the rest of the defense. If the Nuggets decided to keep the Braun, Watson, and Johnson trio, they'd still have more roster spots to fill.
A defensive-minded guard and good backup for the non-Jokic minutes might be all the Nuggets need. That's why players like Smart at a budget price, and a backup center like Nick Richards, who averaged 9.4 points and 7.6 rebounds in 22.4 minutes off the bench for the Bulls in 20 games, make sense to target.
Pieces of the puzzle. Not a major free-agent target that's going to break the bank even further.
But even this plan seems too good to be true for Nuggets fans. It seems like a pipe dream to get one of the richest ownership groups in sports to pay a fine to give Nikola Jokic the best shot they can next year. The time has come for the Nuggets to play that wildcard, but they probably won't.
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