Six months ago, the Denver Nuggets came up short in the semifinals for the second season in a row after winning the 2023 title. Injuries caught up to them, but they also didn't have the depth to compete for another championship. Nikola Jokić being Nikola Jokić wasn't enough.
Over the offseason, the new front office duo of Ben Tenzer and Jon Wallace addressed that by building the roster around Jokić, even trading for a more than quality backup center. What has been the result thus far, a month into the season? Denver doesn't need Jokić to check back into the game as soon as he sits on the bench.
Now, that doesn't mean that the Nuggets are a better team without Jokić on the floor (everyone should know better than that), but the numbers show that those minutes aren't as bad as they were.
Denver is outscoring opponents by 17.9 points per 100 possessions with Jokić on the court, and with him off, that number drops to minus-4.5. During the 2024-25 regular season, Denver was a minus-9.3 with Jokić off the floor. That's some improvement!
Nuggets' offseason moves have paid off in more ways than one
There will never be a trend where Denver is better with Jokić off the floor. He's the best player in the world, so when he goes to the bench, the Nuggets will feel it. However, what the front office did over the summer was try to make those minutes more manageable, and so far, they have been.
Denver has the bench it lacked in the past two seasons when the gas ran out in the semifinals. The Nuggets still managed to take the Thunder, the eventual champions, to Game 7 last year. Without Aaron Gordon and with essentially a one-armed Michael Porter Jr., Denver didn't have the ammo to return to the conference finals.
Injuries are unpredictable, but what can help your starters not risk an injury or run out of steam is by rounding out the bench.
Because Jokič can't play all 82 minutes in every regular-season game and then turn around and do it again in the playoffs, Denver did the next best thing. The Nuggets turned Porter into Cam Johnson, and although he's struggled to start the season, the financial flexibility allowed them to sign Tim Hardaway Jr, reunite with Bruce Brown, and add Jonas Valančiūnas.
Denver went from wasting Jokić to once again being regarded as a top team in the West, all in a few weeks.