5 reasonable expectations for the 2024 Denver Nuggets offseason

3.) Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon will both be offered extensions

The Nuggets' second and third-best and most important players will be entering this offseason with just one year remaining on each of their respective deals. Murray is slated to make just over $36 million next season before he’ll become an unrestricted free agent. Gordon will make $22.27 million this coming season, and then he’ll have a $23.84 million player-option for 2025-26 which he’ll almost certainly decline.

The bottom line is that the Nuggets cannot afford to lose either of these players under any circumstances. They may have to overpay slightly and give these players more money than they feel comfortable with, but that’s the price of championship contention. Without either Murray or Gordon, the Nuggets just aren’t contenders.

The team is too close to punt on that opportunity during the prime years of a generational player in Nikola Jokic. The Nuggets will almost certainly offer extensions this summer to both Murray and Gordon once they become eligible. Whether they choose to accept or not is another story. Each player could reasonably bet on themselves and trust that they’d earn more on the open market, from the Nuggets or otherwise.

But the Nuggets can’t let these guys get away, and certainly not for nothing. They need to make the best offers they can and retain their top-end talent. While things came to a disappointing end in the playoffs, the three-man game between Jokic, Murray, and Gordon became one of the most lethal actions in basketball this season.