We've already seen multiple trades executed in the past few days, and teams and players are clearly negotiating behind the scenes. So, what are the Nuggets doing, and who exactly is doing it?
The team already had Russell Westbrook opt out of his contract and become an unrestricted free agent. The team either needs to find a way to bring Russ back or to replace him. They don't have any draft picks, but they should certainly be monitoring prospects and the trade market, seeing if there is an opportunity to buy into the draft.
Then there are all the players who may be on the trading block, some of which may even be dealt ahead of, or during, the draft. This is inarguably one of the most important times of year for an NBA front office, and this is an extremely important offseason for the Nuggets. And yet, as of the time of this writing, it's unclear who the team's top decision-maker is.
Denver relieved Calvin Booth of his duties in the final week of the regular season, promoting Ben Tenzer to interim GM. But almost two months have passed, and the team has yet to promote Tenzer to a full-time position, nor have they brought in anyone from outside the organization.
They also relieved assistant GM Tommy Balcetis on Tuesday, making the front office situation even less clear. Zach Lowe mentioned on a recent podcast that the Nuggets are going to hire a new GM, but when? Who? Why wait?
Whatever the Nuggets are doing, they must act fast
None of it makes sense, and as the days go by, it's getting impossible to defend. Josh Kroenke has said that he wants to be more involved, but we've seen what happens when owners meddle and start making basketball decisions, and it rarely goes well.
There's a case to be made for continuity and promoting Tenzer, but if that's the plan, they should have done it already. They promoted David Adelman to full-time head coach right after the playoffs ended, which would have been the time to promote Tenzer as well.
That move and others suggest that the Nuggets are indeed planning to hire someone from outside the franchise to come in and call the shots. That's fine, but it's concerning that this person has not yet been identified.
Surely they'll have some baseline level of knowledge about the team, but they are still going to have to get up to speed, and that's now going to happen on the fly as the most critical part of NBA team-buidling is about to happen.
It's a scary situation, but that's the reality for the Nuggets right now. Whatever is happening behind closed doors, the owners need to get on the same page and act with a bit of urgency. Moves are being made, and a lot more are about to go down. The fact that the Nuggets don't even have someone to make those moves is a massive red flag.
The idea that the Nuggets still don't have a GM or President of Basketball Operations is getting harder to defend by the day. The NBA Finals are about to end, the NBA Draft is less than a week away, and free agency begins just two days later.