Fans have been waiting with bated breath for Nuggets basketball to return, and it’s finally back on Thursday night as they start their season on the road, facing the Warriors on Thursday night. Those who have been closely following the offseason and the preseason may already know this, but the rest of the world is going to learn that this is by far the deepest and most talented team that Nikola Jokic has ever had.
It took many years of building to reach the championship in 2023, and while that team was obviously amazing, it was largely propped up by the brilliance of the starting lineup, and some timely play from Bruce Brown, a rookie Christian Braun, and Uncle Jeff Green.
That team’s depth was almost immediately gutted, and by last year, the team could barely field a competent bench unit on a nightly basis. But this season, things have finally changed, and the Nuggets are set to be one of the deepest, most versatile, and most talented teams in the entire NBA.
Nuggets have perfect blend of talent across the board
This offseason, the front office finally went out and did something long overdue and revamped the roster on the margins. They paid handsomely with a future first-round pick to make an upgrade in the starting lineup, going from Michael Porter Jr. to Cam Johnson, which should help the team on both ends of the floor.
Then, with the savings left over from shedding MPJ’s contract, the Nuggets added two reliable veterans in Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown in free agency. Then flipped one of their worst players and contracts, Dario Saric, into the best backup center of the Jokic era, Jonas Valanciunas.
On top of that, they kept all of their promising young talent in Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, and Jalen Pickett. Plus, they have their 2024 first-round draft pick, DaRon Holmes II, set to make his debut after missing all of last season with a torn achilles.
They can go big, they can go small, they can go with shooting, they can go with defense. The Nuggets are suddenly, insanely versatile with positional flexibility that should allow them to find mismatches and advantages against just about every opponent they’ll face.
It’s an exciting shift after seeing the team be so heavily reliant on Jokic to create every advantage and find ways to manipulate scenarios that seemed disadvantageous. Now, Jokic will still be able to use all of his brilliance, but he’ll have the running mates and supporting cast to keep it up for 48 minutes every night.