There’s been a seemingly endless “wait until next year!” feeling attached to the Denver Nuggets of late. The 2018 team lost what amounted to a play-in game in the regular-season finale against Minnesota, but the promise of a future winner was there. The 2019 group broke through and made the playoffs, but lost in seven games to Portland in the second round. With another year of experience, they pushed forward to the Western Conference finals in the Orlando bubble before falling short against the older, more experienced Lakers. The roster steadily improved. It grew battle-hardened. And then, Jamal Murray tore his ACL in April 2021 and another 18-month wait ensued.
Well, next year has finally arrived. The Nuggets have a contending roster here and now. They have the two-time reigning MVP in Nikola Jokic along with his deputies in Murray and Michael Porter Jr. They’ve shored up the defense, stocked the bench with promising youngsters and endured countless playoff battles. There’s no reason to wait anymore. This group has checked every box. It’s time for the Nuggets to compete for the championship, and here’s what you need to know as they try to do so.
Key changes
Roster
Top of the key: Can Denver defend?
Every Nuggets season tends to follow the same cycle. We enter wondering how high any team’s defensive ceiling can be with Jokic at center. The Nuggets slightly outperform our expectations, and it is frequently remarked how underrated Jokic, specifically, is defensively. A number of different analytics support that case. And then the spring arrives and some team with multiple star guards puts him in a blender for two weeks and the Nuggets are eliminated.
None of this is meant to suggest that you can’t build a championship-caliber defense around Jokic. He has specific, stylistic weaknesses that are likelier to come up against certain types of opponents. It just so happens that those opponents tend to be the sort of teams that will be waiting for Denver in May and June. It must be noted that Jokic didn’t have a healthy supporting cast in recent playoff losses to Phoenix and Golden State. The Nuggets are going to be so good offensively with Murray and Porter back that they simply don’t need to be a great defense. Pretty good will suffice — though that will have to rise to that level since they haven’t been pretty good on that side of the floor in the last two postseasons.
But this year’s roster is better equipped to protect Jokic defensively versus any he’s had in his career. Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope may be the two best defensive guards he’s ever had alongside him. Aaron Gordon remains in place as the designated wing stopper. Porter spent last season rehabbing, but age tends to help players defensively. This is a roster that should be able to get to pretty good on that end of the floor. If they do? Jokic’s otherworldly offense can take them over the top.
Next up: Faith in the youngsters
The Nuggets made two somewhat peculiar moves this offseason. They chose not to sign a veteran point guard in free agency after dealing Morris to Washington, and they chose to sign DeAndre Jordan as their only veteran backup center. Jordan proved last season that he is largely unplayable at this stage of his career. The point guard situation is a bit more complicated, especially with Smith coming back in the deal.
But what Denver is signaling with those moves is faith in two youngsters in particular: walking bucket Bones Hyland and versatile forward Zeke Nnaji. At this moment, it appears as though they will be the primary backups to Jokic and Murray, not insignificant roles, especially in Hyland’s case due to the time Murray will likely miss as he ramps back up to NBA speed. Finding shot attempts for Hyland was easy last season on a roster desperate for points. It’s going to be trickier this season. Does Michael Malone stagger Murray and Jokic, or tether them together and let Hyland go wild when he plays without either of them? History suggests he’ll lean toward the latter.
Nnaji’s case is a bit more interesting. He’s a better player than Jordan by leaps and bounds right now. He’s also slightly undersized for the center position and a somewhat risky play in certain matchups. Will Malone split his time between forward and center? Or is he committed to Nnaji as a second-unit center?
One more thing: History in the making?
Jokic has made it perfectly clear over the past two seasons that winning the MVP isn’t especially important to him. Winning a third likely isn’t either, but it would be incredibly significant from a historical standpoint. No one has won three in a row since Larry Bird in the 1980s. Not LeBron James. Not Michael Jordan. No one.
Of course, there’s a reason for that beyond basketball. Voters tend to judge former winners against their own past performance rather than the field. James and Jordan likely both should have won three straight MVPs, but didn’t at least in part due to narratives. Yet Jokic, in theory, is positioned for his best season ever. He won his first two MVP awards without earning a top-two seed, which is fairly rare in league history. The Nuggets are positioned to dominate the regular season. If they do, it will be hard to deny Jokic no matter who else emerges in the field.
Key games
Oct. 19 at Utah Jazz: Is Utah an especially notable opponent? No. But this will be our first regulation look at Murray and Porter back on the floor, and while they’d never admit it, the Nuggets are probably pretty happy it’s coming against a team that’s not exactly trying to win it all this season. This should be a relatively low-pressure environment for Murray and Porter as the Nuggets welcome them back to the court.
Jan. 28 at Philadelphia 76ers: Every time Jokic and Joel Embiid share a court, it seems as though they’re playing for the MVP award. Jokic has edged Embiid out twice in a row, but both of them are playing on perhaps the best rosters of their career. This game is going to have MVP implications.
March 31-April 6 vs. Phoenix Suns/Golden State Warriors: I’m cheating a little bit here, but take a look at the end of Denver’s schedule. In the span of one week, they play Phoenix twice and Golden State once. Aside from being the teams that knocked them out of the past two postseasons, the Suns and Warriors are also competing with the Nuggets for seeding. All three of these games are going to be important.