Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets are Here to Stay
After a dominating postseason that culminated in the organization’s first ring, Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets are ready for more.
After 47 seasons, the Denver Nuggets have finally reached the NBA mountaintop (no pun intended). Nikola Jokic and this well-oiled machine around him rolled through the playoffs with ease. The championship was a testament to Denver’s shrewd team building, patience, and excellent coaching. They’re the model for how NBA teams should be running themselves.
And, perhaps most importantly, this team doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. They have all the pieces to contend for a long time. Here’s an ode to this well-orchestrated team, along with what comes next.
Sometimes Patience Pays Off
Patience is a virtue for a reason. Around the NBA, teams become impatient and make ill-advised moves when they’re met with resistance. This season, so many teams fired their coaches, many of whom had impressive resumes and a long line of success. I understand that difficult decisions are needed to win titles, but I feel like teams have gotten too impatient — not giving certain players or coaches a real chance to put their foot in the door.
I’m sure the Denver Nuggets could have broken up this Jokic/Murray partnership. Injuries took away two chances for the Nuggets to make deep playoff runs. How many teams would panic and rush some trade to try and win a title? But the Nuggets didn’t do that.
They trusted their Serbian second-rounder and their electric Kentucky guard. Over the years, they’ve gotten a grittier, more versatile roster around those two. Tim Connelly and Calvin Booth have done a marvelous job constructing this team. Both men have put the perfect supporting cast around Murray and Jokic, a duo that is undoubtedly the best in the league.
Before Connelly left for Minnesota last offseason, trading for Rudy Gobert soon thereafter, he was integral to building this team. He drafted Jokic, Murray, and MPJ. He traded for Aaron Gordon at the trade deadline. When Connelly left, Denver trusted NBA journeyman Calvin Booth to get them over the hump.
Head coach Michael Malone and Booth collaborated to take this team to the next step. Malone saw the formula that Boston and Golden State both displayed during the 2022 NBA Finals. He knew they needed more versatile guys who could fill multiple roles.
And so, Booth went to work. He drafted Christian Braun and Peyton Watson, two versatile wings. Braun played a big role in the Finals as a spark off the bench and is the future of this team’s second unit. Booth moved a couple valuable role players for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
Pope was the perfect shooting guard for this team. He offered great size, spacing, and an understanding of his role. After Pope helped slow down Jamal Murray in the Bubble, he helped Denver get their first title in franchise history.
And then there was Bruce Brown. Somehow, after a few days of free agency had passed, Denver signed Brown to a two-year deal. After being misutilized in his previous stops, Michael Malone unlocked the best version of Brown (and so did Jokic, obviously).
Brown filled so many roles for this team. He was the backup point guard in the playoffs. He spent time guarding the opposing team’s best perimeter options. In these playoffs, he replaced Michael Porter Jr. in the waning moments of close games. Brown poured in 21 points in game four, helping Denver secure a commanding 3-1 series lead. In the series-clinching game five, Brown iced the game at the line and had the go-ahead basket on a putback with a little over 90 seconds left.
In a league where there’s so much movement and so little continuity, Denver breaks the mold. They’re old school in the sense that they haven’t made some ill-advised decision to fire their coach or break up their star tandem. Instead, they stuck things out. They understood that with the right moves, and with the right supporting cast, a title was achievable.
It’s a lesson the rest of the league should be following.
Where Does Jokic Rank Among His Contemporary’s?
Nikola Jokic just wrapped up one of the best postseason runs in league history. He’s now the 13th player in league history to win at least two regular-season MVPs and a championship. He’s only the 11th player to do all that and win a Finals MVP, too.
Throughout this postseason, Jokic helped the Nuggets dismantle anybody they encountered. The Nuggets never trailed in a series, scored against everybody, and only lost four games over the entire postseason. Only Devin Booker’s brief transcendence of the mortal plane caused the Nuggets any adversity at all. When Jokic was on the floor during the playoffs, Denver had a 120.2 offensive rating. No matter what Erik Spoelstra tried to throw at him in this series, the Joker cracked the code and figured it out.
In the Finals, Jokic averaged 30.2 points, 14.0 rebounds, and 7.0 assists. No other player in NBA history has put up those numbers in the Finals. Nobody has ever gone through an entire playoffs averaging at least 30 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists, with a true shooting percentage above 60.0. Jokic safely cleared all those marks. He led the playoffs in points, rebounds, and assists. Nobody has done that, either.
At only 28 years old, there’s no telling how much more Jokic can accomplish. He’s just entering his prime, having already redefined his position. As a relatively unathletic 7-footer who pounds opponents into the ground with his mind and body, we’ve never seen a player quite like him. He gets whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and creates an efficient look (via shot or pass) just about every time the ball leaves his fingertips.
There are elements of Bird, Nowitzki, Magic, and Olajuwon in his game. That has helped him be head and shoulders above the rest of the league. If Monday night was the last game he ever played, Jokic would go down as one of the 20 greatest players to ever lace it up.
Jokic’s 31.5 PER in these playoffs is tied for the sixth-highest performance ever. The only guys above him are Michael Jordan and LeBron James. His 29.1 PER career playoff mark is the highest ever, period. This level of statistical dominance is unheralded. For Jokic, it’s just another day at the office.
Jokic is almost antithetical to the modern franchise player, both on the court and off it. Humble, ego-free, and filled with genuine satisfaction when members of his supporting cast have success. Curry and Duncan may be his only comps in that regard. Guys who truly care about winning above everything else.
The only players we can compare Jokic to are guys like Duncan, O’Neal, Antetokounmpo, and Olajuwon. I doubt that even Jokic can catch Duncan’s career accomplishments. Duncan won his first title in his second season. Jokic didn’t become a full-time starter until his third season.
Despite being Jokic’s stylistic opposite, O’Neal’s first ring has a few parallels to Jokic’s championship. While O’Neal became a star earlier than Jokic, he also had his share of playoff shortcomings before joining Kobe Bryant and the Lakers to earn his first title. Jokic has also suffered playoff setbacks.
O’Neal launched himself into the NBA’s historic upper echelon in two ways: his overpowering dominance and longevity. He maintained his regular residence on All-NBA teams until 2008. Jokić is on his way towards a similar stretch, having stayed notably healthy his whole career, but he will need a similarly elite supporting cast to reach four rings.
After making the finals in his second season, Olajuwon only won one playoff series until he won his first ring in 1994. Jokic, similarly, has found an ideal coach and roster to maximize his talents as he battles this generation’s best big men for supremacy. Going back-to-back like Olajuwon would push Jokic into another stratosphere.
The best comp for Jokic may be Giannis Antetokounmpo. Both players didn’t immediately enter the league and start dominating. Both guys didn’t become full-time starters until their third season. Giannis and Jokic were two unheralded international prospects who nobody expected to each turn into back-to-back MVP winners.
We’ve never seen a player quite like Nikola Jokic. The majority of the NBA world is just finding about his dominance. Not to get ahead of myself, but I think we’re witnessing one of the greatest careers in league history.
Denver is set up for a Dynasty
In the immediate aftermath of their historic feat, head coach Michael Malone could think of only one thing. Amidst all the joy, happiness, and reflection, Malone could only think of one thing. “We’re not satisfied with this one,” Malone said. “We want more.”
One could call Malone a little crazy for already thinking about next year’s journey after just having completed this one. I would call him…right? I mean, what’s stopping the Nuggets from becoming a dynasty? They have all the pieces to be very good for a long time.
Nikola Jokic is 28. Gordon is 27. Murray is 26, and Michael Porter Jr. is 24. They are in the sweet spot of their careers. They are each signed for at least two more years, and even with three players on max deals, Denver’s salary-cap situation is completely manageable under the new CBA.
As with any elite contender, the rules still find ways to chip away at the edges. Bruce Brown is almost certainly leaving this offseason. He far outvalued his $6.8 million dollar player option for next season. The Nuggets don’t have his bird rights and likely can’t pay him anywhere near his likely market.
Denver also will have to contend with the luxury-tax apron, not to mention the tax itself; the Nuggets are just $3 million from next year’s projected tax line with just nine players under contract. Even if they aren’t worried about paying a small amount of tax, the apron will likely prevent them from using anything beyond their taxpayer midlevel exception to replace Brown. They may face the same situation a year from now with KCP, who has a player option for $15.4 million in 2024-25. Granted, I think KCP will pick up that option, unlike Brown this offseason.
This, however, is where the Nuggets have mastered how to make the salary cap work for them: by not amassing a slew of mid-sized contracts around their stars. Denver’s five starters will make nearly $150 million between them next season, which puts the Nuggets just $12 million from the projected tax line. However, nobody else on the team is projected to make more than $5 million once Brown likely opts out of his deal.
Instead, Denver has filled out its roster with rookie contracts and veterans on minimum or near-minimum deals. Christian Braun and Peyton Watson were both late first-rounders this past season. Both are signed through 2026 and will only make $4.5 million combined next season. Braun and Watson fill the mold of big, defensively-oriented wings who can implement the Nuggets’ strategy of switching, stunting, and scrambling around Jokić when opponents attack him in pick-and-roll. These types of players form their entire rotation outside of Jokić and Murray.
Those types of players are often expensive in free agency, but Denver drafted two of them and has them locked up for three more years. It would shock nobody if the Nuggets exclusively drafted players between 6-foot-5 and 6-foot-9 for the next two years. Speaking of drafting, in the middle of the NBA Finals, Denver traded their future for their present with the OKC Thunder. In exchange for a 2029 protected first-rounder, the Nuggets got the least favorable of OKC’s first-round picks in 2024, the 37th pick in the 2023 draft, and a 2024 second-rounder.
Denver will load up on these inexpensive players, trying to strike gold as they have with Braun. And it’s hard to blame them. Denver has had success drafting players in the second round, after all. If they hit on a couple of these draft picks, they can all but avoid the draconian punishments of this new CBA.
That’s not to say any of this will be easy. The Nuggets still need to find a backup point guard and backup center. Jeff Green is 36 and will likely need to be replaced. And, of course, injuries can wreak havoc with the best-laid plans, as this team already experienced when it lost Porter and Murray for entire seasons. Winning isn’t a given in the NBA. If it was, everybody would do it.
Nonetheless, the Nuggets have the blueprint for their future. In a Western Conference where the other theoretical contenders can’t quite seem to get their act together, the Nuggets have the best player, the best-fit pieces around their star, a cheat-code offense, the fewest age concerns and the cleanest cap situation.
So, yeah, I don’t Michael Malone is crazy to already be thinking about next season. In fact, it would be foolish of him not to. He knows what we all know. This Nuggets team is special, and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.
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