Just three off-seasons removed from winning the NBA title, the Denver Nuggets – with or without Peyton Watson – are now an afterthought. And that includes future Hall-of-Famer Nikola Jokic. The whole team and organization are yesterday’s news.
By the time October arrives, can they turn that into an advantage?
The big news around the league is, of course, the “last decision” of LeBron James, the biggest attention hound in league history, who is now taking his talents to his fourth team, the Philadelphia 76ers. In typical LeBron fashion, he chose to sign with a team that was already loaded with a pair of All-Stars in Jaylen Brown and Joel Embiid so he could enhance his chances of winning another NBA title. And as typically follows in LeBronWorld, the Sixers have already been anointed the 2027 NBA champs by some of the wise guys.
That should be just fine with Nuggets Nation. Their team has never handled the “favorite” status very well anyway.
The facts are that the Nuggets haven’t done anything since last season ended, other than signing Marvin Bagley III to replace Jonas Valanciunas to be Joker’s backup… and potentially do the same with Aaron Gordon at the power forward spot. Great. They’ve lost Tim Hardaway Jr. and others from the bench, and appear to be stuck in between a backboard and hard rim with Watson, who is reportedly seeking far more money than his résumé says he’s worth… or that the Nuggets can afford. After re-signing forward Spencer Jones, the Nuggets are financially hamstrung as the only NBA team in the dreaded “second apron” of the league’s smothering salary cap.
Gordon’s health remains an issue. Cam Johnson’s status is up in the air, and they don’t have an NBA-ready backup point guard.
Easy to see why most of the “trending” arrows are pointing down.
On top of that, Jokic – who looks like he’s ready for another big season – has stalled contract extension talks and could ultimately force the Nuggets to trade him before next season’s trade deadline. If the season isn’t going well, that can and should become a realistic possibility.
But there’s one thing this Denver team, warts and all, could potentially hang their 2023 NBA champion hats on: The old, reliable, “it’s us against the world” mentality. Embrace their underdog status. Again.
Part of what made the 2022-23 title run so magical is that it was unexpected by almost everyone outside the Nuggets’ locker room. Denver clearly wasn’t a title favorite. Before the season, they had the ninth-best odds in the league at between +1600 to +2000 to win the title. The Brooklyn Nets were ahead of them. So were the Phoenix Suns and the LA Clippers. The Milwaukee Bucks were supposed to win their second title in three years going in.
We all know what happened. It was a year for our underdogs.
Could that happen again? There are similarities.
We’re a long way from the start of the next NBA season, so things can still change – a lot – between now and then. But currently, the Nuggets are in a group with four other teams at 25-1 to win next season’s NBA title. There are five teams ahead of them, including Western Conference foes Oklahoma City and San Antonio, who are co-favorites, as they should be.
The holdover Nuggets core players already have a ring, so the zeal to win another title will never be what it was before that championship season. So the question is, can head coach David Adelman muster his troops emotionally and concoct that much-needed underdog mentality? Former head coach Michael Malone had the natural ability to do that. Adelman, at least to this point in his young coaching career, has come across as much more robotic and analytical. It will be a challenge for him.
Talent alone doesn’t win championships. In order to contend, the Nuggets would have to get very fortunate on the injury front – including Gordon finding a way to curb his chronic leg issues over the summer – and get great seasons from guys like Christian Braun, who, to this point, has been mainly a shooting guard who can’t shoot straight.
Almost everything would have to go right. Then again, you can say the same things about most of the contending teams, including LeBron and the Sixers (who will more than likely be doomed by never-ending injuries to Embiid and James’ senior-citizen status) that Vegas likes better than Denver right now.
That’s why they call it gambling.
