You read the title right, and from your favorite pessimist too. The Denver Nuggets have a case for being the best team in basketball.
That might seem like hyperbole, and there are clearly still things they have to figure out going forward. Still, the moves the Nuggets have made over the last 36 hours have turned Denver from a fringe contender to a serious challenger for best in the world status.
Let’s go through it:
The Michael Porter Jr. trade
For those that have read or listened to anything I’ve said over the past year, the writing was on the wall for Michael Porter Jr. and the Nuggets after the Nuggets signed Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon to contract extensions. With the heavy penalties of the second tax apron facing the Nuggets down, they decided to act quickly, adding Cameron Johnson of the Brooklyn Nets to replace Porter in the lineup.
The move cost Denver a 2032 unprotected first round pick, and in a vacuum, it might not have been worth it. Porter’s availability the last two seasons has been commendable, and the year before, he won a championship playing the same exact role for the Nuggets as he wouldn’t had this season. Porter gave everything for the Nuggets, getting treatment constantly to stay ahead of a tenuous injury situation with three back surgeries. He played through a serious shoulder injury throughout the playoffs, and while it affected his impact, it never affected his competitiveness and desire to help Denver win.
And yet, everyone involved appeared ready for a fresh start. Porter knew this was a possibility dating back to the beginning of last season, and after trade rumors plagued the last 12 months of his life, he gets to move on and create a new situation for himself with the Nets (and perhaps other teams in the future).
In his place, the Nuggets get back Cam Johnson, who might be a slightly better player but is certainly in the same tier as Porter, roughly the fourth or fifth most important player on a title team. The difference is Johnson’s malleability, ongoing health situation, and willingness to play the role Denver needs him to play to the highest possible level. Johnson will make plays within Denver’s offense as a playmaker and off-the-dribble creator that Porter never could, and he will almost always be in the right place at the right time. Nikola Jokic will take advantage of that very quickly.
The Jonas Valanciunas trade
The real magic of the deal Denver did with Brooklyn is that it freed up so much money for Denver to have serious options in free agency. Unfortunately, the center market was picked clean pretty early, and the Nuggets needed to figure out another option.
In come the Sacramento Kings hoping to save money to create space for Dennis Schroder to be their starting point guard next season. An odd decision, but one the Nuggets took advantage of. They were able to persuade the Kings to part with Valanciunas, a less important piece of their rotation than Malik Monk, who they were rumored to be shopping to create cap space. The Nuggets send back Dario Saric in the deal, without any draft picks, giving the Kings the space they need and giving the Nuggets the player they need.
Valanciunas is a solid backup center these days. He’s not going to be a massive factor in Denver’s playoff rotation, but he’s about as good of an option as was available to the Nuggets to get them through the regular season. Last season, Valanciunas averaged about 17 minutes per game backing up Domantas Sabonis after he was traded to the Kings. Denver’s primary center backup last year was DeAndre Jordan, who averaged 12 minutes per game. Those extra five minutes may not seem like a lot, until you realize Jokic set a career high of 36.7 minutes per game last year.
Now, the Nuggets can be more conscientious of Jokic’s workload, keeping him as fresh as possible for a deep playoff run. If the Nuggets played Jokic 65 total games for 32 minutes per game next year, he would play the fewest minutes he’s had to play since his second season in the league (2,080). That’s a significant drop from the 2,571 in played in 70 games last year.
Bruce Brown and Tim Hardaway Jr. on minimum contracts
These are technically deals the Nuggets could have signed without having to incorporate the Porter trade, but they’re still impressive pieces of business. Before free agency, I placed a valuation on Brown’s services at about the Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (~$5.7 million in 2025-26). For Hardaway, I actually put a value for him at closer to the Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (~$14.1 million in 2025-26).
It’s clear that Brown simply wanted to be back in Denver and was willing to sign for what it took to get the deal done. It was surprising to see Hardaway sign for such a low contract though. His market clearly dried up as the Pistons made a subsequent move to sign Duncan Robinson to that NTP-MLE. Still, I’m not quite sure Robinson is a better player than Hardaway at this stage of their careers, and for the Nuggets to get that kind of deal is pretty impressive.
How Brown and Hardaway fit into the mix for the Nuggets is a bit less straightforward than Johnson (starting small forward) or Valanciunas (backup center). The Nuggets still have a few players on their bench that will likely warrant some playing time, particularly four young players in Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, DaRon Holmes II, and Jalen Pickett. Adding those four to the veteran trio of Brown, Hardaway, and Valanciunas, it’s clear that the Nuggets will have some choices to make about who plays when and who gets priority minutes next to Jokic and other starters. Those minutes are valuable throughout the season, and it’s fair to expect Denver to go through some growing pains trying to figure out exactly who should play and when.
But that’s a great problem to have for David Adelman. During the playoffs last year, the Nuggets were scrambling trying to figure out who they could trust to play minutes against the Los Angeles Clippers and Oklahoma City Thunder. Now, the Nuggets can (hopefully) pick and choose based on what the team needs for the situation, not based on who’s actually good enough.
The 15th roster spot
At this current moment, the Nuggets have 14 players with the financial means to add a 15th player if they want to go into the first tax apron. Looking at the depth chart, there’s perhaps a need for a traditional point guard to handle certain situations. The Nuggets could also probably use another bigger forward to provide some depth. Whether they fill either of those gaps with the 15th roster spot remains to be seen.
Russell Westbrook, Vlatko Cancar, and DeAndre Jordan remain unrestricted free agents. The Nuggets could choose to bring back any one of them. Westbrook’s fit with Denver’s second unit is a bit tenuous with Valanciunas at backup center. That pairing doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense in the same ways Westbrook and Saric struggled trying to make it work last year. In addition, the outright role just isn’t there for Westbrook in Denver every single night. The Nuggets will want to play Brown at backup point guard frequently, will continue to explore Pickett’s development, and Jamal Murray will also stagger at times.
Whoever the Nuggets sign at point guard needs to be comfortable not playing every night, and Westbrook doesn’t strike me as willing on that front.
So, perhaps the Nuggets target a point guard like Monte Morris, Kyle Lowry, Dante Exum, or Cory Joseph instead. Perhaps they go after another veteran big man like Larry Nance Jr. or Daniel Theis.
There’s also a world where they keep the 15th roster spot open, allowing the flexibility to add a player on the buyout market. They still have access to the full TP-MLE, and that could be used to acquire another rotation player in a trade. That might be the best solution for Denver at this stage because there isn’t a glaring hole in the rotation at this point, but it might become more glaring leading up the the NBA Trade Deadline in February of next year.
Where do the Nuggets rank among contenders?
According to FanDuel, the Nuggets currently have the fifth best championship odds at +900, behind the Oklahoma City Thunder (+250), New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers (+800), and Houston Rockets (+850).
That seems a bit conservative to me. The Thunder can and should still be the favorites after this move, but the Nuggets did take them to seven games last season with all of the issues they faced. Though the Thunder won a championship, they didn’t do it in as dominant fashion as I initially expected, allowing the Nuggets and Indiana Pacers to get to a seven-game series.
The Rockets, Knicks, and Cavaliers are of course in position as challengers, but I think the Nuggets are probably the team best equipped to defeat the Thunder now. Jokic and Murray now have a better mix of spacing, defense, and versatility around them, and Jokic consistently downloads information to find the best possible way to attack a defense that has harassed him before. Obviously, the Thunder are still incredibly formidable, but with them mostly maintaining the status quo, the Nuggets appear to be rising to their level, or at least much closer than they actually were before.
The playoffs are all about solving problems. The Nuggets were able to do so last season while trusting seven, maybe eight players from game to game. There’s a possibility they can trust 10 or 11 players now when the playoffs roll around, and that isn’t forced to account for the absolutely mandatory development of young players Christian Braun, Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, DaRon Holmes, and Jalen Pickett. Before these moves, those five players were going to be the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th man on a championship contender. Now, the Nuggets can ease them into better situations where they’re more likely to thrive.
I didn’t think the Nuggets could pull this off, but they’re in a much better position than they were 36 hours ago. Time will tell if it’s enough to win a championship.
For now, it’s certainly enough for me.