Let me get this out of the way at the top: I think the Denver Nuggets are perfectly happy with winning 52-54 games and being a 3-4 seed in the Western Conference. Which is … fine.

The team’s arrow is neither pointing dramatically up in juggernaut territory, nor is it pointing down in financial re-set mode. The team’s overall motion is basically straight across. The more analysis of this team I do the more I come to the conclusion this team will be in the low to mid 50’s in wins. That arrow is straight across and as flat as the landscape in eastern Colorado. It’s the offseason that says it’s not quite ‘run it back’ but it’s like New Coke … it’s basically the same thing only with a slightly worse flavor.


Your view of the this Nuggets team will be heavily influenced by your opinion of last season. There’s only two options: Team is great and was only derailed by injuries or team has been on a downward spiral since the title season and they did nothing to get themselves out of their financial and competitive malaise.

Both viewpoints are valid.

I’m weirdly in the middle of both of those views of this team. I think that Aaron Gordon’s injuries very specifically derailed the Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs not Peyton Watson (more on him below). I also think that the team hasn’t exactly inspired great confidence in contention since maybe the 2023-24 season and without a re-set things will be stuck in mud. I contain multitudes and you all should as well.

Nothing the Nuggets did this offseason in the player acquisition department does anything but keep the Nuggets sort of in the ballpark of where they have been the last three seasons. Marvin Bagley (serviceable back up 5 and spot 4), Tyus Jones (adequate back up point guard), Alpha Diallo (big question mark) and the drafted second round players including Trevon Brazile (don’t figure to get much substantial playing time) aren’t what you call ‘needle movers’. The minimum signing of Demar DeRozan will be a balast for the Nuggets bench but there are serious spacing and ‘fit’ questions with Nikola Jokic. DeRozan should provide enough bucket getting to prop up a very offensively shaky second unit. They will keep the Nuggets … afloat.

A floating they shall be on the HMS 3 (or) 4 Seed.

If someone spoke to me after the Nuggets lost in the first round to old friend Tim Connelly’s (very injured) Minnesota Timberwolves team I probably would have said blow it the eff up and rebuild for 2028 around Jokic. On a bad day I might say something along those lines. Truth of the matter is things are more nuanced in 2026 with Second Aprons, Repeater Taxes and a certain superstar who’s heading very uncomfortably toward unrestricted free agency.

The anxiety that floated around the Peyton Watson restricted free agency saga — and the fallout from the sign and trade that netted the Nuggets that Cleveland Cavaliers unprotected 2031 first — could boil down to be less about Watson himself than the very VERY odd circumstance of Jokic’s lack of contract extension. Everyone is certain that Jokic will re-sign, from the Nuggets to the people who cover the team (myself included). However … it is weird. It is uncomfortable. There’s tiny grain’s of uneasiness about this season going dramatically sideways and creating a new set of variables we didn’t think about before.

It’s all there in the back of our minds so when the Watson saga plays out like it does we start thinking the sky is falling. It objectively isn’t … but it feels that way. I’ll repeat something I said on my podcast over and over this summer; Peyton Watson wasn’t worth the anxiety and mental brain power everyone was using to obsess about it. The Nuggets saw him as a slightly above mid-level player. Peyton’s team (Klutch) wanted above Christian Braun money. There is the binary and it played out as you saw. I don’t think the Nuggets are losing as much as people believe they are with Watson leaving but it FEELS SO MUCH WORSE. The Jokic weirdness just sort of amplifies the anxiety.

Once again. I fully and with my entire heart expect Jokic to sign a mega-extension in the offseason of 2027. It’s just weird. There is a ton of trust that needs to be applied here.

To that point: During this weird year the Nuggets are sort of biding their time. No needle up. No needle down. Just half measures designed to keep the Nuggets on the same plane. Hoping beyond hope that players who’ve struggled with injury for the last several seasons will be completely healthy this season. They are behaving like a team that isn’t worried in the slightest that their legendary player is walking out that door. At the same time that laissez-faire approach is just a little incongruous with the urgency of time and Jokic’s impending potential big offseason in 2027

So that makes what is largely just a ho-hum off season a bit more weird and causes The Ringer to put out an article about how the Nuggets should be embarassed. I’ve gone over and over and over the mistakes that have been made by the Nuggets organization that has led us to this point since 2022. Between going all in on late first and second round picks, to squandering second round assets to dump players and/or draft someone who is parked on the bench. From allowing a cold war/blood feud to linger between coach and GM to hiring an inexperienced head coach to preside over a contending team. None of that really applies here. The Nuggets intent is clear as day. They believe that a completely healthy Nuggets team with the band aids applied this year is … fine. Not great. Not terrible. Fine.It’s the feeling that this kind of approach leaves you with though. Did they do enough? Why aren’t they being more urgent? If the second apron and repeater tax are such big factors, why no big trade to relieve the books? All of these questions linger over the Nuggets like a stink cloud in a Peanuts cartoon. 

Apr 6, 2026; Denver, Colorado, USA; Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) reacts after a play as forward Cam Johnson (23) and forward Aaron Gordon (32) and guard Christian Braun (0) and guard Jamal Murray (27) look on in the fourth quarter against the Portland Trail Blazers at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

One last note: All of these sort of staying in place, half measure moves have perplexed everyone from national media to people in the league. When there is confusion in the NBA it starts the birds a chirpin’ and not only have the Nuggets sort of done nothing to move their own needle they have, additionally, sort of invited what is sure to be a hellish year of rumor mongering and migraine inducing speculation to the mix. This is not going to be fun. It heightens that feeling that the Nuggets just holding fort isn’t good enough when in reality they will be a 3 or 4 seed and win over 50 games. It’s just a feeling though. Feelings go away.Most of the time.(Column written before it was revealed that Enos Stanley Kroenke just bought the Los Angeles Angels for over 4 billion dollars which … deserves it’s own column. Or podcast. Just listen to the Mortcast on CSG)