The Denver Nuggets unceremonious departure from the 2026 playoffs has left the franchise, and fanbase, wondering what are the correct steps to take to get back to the promised land. The NBA is currently in it’s era of parity with now eight different champions over the past eight seasons. The Nuggets have arguably the greatest player on earth in Nikola Jokic but he will turn 32 years old this season. The time to strike is now. In parts 1 and 2 of this series we looked at major changes the Nuggets could consider (or could have considered) to either coaching or the roster. However, there’s a third option available to them, and it’s one that team Governor Josh Kroenke certainly did not rule out in his end of season press conference: run it back.
This is of course the least sexy of all the options and one that is probably the hardest to get fans behind. The Nuggets 2026 playoff run was an abject failure, there’s no two ways about it, so simply saying we think we can do better with the same group next season won’t inspire a lot of confidence. However, there are reasons to think that the Nuggets can win a title with their group as currently constructed and there’s something to be said for continuity and it’s effect on success. The problem the Nuggets will face is running it back isn’t as simple as it seems and unless they are willing to pay deep penalties for going into the second luxury tax apron, they simply won’t be able to bring back every key player from their roster. They can keep their core together though and try to make moves in the margins, or simply bank on development, to improve the complimentary players in the rotation.
Running it back starts with a discussion on where Denver sits today. The Nuggets have ten players who are either under contract or have a team option for next season which allows them to simply retain the player at their option salary for next season. Those players are Denver’s starting five, Jonas Valanciunas, Zeke Nnaji, Julian Strawther, DaRon Holmes & Jalen Pickett. They also have some level of control via free agency over two other players who had fully guaranteed NBA deals last season. Peyton Watson and Spencer Jones are both restricted free agents meaning the Nuggets can match any offer given to those players and retain them under the terms of those offers. An NBA roster holds 15 guaranteed slots as well as three two-way slots, so the majority of Denver’s roster should be expected to be retained. However, three players are outright unrestricted free agents (Tim Hardaway Jr., Bruce Brown and Tyus Jones) who are free to sign wherever they please and even restricted free agency can get tricky for a team as tight up against luxury tax aprons like the Nuggets.
The salary cap implications are not something the Nuggets can dismiss. They have yet to go into the luxury tax’s second apron since it was introduced in 2024, and have demonstrated a strategy that seems, at least in some part, built around avoiding it. Former GM Calvin Booth was quite vocal about his plan to build out the back end of the Nuggets rotation with players on cheap, rookie contracts in order to be able to maintain Denver’s core. That didn’t work out so well for Calvin and hence the title “former GM.” Denver is once again facing some tough decisions if they want to stay under that second tax apron which is anticipated to be $222 million (the official number should come in about two weeks, just before the start of the new league year on July 1st). Currently, Denver’s ten players under contract or with a team option next season total just under $214 million (check out Spotrac.com to get a full breakdown of the Nuggets salary table) leaving them just $8 million to play with before they come up against what is effectively a hard cap for them. You can convince yourself that the Nuggets will cross the 2nd apron, but all their actions over the past two seasons seem to indicate they view the 2nd apron as a hard cap and do not intend to exceed it.
There’s not a ton of options in terms of salary cap relief available to the Nuggets. Valanciunas can get them the most savings, his contract next season is only guaranteed for $2 million but carries a $10 million value if they choose to keep him. They have until July 8th to make that decision. The easiest thing to do would be to release him and save the $8 million, dropping the Nuggets guaranteed salary burden to about $206 million but Big Val did legitimately play a role in Denver’s rotation last season as their backup center. That role diminished over time and was spotty at best in the playoffs, but the need for a backup center to spell Nikola is always a Nuggets side quest and Valanciunas might have been the best they’ve ever done at completing it. Without him in the picture Denver will either have to fill that role by signing another player, which they have limited capacity to do, or by hoping that either Nnaji or Holmes can be trusted to fill that role full time. Neither player has done that so far in their careers.
Utilizing the existing roster or bringing back low cost players will be part of the plan, thats almost guaranteed. It starts with the one player of Denver’s ten slated to be on the roster next season that currently still has a team option out on him which is Pickett. The Nuggets must decide whether or not to retain him for next year by June 26th but it seems pretty silly to not do that. Jalen will only cost them $2.4 million, essentially the veteran’s minimum, and he showed promise last season when given the backup PG role. Another year of development and the low price tag should be all Denver needs to make the decision to retain him. After that it’s a little bit more muddy. Brown is an unrestricted free agent but he’s not coming off a fantastic playoff run where he was a key bench player that helped a team win a title like he was after the 2023 season. That Summer he was rewarded by the Indiana Pacers with a two year, $45 million deal that put him out of the range Denver could legally sign him for. However this past season, while still a key role player, was more muted in terms of success and Bruce came back to the Nuggets on a veteran minimum deal the minute free agency opened. He seems to thoroughly enjoy playing, and living, in Denver and he may not get more than veteran minimum offers elsewhere this Summer as well. If he wants to return for the vet min again, Denver should retain him for cheap veteran depth if nothing else.
Denver’s two restricted free agents, Spencer Jones and Peyton Watson (I’m excluding two-way players here) are wildly different scenarios. Jones was the benefactor of many injuries to the Nuggets roster last season which thrust him into a starters role and he made the most of it. Originally a two-way player, his play in place of Aaron Gordon (and the NBA’s rules limiting the number of games a two-way player can play in a season) earned him a fully guaranteed NBA contract for the rest of the year. Once guys started to get more healthy (and as Spencer got dinged up himself) his role and success were lessened, but he still showed he is 100% an NBA level player. He’s probably not going to gain a ton of interest on the open market, however a lower price tag will make him an option for almost all teams in the league as he will be eligible to be signed under one of the couple of NBA salary cap exceptions so it shouldn’t be surprising at all to see another team give him an offer. The question will become if a team uses something like a taxpayer mid-level exception (approximately $6 million) to make an offer to Spencer, will Denver be willing to use that much of their very limited cap flexibility to retain Jones or will they convince themselves they can find someone else at the NBA veteran minimum ($2.2 million) to do the same job?
Watson is far more complicated than $4-8 million dollars. When the Nuggets were reeling with injuries in January, Watson shone as essentially the third star on the roster. He elevated his play to being one of Denver’s go to scorers while maintaining the excellent defense that has been his calling card thus far in the NBA. He was named the Western Conference Player of the Week during that time and showed his ability to initiate offense and be a shot creator. That type of skill set comes at a premium in the NBA and though his time in the spotlight was brief, Peyton could garner some serious interest this summer. A team like the Los Angeles Lakers looms large given Watson is from the Los Angeles area and the Lakers are likely to be looking to rebuild around Luka Doncic and sans LeBron James. If L.A. moves on from LeBron they’ll have ample cap space to work with and could easily offer Peyton north of $20 million. Given Christian Braun got $21 million per season from Denver last year, its fairly reasonable to think Watson will get a similar amount. His floor appears to be lower than Christian’s but his ceiling also appears to be higher. Without other moves to clear space, giving Watson over $20 million will mean Denver is going into the second apron.
The Watson dilemma really calls into question what “running it back” even means. If we accept that the Nuggets will not go into the 2nd apron then either Watson, Cameron Johnson or Christian Braun is not going to be part of the team next season. Any trade of Jokic, Jamal Murray or Aaron Gordon would clearly mean Denver is not running it back. Essentially the term, in the context of the Nuggets 2026-2027 season at least, means swapping out one of those three wings for a more affordable player. However, the Nuggets have another player on the wings that is almost guaranteed to not be back as well. Hardaway Jr., like Brown, signed for a veteran minimum this season, but unlike Brown his performance is likely to garner him a large raise. Hardaway ended up being a finalist for the NBA’s sixth man of the year this season and showed he’s clearly got gas left in the tank at age 34. His age also means he’s likely to want to cash in off his bounce back season and while he’s indicated he’s enjoyed playing in Denver, it would be foolish to think he won’t jump at the chance to get one last big payday. A “run it back” plan almost seems certain to not include Hardaway.
There’s reason to think Denver can be ok on that front at least. Strawther, like Pickett, showed flashes last season of being an everyday rotation player and his shooting and scoring ability make him a prime candidate to fill Tim’s role. He’s sort of been teetering on the edge of the rotation for two seasons now so he doesn’t need to make a large jump in development to take on the scorer off the bench role. The Nuggets can also attempt to catch lightning in a bottle twice and look again for a scorer in free agency who they can get on a veteran minimum salary, but that seems like a pretty big gamble. At the end of the day, “running it back” probably looks like the Nuggets keeping eight of their ten guaranteed contracts on the books next season while letting Valanciunas go and trading either Braun or Johnson to be able to retain Watson. They might be able to bring Brown back on a minimum again, use their MLE money to retain Jones and then they’d fill out the final four guaranteed roster spots with extremely low cost free agents and their late 1st round pick in the upcoming draft. A run it back rotation might look something like this:
PG – Murray, Pickett
SG – Braun, Brown
SF – Watson, Strawther
PF – Gordon, Jones
C – Jokic, Holmes/Nnaji
Man, old Calvin would be beaming at that rotation and might even pull a muscle patting himself on the back. Jokes aside though, it’s an extremely feasible rotation and frankly…one that can win a title.
Yes, Denver came up woefully short of championship expectations and yes that rotation I laid out utilizes 10 players who were all on the roster that came up woefully short last season. However, there’s no questioning that the Nuggets were given a tough hand with all the injuries they had. That starting lineup I proposed missed a combined 136 games last year and that made it difficult to build momentum and find continuity. Additionally, the absences of Gordon and Watson during the playoffs were a major reason for Denver’s early exit. Without two of their best defenders, the Nuggets were consistently the victims of blow-bys against the Minnesota Timberwolves who already presented one of the tougher matchups for Denver. Some better injury luck and a different path through the Western Conference playoffs could have made things a lot different this season.
There is also the consideration that has to be given to the fact that two of Denver’s big three were All NBA players this season. Only the Oklahoma City Thunder and Detroit Pistons can make that claim outside of the Nuggets and they were both the top seeds in their respective conferences. The Nuggets undoubtedly have to top end talent to get over the hump and have already proven that with their 2023 title. With players like Watson, Pickett, Strawther, Jones and Holmes continuing to develop, it’s easy to see how a run it back strategy could get the Denver over the top simply with growth and better health. However, if your plan to win a championship involves hoping guys who missed 136 games combined last year will be healthy and that five rotation players will continue to take a development leap…well, you’re probably doing a lot of praying.
We know Denver will not be making a coaching change before the season starts, we know they don’t have the money to go out and make splashy free agent signings and we know that star trades are very risky and difficult to pull off. The overwhelming likelihood, in my opinion, is the Nuggets will more or less return with the same group of guys as they had last season and will hope to get better luck on the injury front. Kroenke described last season as one that never was because of all the injuries. He noted that running it back was on the table and what the Nuggets would do if they determined it was the best way to remain competitive. I don’t think anyone should be shocked if that’s what they end up doing. Whether or not the fans will be disappointed will be a matter of their own feelings towards Denver’s roster…and how much praying they are doing.
