A FUN POLL question for executives and coaches in this late July calm, with free agency about done and two major potential trade-slash-contract situations -- Lauri Markkanen and Brandon Ingram -- as yet unresolved: If you had to pick one West team to make the Finals, who would it be?
Maybe three-quarters of respondents open their mouths right away as if to deliver a confident response -- only to clam up and furrow their brows. For these folks, there is no team that inspires the same confidence as the defending champion Denver Nuggets did one year ago -- even after losing Bruce Brown in free agency.
The 25% who answer with immediate certainty mostly choose the Oklahoma City Thunder -- incumbent No. 1 seed and winners of the offseason after trading for Alex Caruso and signing Isaiah Hartenstein.
For the other 75%, youth was the only worry about Oklahoma City. Some ended up there anyway. All of them went through a similar internal monologue. Why isn't it the Minnesota Timberwolves? Anthony Edwards is an ascendant superstar who averaged 27.6 points on 48% shooting over 16 rugged playoff games. They got over the first-round hump. Kyle Anderson was their only major loss. Can I trust Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert? Wasn't Towns kind of up-and-down in the postseason?
Why not a repeat run for the Dallas Mavericks? No one has a great rebuttal -- only that Dallas making the Finals was a surprise, and so a sequel seems somehow unlikely too.
Next comes the flailing. The LA Clippers are dead. The Golden State Warriors couldn't even make the playoffs. Maybe if they get Markkanen we can talk. The Phoenix Suns were a mess. The New Orleans Pelicans? Sacramento Kings? Dare I mention that the Los Angeles Lakers still have multiple first-round picks to trade? What about the Memphis Grizzlies! They're back! Do we trust Ja Morant?
For some, the conversation then circles all the way back one calendar year: Why isn't it Denver again? As long as the world's best player is healthy, be wary of discounting the Nuggets.
They have been labeled offseason losers after Kentavious Caldwell-Pope bolted for a three-year, $66 million deal with the Orlando Magic.
Denver made Caldwell-Pope an offer, but there was a sizable gap in annual salary, sources said. Denver could have tried compensating with a longer deal averaging a little north of Caldwell-Pope's $15 million player option number -- say a 5-year, $90 million contract -- but the Magic's offer might have rendered the conversation moot.
In consecutive offseasons, the Nuggets lost three of their eight playoff rotation players from that 2022-23 title run in Brown, Jeff Green, and Caldwell-Pope. Young players drafted specifically because of their readiness for immediate minutes have been scattershot, injured, or out of the rotation. Those players face enormous pressure -- as does the front office that drafted them, headed by general manager Calvin Booth. Nikola Jokic is 29. The time to win big is now.
BOOTH REMAINS CONFIDENT in the youth movement. "I think it's a myth that if you play young guys you can't win," Booth told ESPN. "If you look at championship teams, they tend to have one or two guys in their rotation with three years or fewer of experience. You need to balance experience with youth and athleticism. Coach [Michael] Malone will do a great job putting it all together."
Christian Braun, entering his third season, is the favorite to replace Caldwell-Pope in the starting five -- although Booth said there could be a camp competition featuring Peyton Watson and second-year player Julian Strawther. Braun has hit 37% of his career 3s, but on only 3.3 attempts per 36 minutes -- two below Caldwell-Pope's typical attempt rate. Defenses do not yet respect Braun's shot. He is not on Caldwell-Pope's level shooting off of handoffs and quick zigzaggy movements.
Watson shot 30% on 3s last season; postseason defenses ignored him until Malone pulled Watson from the rotation in favor of veteran journeyman Justin Holiday. Strawther hit 30% as a rookie before injuries torpedoed his season, but he profiles as a plus shooter.
The Nuggets fell from 22nd to dead last in 3-point attempt rate last season. Given their offseason changes -- and some likely to come -- they are at risk of sinking further. That drop-off was one reason their postseason offense sputtered; the Nuggets scored only 109.5 points per 100 possessions in series against the Lakers and Wolves -- a mark that would have ranked 26th in the regular-season. Those opponents limited Denver's elite offensive rebounding -- one way the Nuggets make up for their lack of 3s. Their free throw rate, long a weak spot, fell even lower in the postseason.
Denver shoots very well at the rim and from the midrange, those floater zones most defenses concede. It has become a reliably solid defensive team. You can project all of that and still wonder: There must be some threshold of 3-point attempts below which it becomes too difficult for any team to win four playoff series, even if said team boasts a three-time MVP. Pinning down that magic threshold is impossible; health, chemistry, and postseason matchups are unknowns. But it exists somewhere, and the Nuggets are testing it.
Denver's 3-point attempt rate was 11% below the league average last season, per Cleaning The Glass. Since 2018, the 2019-20 Nuggets are the only team with a 3-point rate at least 10% below the league average to even make the conference finals, according to ESPN's Kevin Pelton. In that same span, only five other teams with a 3-point rate that far below the league's average have won at least 60% of regular-season games. Four of those five lost in second-round upsets as the higher seed -- including last season's Nuggets. The other lost in the first round as an underdog. No team has made the Finals since 2012 with a 3-point rate more than 7% below the league's average, per Pelton's research.
"It's a concern, but it's down the list of my concerns," Booth said. "We need to play to the strengths of our team. We don't want to obsess over it."
"I'm more worried about the mental and physical state of our team," Booth continued. "[Caldwell-Pope] is a championship player. We hated to lose him. And we've had guys going through deep personal adversity."
Aaron Gordon's brother, Drew, died in a car accident in May. Jontay Porter, Michael Porter Jr.'s younger brother, was banned from the NBA and pleaded guilty to one federal charge for his role in a gambling scandal. In April, Coban Porter, another Porter brother, was sentenced to six years in prison for a drunken driving crash that killed a woman in Colorado. The emotional toll dwarfs basketball.
Late in the playoffs, there was a sense internally that the Nuggets were worn out from a long championship run and a hard second-half push for the No. 1 seed -- one that came up barely short after a shocking loss to the 22-win San Antonio Spurs in Denver's second-to-last game. That loss cost Denver the No. 1 seed and slotted it on the same side of the bracket as the Wolves -- the West team about which the Nuggets were most concerned. Minnesota eliminated Denver in the second round. Jamal Murray shot 40% in the playoffs while dealing with a calf injury.
Atop the physical grind, the Nuggets, like any reigning champions, fought to summon the same hunger for a second title as they had chasing the first.
"The larger motivation matters," Booth said. "We had so many guys with chips on their shoulders [in 2022-23]. We had Jamal and Michael coming back from injury. Nikola already had a lot of individual accolades, but he's about team success. Last year was a little more challenging because of that hangover from winning it."
Even the conversation about 3s can become a much larger one about the team's broader ecosystem.
THE CALDWELL-POPE SITUATION hinged on team-building realities as well as dollars. Matching Orlando's offer could have set the Nuggets up for three straight years above the second apron.
The roster-building penalties in that stratosphere are onerous. Denver might have been able to keep Caldwell-Pope and duck the second apron this season by salary-dumping Zeke Nnaji, but repeating that in 2025-26 and 2026-27 could have required shedding key players.
Teams in apron range fear the potential costs of apron-related salary dumps -- the draft picks teams will demand in return for absorbing contracts. The Chicago Bulls are not an apron team, but the challenges they've had finding a Zach LaVine escape route have the apron contingent on red alert.
Of course, the counter would be that if you have a proven championship-level team, you shouldn't be so worried about restrictions that "lock" you into such a team. It would be naive to ignore the luxury tax benefits to the Kroenke family -- owners of the Nuggets franchise -- of replacing Caldwell-Pope with less expensive players. The Nuggets paid the luxury tax in 2022-23 and last season, and they are slated to pay it again this season. That bill would have been much bigger with Caldwell-Pope. Paying it again in 2025-26 or 2026-27 would trigger punitive repeater tax penalties.
No one wants to hear billionaires whine about paying to maintain a title team. But when the penalties reach nine figures, the combination of finances and apron restrictions will drive most owners in this direction.
The Nuggets used one of their only salary tools last offseason to re-sign Reggie Jackson. Jackson was solid, but the Nuggets attached multiple second-round picks to offload his salary this month. They effectively replaced his salary slot with Dario Saric on a two-year, $10.5 million deal with a player option. Saric has been a decent backup since tearing his ACL in the 2021 Finals, but he has also fallen out of rotations at times.
Among Saric's competition for minutes is Nnaji, now the fifth-highest-paid Nugget after Denver signed him to a four-year, $32 million extension last offseason. Nnaji shot 26% on 3s for the second straight season. His rebounding remains an issue.
Russell Westbrook is reportedly coming, likely on another two-year deal with a player option, per league sources. Westbrook is perhaps the worst high-volume 3-point shooter in history, and he has done well recently to excise all but wide-open corner 3s.
The Nuggets are hopeful Westbrook can create 3s for teammates by pushing the pace amid stretchier reserve-heavy lineups with Saric at center. Westbrook's rim pressure generates free throws; Denver needs more of those.
Braun has shot well from deep in limited chances as a starter; his volume should bump up. Caldwell-Pope's volume -- 4.6 3s per 36 minutes, lowest since his rookie year -- was not high to begin with. Braun can "become a Danny Green-like two-way player," Booth said. "Three-point shooting is not going to hinder him."
Strawther hit 40.8% from deep in his last college season and tore up summer league while leaning more into his off-the-bounce game. He's a natural fit bobbing and weaving around Jokic, and flashed more potential on defense than expected as a rookie. The team should play with more speed and force -- something that could help reverse Denver's slide in free throw rate. Vlatko Cancar is back as a jack-of-all-trades minutes stopper.
Murray and Porter probably just need to take more 3s -- even semi-contested looks, and more pull-ups for Murray on the pick-and-roll. The math has reached the point where the Nuggets cannot be too picky, passing up decent 3s in hopes of finding perfect shots. It is natural to assume Jokic will uncover the most efficient shot if the team keeps prodding. He often does. But Denver needs to tilt the math.
"We are at our best when Jamal takes a lot of 3s," Booth said.
But there is more to the "how" of generating 3s. Denver coaches and Booth's staff have watched defenses try more counters to the dreaded Murray-Jokic pick-and-roll. No one has stopped it, but the best teams have gotten smarter about squeezing in at the right times and taking away the easiest shots more often.
"Teams have changed coverages and tried to make it a little more difficult," Booth said. Last season, the Nuggets saw more opponents sell out to take away Murray's pocket passes to Jokic -- even if it meant allowing a semi-open Murray floater or decent jumper. That two-man game will always be Denver's tentpole, but has the team overused it -- and become a hair too predictable?
"There might need to be some diversifying of the offense," Booth said.
Pace is part of that. Perhaps even more inverted pick-and-rolls, with Jokic as ball handler, and sprinkling in more complex scripted sets. The Nuggets already give the ball to Jokic at the nail a ton, shooters orbiting him, but could they dial that up 5%? What about a smidgen more of Porter at power forward in shooting-heavy lineups when Gordon rests? Is that viable if it requires chipping away at Gordon's minutes?
For all the fretting about Denver now, these guys had Minnesota down 20 in Game 7 at home. They would have been favorites over the Mavericks in the conference finals. A potential Finals against Boston loomed as a titanic matchup. The Celtics would have probably been slight favorites, with home court, but they had a healthy respect for Denver. The Nuggets swept Boston in the regular season, winning two nail-biters.
Expectations for (and from) Westbrook should be tempered, although there are slices of Denver's rotation and style where it could work on some nights: on the break with Jokic, securing extra possessions on the glass, forcing the issue on the pick-and-roll, helming non-Jokic units that have generally failed. Jokic has already thought this through dozens of steps ahead; if anyone can make it work, it's him.
But Westbrook's jumper is broken. When his franticness bursts out in the wrong directions, it is damaging. His disastrous performance in the playoffs last season was worrisome. The Nuggets can withstand the Westbrook experiment failing, although it would leave somewhat of a void at backup point guard.
After an offseason that unsettled some fans, the Nuggets -- with an all-time great at his apex -- might face more pressure to win than any other team this season. (The Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers could each make a case.)
The Nuggets bet big that Caldwell-Pope was not indispensable -- that they have some answers in-house. One of them has to be more 3s.