What's Going On in Denver? Assessing the Nuggets Window

Daniel Waddleton

Oct 26, 2024

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WHEN THE NUGGETS won their first NBA Championship in 2023, many believed it was only the beginning of a potential dynasty for this core. Their starting five fit seamlessly, and Nikola Jokic was clearly the best player in the world with plenty of runway only being 28 years old.

Fast forward a year and a half, and on opening night the Nuggets didn’t even look like they belonged on the same court as the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Western Conference favorite Thunder didn’t even shoot particularly well, yet still comfortably handled Denver, securing a 102-87 victory on the road.

Denver’s bench looks bad, and beyond Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., it’s hard to find even average three-point shooters on this roster to play. In a league where games have almost become a math problem with the sheer volume of threes, it’s clear the Nuggets can’t survive four playoff rounds with this little shooting around the Joker.

To be fair with a transcendent talent like Jokic on the roster, you’re never truly "dead." But last night’s performance genuinely made me wonder -- has Denver’s realistic championship window already closed? How did we get here just 502 days since the start of what looked like a potential dynasty? In this piece, I’ll explore how the roster ended up here, when the championship window really opened, and whether this 2024-25 team is salvageable.

How Did The Roster Get Here?

While the core four players from the 2023 championship team -- Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr., and Aaron Gordon -- are still in Denver, almost all of their other key contributors have moved on without real replacements. The Nuggets might have gone back-to-back in 2024 if they hadn’t lost Bruce Brown and Jeff Green the previous offseason. Then, this past offseason, they also lost 3-and-D guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to Orlando, leaving a significant gap in their perimeter defense and shooting.

The departures of Bruce Brown and Jeff Green are hard to criticize; the Nuggets were simply priced out by teams willing to overpay, especially with Denver’s need to budget for their starting five moving forward. But when it comes to Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, owner Stan Kroenke doesn’t get a pass.

Caldwell-Pope signed a three-year, $66 million contract in the offseason, a bit steep for a very good but somewhat limited two-guard. Still, the Nuggets had no viable way to replace his production, and for a team already lacking in three-point shooting, losing him has been nothing short of a disaster. While Denver could have matched the offer, they cited concerns over the second apron as justification for letting him walk

Sure, there are valid reasons to avoid the second apron -- it can severely limit a team’s flexibility to improve its roster until they’re back under. The Nuggets likely would have been "stuck" with this roster for years to come. Then again, being "stuck" with a roster that was just one bad quarter away last season from being the favorite in the Western Conference Finals seems like the whole point of owning an NBA team.

Even so, I think Kroenke used the second apron’s roster construction restrictions as a convenient excuse to avoid paying Caldwell-Pope, when the real reason was likely to avoid the second aprons repeater tax.

The repeater tax for teams over the second apron essentially means that the further into the tax you go -- and the more frequently you do so -- the higher the penalty on every dollar spent. This is the harshest luxury tax line the league has ever created. Avoiding this in the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons would have been nearly impossible with Caldwell-Pope’s contract on the books, which meant Kroenke’s pockets were going to be hit hard by the tax.

There was, however, a realistic possibility that the Nuggets could have matched Caldwell-Pope’s offer and still avoided the second apron this season with some strategic maneuvering. This would have allowed them to keep their starting five intact and delay any painful roster decisions by at least a year. While it would have been costly in the long run, there’s value in absorbing future penalties and paying through these times to keep a team together when you know it has the potential to win a title.

In the end, Kroenke did what many Nuggets fans anticipated: he allowed Caldwell-Pope to walk rather than absorb the financial hit, leaving a key piece of the championship roster unreplaced. This decision has now forced head coach Michael Malone to further follow suit with GM Calvin Booth’s long-term vision of developing young talent with their current core on the court—even with the team in a critical championship window.

The philosophical divide between Malone and Booth has become increasingly apparent in the last year. Booth, who prioritizes the growth of the Nuggets' young core, has seemed to almost purposefully craft a bench with limited veteran presence, to nudge Malone into giving more minutes to recent draft picks. However, Malone, who values the consistency and experience that veterans bring, has countered by relying on players like Reggie Jackson and DeAndre Jordan, despite them being well past their primes.

This push-pull dynamic has been palpable, with Booth building for the future and Malone aiming to maximize every opportunity with the current roster. For Nuggets fans, it’s both frustrating and fascinating to watch these competing visions play out.

So here we go, Christian Braun steps into the starting lineup. He’s proven he can contribute to a championship team, but he’s not nearly the shooter that Caldwell-Pope was. And now, with Braun in the starting five, what happens to his sixth-man role off the bench? Russell Westbrook was a disaster in the 2024 playoffs for Los Angeles, and through one game in Denver, it doesn’t look any better. Peyton Watson and Julian Strawther are both interesting prospects down the road for different reasons, but neither appears ready to log 25-30 minutes a game in the regular season, let alone in the playoffs.

Even if they had kept Caldwell-Pope, this team would still be extremely thin beyond the starting lineup. But without him and with Braun now in the starting unit, there’s a strong case to be made that Denver now has the worst bench in the league.

When Did The Window Actually Open?

In the middle of the 2020-21 season, it started to become apparent that Nikola Jokic was going to have a real chance to capture his first ever NBA MVP. He had reached a new tier as a player that made the Nuggets a legitimate threat in the Western Conference, but they felt a guy short. They needed a big athletic forward who could guard the best wings in the league, but also fit well next to Nikola Jokic. Welp, at the 2021 trade deadline they welcomed Aaron Gordon to the Mile High City, and the one mis casted swiss army knife number 7 pick was now in the perfect situation for his skill set.

In the middle of the 2020-21 season, it became clear that Nikola Jokic had a real shot at capturing his first NBA MVP. He had reached a new level as a player, making the Nuggets a legitimate threat in the Western Conference, but they still felt one piece short. They needed an athletic forward who could guard the league’s best wings while also fitting seamlessly alongside their superstar center. Enter Aaron Gordon at the 2021 trade deadline. The former No. 7 pick, once miscast as a savior of the franchise type player, finally found the ideal role as a swiss army knife in the Mile High City.

The Nuggets would rip off seven straight games since the trade, and in that moment the chatter started to begin from the smartest of NBA circles that maybe Denver was the team to beat. Coming off a Western Conference Finals appearance the prior season where they just felt a little overmatched by Los Angeles, this Gordon trade was the final piece of the puzzle to climb the mountain.

The Nuggets would rip off seven straight games since the trade, and in that moment whispers from the sharpest NBA circles began, that maybe Denver has become the team to beat. Coming off a Western Conference Finals appearance the previous season, where they had seemed slightly overmatched by Los Angeles, the Aaron Gordon trade appeared to be the final piece they needed to climb the mountain.

I believe that the 2021 trade deadline marked the true opening of Denver’s championship window. They were primed to contend for years with real flexibility to keep the core together and make strategic improvements. The core of Jamal Murray (22), Michael Porter Jr. (23), Aaron Gordon (25), and Nikola Jokic (25) was young and financially manageable. The league was also wide open -- the 2021 champion Milwaukee Bucks were just an inch of Kevin Durant’s foot away from going home in Brooklyn. And as the years go by the 2022 champion Golden State Warriors increasingly seem like they caught some fortunate breaks to secure that title.

Unfortunately, the golden opportunity window was put on hold before it ever had a chance, when Jamal Murray tore his ACL against the Warriors in a game on April 12th, sidelining him for the remainder of the season. The Nuggets spent the next two seasons waiting for Murray’s return, lacking the offensive firepower in the postseason without him. Two seasons -- despite having the league’s MVP and a solid supporting cast -- were essentially lost, with Denver missing a reliable second option on offense.

Since returning from injury, Jamal Murray has really only once managed to rekindle the magic he had before his injury -- during the Nuggets’ 20-game postseason run in 2023. This unbelievable run resulted in Denver hoisted their first-ever Larry O’Brien trophy on their home court. It was a euphoric moment for Nuggets fans, and media members were quick to declare Denver’s championship window wide open for years to come.

But perhaps what we’ve uncovered here is that Denver’s window had been quietly open for years, and those lost seasons were slowly pushing the team toward tougher financial constraints. When Murray struggled to find his rhythm in the 2024 postseason and the Nuggets crumbled in Game 7 against Minnesota, that “giant” championship window all of the sudden felt tiny.

Could The 2024-25 Team Make This Work? If They Can’t, What’s The Future Look Like?

The question now is what this team can realistically accomplish in 2024-25. As I mentioned, it would be foolish to completely count out Denver when they still have Nikola Jokic, one of the most unique and dominant players in the league. Nuggets fans know that if Jokic is on the floor, this team will have a fighting chance. And, of course, the most optimistic among them will say that Jamal Murray could be healthy enough by spring to recreate his 2023 playoff magic.

But to what end? Almost everybody on the roster outside of Murray and Jokic have become overtaxed in their roles, and the Nuggets are simply going to be losing a math problem every night with the disproportionate amount of three’s opposing teams will take (and make) compared to them.

For this team to work, the path forward will rely heavily on the young players Calvin Booth believes are ready to contribute now. Julian Strawther will need to emerge as a reliable volume three-point shooter, and Peyton Watson needs to show some development on the offensive end to compliment his elite defense. It would also be a boost if they can get production from Hunter Tyson this season -- a 6'8" forward Denver was excited about last year but saw very limited minutes. Without meaningful contributions from this young core, combined with a less-than-100% Murray, the Denver bench doesn’t stand a chance to keep the team afloat when Jokic isn’t on the floor.

If the young bench mob flames out and Nuggets fail to reach the NBA Finals this season, it's likely that Michael Porter Jr.'s tenure in Denver will come to an end. He's set to earn $38 million and $40 million over the next two seasons, and given the team's current depth issues, they can't afford to allocate such a significant part of their salary cap to a player who hasn't developed into the self-sufficient offensive force they anticipated.

Despite his limitations, Porter possesses a skill set that could be valuable to a more well-rounded team. He's among the league's top movement shooters and, when fully engaged, can contribute effectively on defense. A potential trade scenario could look something like

Nets: Michael Porter Jr, Draft Capital

Nuggets: Dennis Schroder, Dorian Finney-Smith, DaRon Sharpe

Maybe not exactly that trade, but you get the idea -- a deal where the Nuggets could turn Porter’s sizable salary into multiple players who would immediately crack the rotation and make a real impact. Denver desperately needs a reliable backup point guard and center, and then DFS could slot right into Porter’s place in the starting lineup as a good 3&D wing, just without the elite movement shooting Porter possess.

As for Jamal Murray, the Nuggets are likely tied to him as Jokic’s “Robin.” If Murray can’t consistently reach the heights he displayed in the bubble or in 2023, it will be tough for this Denver team to navigate their way out of the West. A healthy and peak-performing Jamal is essential for any of this to truly work. However, if he can manage to hit that level for even one more playoff run, Jokic is talented enough that a slightly deeper bench might be all they need to fuel another championship push.

Will be an interesting year worth monitoring in Denver this season.