Denver Nuggets
In my mind, Denver poses the biggest long-term threat to the Jazz’ quest for Northwest supremacy. They have a lot of money committed next year but most of those contracts fall off for the 2019 season, which is conveniently when Nikola Jokic needs a very large raise.
The problem with all that money rolling off the books is that those contracts represent talent that Denver is going to need to replace. When you look at the Nuggets’ new core of Jokic, Gary Harris and Jamal Murray, only one of them is locked up (Harris), while Jokic and Murray are both working on rookie deals.
At this point Jokic is a no-brainer for a max deal when his time comes, and if Murray can continue the trajectory he set this year he’s in line for a big payday too. Planning around those huge deals is going to be key for Denver, and any misstep there could cost them a key piece to a championship run.
So what stands in the way? To me, it’s defense (again) and the identity of the roster. First, all three of their new core profile as average defenders at best. None of them seem like real defensive liabilities that will need to be accounted for, but together with the rest of their roster the results were ugly at times (26th in defensive rating this year).
The Nuggets were an elite offensive team this year, so they need to make sure they strike a fine balance in adding defensive pieces that will be able to gel with their studs. If they can just get to league average on defense, they will be a force to be reckoned with.
The other thing that sticks with me about the Nuggets is the identity of the team. They only have seven guys under contract for 2019, four of those being club options and I only see them keeping one (Murray). So this team is likely going to look drastically different in a couple of years.
We know they like to run the offense through Jokic, and it looks like they have an ideal back court pairing with a couple of sharpshooters to put around him. However they seemed to stray from their offense at times during the season. With teams having a full season of film on this wacky offense and the inevitable roster turnover coming, will Denver be able to stick with their principles and build a strong identity around their core?