The Denver Nuggets season begins tomorrow.
The NBA season began last night though. It’s been irritating between this season and last season for the Nuggets to open the season on Thursday against a team that played on opening night. The Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver’s opening opponent, looked like a well-oiled machine in taking out their new Western Conference nemesis, the San Antonio Spurs.
Nuggets fans will end their long wait tomorrow night though, and the season can finally begin in earnest.
Depending on who you ask, this season is seen as a retribution season by some and just another contention opportunity by others. Denver’s abrupt playoff exit last year opened the door for both viewpoints.
On one hand, the Nuggets went out sad in the first round, their only first round exit with both Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray healthy. Yes, Aaron Gordon and the now excommunicated Peyton Watson were injured, but the Minnesota Timberwolves only needed Jaden McDaniels, Rudy Gobert, and Ayo Dosunmu to take down the Nuggets in six games. Now, they will have a backcourt featuring LaMelo Ball and Anthony Edwards that promises to be explosive.
On the other hand, the Nuggets didn’t have Aaron Gordon. He’s really important. There are players and coaches within the Nuggets organization that don’t see last season as anywhere close to a fair approximation of who the Nuggets are simply because of Gordon’s absence. Placing that entire burden at the legs of one power forward is a tough sell, but the numbers agree, as does Denver’s visceral reaction whenever they’re missing their favorite glue guy.
So, after doubling down on the same starting group, what comes next for the Nuggets? The bench is revamped (or at least very different) and the starters are refreshed after a longer than expected offseason. Will that lead to a change?
Let’s make seven bold predictions on Denver’s season:
Denver’s All-Bench dream lasts until Christmas
It’s been discussed by head coach David Adelman that his desire is for the Nuggets starters to not have to stagger, at least at the beginning of the season. It’s an admirable sentiment and offers a lot of confidence for a bench group that has more optionality to offer than initially expected.
Players like DeMar DeRozan, Spencer Jones, and Marvin Bagley figured to be every night options for Denver from the beginning, but others have shown some stuff too.
Tyus Jones has added some stability as a facilitator. Julian Strawther was having a great preseason until suffering a knee injury (he’s out until early December). Alpha Diallo looks like an elite perimeter defender early on. Rookie Trevon Brazile has shown exactly what athleticism, length, shooting touch, and competitiveness can earn as a young guy.
In addition, Cam Whitmore, Bryce Hopkins, and Ryan Nembhard have all shown some utility on two-way contracts entering the season.
There’s a lot of good that came from Denver’s second unit options, but the regular season is a different beast. The starters will mostly be good, but the moment that lineup breaks up in the middle of the first and third quarter, there are questions about how the Nuggets blend lineups together and what Denver’s second unit is actually going to look like against teams that stagger starting caliber players.
With Strawther expecting to return in early December, I think Adelman gives the group another three weeks beyond that to see if there’s a way to keep the minutes down for the starters. Christmas is almost exactly one third of the way through the season though, and I expect Denver to go back to staggering a starter by that point due to lineup struggles between the starters’ success.
Cam Johnson has his first 30-point game with the Nuggets by Game 10
In 54 games with the Denver Nuggets last year, Cam Johnson had zero 30-point games. He had 28 points in a November loss to the San Antonio Spurs without Victor Wembanyama, but his next highest scoring performances were three 20-point games vs Utah, Sacramento, and Memphis.
It’s difficult to criticize the Nuggets offense that ranked first in the NBA in offensive rating last year, but one of their weak points was taking advantage of how good Cam Johnson actually is. He shot 43% from three but attempted more than five three-pointers just 17 times last year. This year, that number is required to go up, especially on an expiring contract in which Johnson is hoping to prove to the Nuggets (and to the rest of the league) that he’s a dynamic wing who deserves a significant pay day next offseason.
I think Johnson goes nuclear in a game early in the season against the New Orleans Pelicans, Golden State Warriors, or Phoenix Suns, undersized teams in the frontcourt that will over rotate to Nikola Jokic in the middle of the floor. It’s on Johnson to hunt out those opportunities and take the shots as they’re offered.
Denver’s Defense shows signs of real growth but trails off in 2027
I believe the Nuggets when they say they want to improve defensively. Every team wants to be better, but only a portion will actually display real growth.
For Denver, health is a major factor. Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun are two important elements of Denver’s defense, and neither was healthy after about November 12th last season. If both stay away from the injury bug, Denver’s floor for defense is higher than before. Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray also showed some defensive oomph in the final preseason game, so I expect the team to look good initially.
It’s a really long season though. Denver’s bench is going to go through growing pains, and the starters are going to have to compensate early on. Then, the stagger will probably start back up at some point, and the minutes will go up. Once that happens (and if there’s an injury) I think the Nuggets will noticeably pull back on the defensive intensity from their main guys until after the All-Star break. That will have a significant impact on Denver’s night-to-night defense.
Aaron Gordon plays 60 games
This is certainly a bit of wishful thinking, but Aaron Gordon deserves it. After playing 51 games in 2024-25 and just 36 games in 2025-26, Gordon looked very impressive in preseason and is hoping to hit the regular season running.
The nagging calf and hamstring maladies have definitely been frustrating, but there’s no reason to put Gordon into a position this year to have to play through anything. Spencer Jones has experience filling in as a starting power forward, the Nuggets drafted Trevon Brazile to bring some oomph from the second unit, and Denver has small ball (Cam Johnson/DeMar DeRozan) and big ball (Marvin Bagley) options to fill in whenever Gordon needs time off.
The Nuggets are a better team and more fun to watch when Gordon’s a part of things. Here’s to him finding some good fortune on the health front this season.
Jamal Murray’s numbers go down (and it’s a good thing)
Murray just had an impressive All-Star and All-NBA campaign while averaging 25 points and 7 assists per contest. He carried so much burden for the Nuggets last year, and now it’s time for him to take a breath offensively.
Christian Braun’s involvement on offense has to go up during the regular season to remove some playmaking and scoring pressure from Murray’s plate at all times. Cam Johnson’s scoring volume has plenty of room for improvement. If Aaron Gordon’s going to play 60 games, then that’s another 24 the Nuggets didn’t have last year, over a quarter of a season.
In addition, if the Nuggets aren’t planning on staggering, Tyus Jones and DeMar DeRozan will be handling most of the playmaking responsibilities at the outset, meaning Murray isn’t tasked with as many one-man army possessions as the last few years.
If Murray merely averages 23.5 points and 6.5 assists this year instead of 25 and 7, it might be seen as regression by some. I won’t see it that way too, especially if the offense remains excellent and Denver’s defense takes a step forward in the process.
One bench player averages 20+ minutes per game post All-Star Break, and it’s Alpha Diallo
As the Nuggets attempt to recover their defensive mojo post ASB, it becomes clear that Alpha Diallo is their best hope for raising the defensive floor. With the Nuggets likely consolidating their rotation and playing higher minutes for starters, the question then becomes: which bench player helps out the starters the most?
Diallo is the answer there. The Nuggets need a perimeter defender to take on tough assignments, allow other starters to stagger, and help Nikola Jokic by reducing his workload defensively. Diallo still has much to prove in the NBA, but it’s clear how much he can contribute defensively, and the Nuggets will be searching for ways to play him against the best guards and wings in the NBA.
Of course, this may seem like a barb at DeMar DeRozan. DeRozan is helpful in other ways and will give the Nuggets the assistance they need on the offensive end, creating consistent scoring chances in units when other options aren’t consistent. Still, the starters will all be playing 28 to 30+ minutes by that point, and if Diallo takes a larger role, there’s only so many minutes to go around.
Can Diallo handle that burden? We will find out.
The Nuggets lose in the first round to the Minnesota Timberwolves again
This is going to seriously irritate some people, but there’s a serious chance it happens. I have the Nuggets winning 50 games and being the fourth seed in the Western Conference. That’s a pretty solid outcome, but only if Denver has a good draw for the first round.
The problem? I have the Houston Rockets as the third seed and the Los Angeles Lakers as the sixth seed, which means the only other team in that tier, the Minnesota Timberwolves, is the five seed and Denver’s first round opponent.
After the Timberwolves defeated the Nuggets in 2024, they traded Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks, which gave Nuggets fans hope after Towns made a major impact against Jokic and Denver the previous year. Then, the T’Wolves swept the Nuggets in the regular season with a team featuring Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo instead.
Then, the Nuggets looked like they were getting revenge in 2025-26. Everything was lining up really well…until Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson got injured. Never mind that Anthony Edwards and DiVincenzo (and Ayo Dosunmu) missed the end of that series. It just took Jaden McDaniels, Rudy Gobert, and friends to take down a Denver team with a healthy Jokic and Murray.
But now, the Timberwolves traded Julius Randle and Naz Reid, getting back LaMelo Ball in the deal and remaking their team again. They still have Edwards, McDaniels, and Gobert though, which is why I think the Nuggets are operating at a disadvantage again. The burden of proof is on the Nuggets in that series, not the other way around. Assuming Denver will be healthy and ready to go is also brave after the last three playoff runs ended with injuries and frustration.
If the Nuggets make it past the Timberwolves, they will face the team that I’ve picked to win the 2027 title in the Oklahoma City Thunder. Time will tell if that happens or not, but no matter what ends up happening in the first round of the playoffs, the Nuggets will be in an absolute war of attrition when the time comes.
It will be interesting to see just how ready they are this time around.
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