Keeler: Nikola Jokic’s championship window with Nuggets? George Karl’s got plan to save it ...Middle East

The NBA’s Mount Olympus comes with a two-trophy cover charge.

Bill Russell notched 11 titles. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar got six. Tim Duncan landed five. Shaquille O’Neal won four. Hakeem Olajuwon and Wilt Chamberlain? Two apiece.

“The Nuggets kind of drive me a little crazy,” George Karl, the Hall of Fame basketball coach whose resume includes three division titles in Denver from 2004-2013, said of Nikola Jokic when I called him Tuesday.

“You’ve got the best player in the game of basketball and I want him …  I mean, I want a Nuggets championship for Denver, yes. But I really want (Jokic) to be recognized with what I think as one of the top 10 players of all time.

“And if he doesn’t win another championship, I don’t know if he’ll get that recognition.”

Karl is one of us. Even as a Pirates fan, he wouldn’t mind seeing somebody else buy the Rockies. He wants the best for the Joker, because the Joker is the best he’s ever seen here.

Or, for that matter, just about anywhere.

“It’s a blessing (to have him),” Karl continued. “I said this a few years before he won the MVP. He’s a blessing for the city of Denver to have such a gifted basketball player. Year in and year out, he’s gotten a little bit better and played with a great, humble attitude. It’s truly like he and Tim Duncan are kindred spirits.”

The Nuggets aren’t in a pickle. They’re in a hoagie of hurt, sandwiched between two of the deepest teams in the NBA right now. While Oklahoma City and Minnesota are tussling in a steel cage match to reach the NBA Finals, Chopper Circle is without a general manager, without a head coach, without a draft pick in 2025, and without much cap space.

“Personally, I would pick his brain,” Karl said of Jokic. “Not only is (Joker) a (generational) basketball talent — he’s a very bright player, a very intelligent basketball player. And I think (I’d) want to be getting him revved up and juiced up for next year, to support whatever changes they make. I’d still do whatever (he) wanted me to do.”

I’d follow Jokic’s counsel. Then I’d hire a GM first and let that GM pick his coach and pick his vision. Because roster management is going to get messy, even in a best-case scenario.

Changes to the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, as we’ve learned the hard way, make keeping the so-called “middle class” of your roster harder — especially if you’re rewarding your stars/starters.

Over the last two years, the Nuggets have lost championship-winning support pieces in Bruce Brown (Indiana), Jeff Green (Houston) and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (Orlando) to free agency.

At the same time, the Nuggets, per Spotrac, have committed almost $163 million in ’25-26 cap salary to Jokic, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon. The projected cut line for the NBA’s second apron, meanwhile, is $207.8 million next season.

That’s precious little wiggle room for any GM, experienced or otherwise. The only way to create any serious flexibility now would be to move one of those “core four” contracts, or to convince a team to take on Zeke Nnaji’s $8.1 million cap hit for next season. Either way, Godspeed.

“As a Nuggets fan, I have my opinions,” Karl continued. “I’m very frustrated that, for almost seven years, maybe eight years, the only time they’ve had a good bench was the year they won (the title in ’23).

“And I love good benches. I think the bench is really important to a small-market team. Denver, over the last two or three years, and now with (Christian) Braun coming on, their starting five is a top 5.

“But that depth — the game, because the game has gotten faster and more finesse-oriented, the game evolves and it comes in different packages. And OKC and Minnesota … making the finals and the two L.A. teams and Phoenix and Dallas and Golden State and Denver, they’re all gone. Geez. ‘Did we fall back? Or did they move up?'”

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The mixed blessings run a Mile High. Tim Connelly and Calvin Booth left their successors a good team with key pieces in place. Yet they also locked those pieces into the point where there’s almost no easy way to course-correct if one of those pieces gets hurt or seriously underachieves. The S.S. Nuggets are set to autopilot, wheels locked. Which is fine, until the icebergs start looming past the starboard bow.

“This team has plateaued a little bit,” Karl said. “Maybe going the wrong way. And they’re competing in the Western Conference, which is incredibly competitive.”

And unforgiving. In being eliminated by the Timberwolves last spring and the Thunder this year, it feels as if the Nuggets might’ve hit a wall. Can they somehow keep a window open at the same time?

“There’s a line of talent you have to go to in the NBA,” Karl continued. “And then it comes down to making the puzzle and the chemistry work and fit. And I’ve always sided with that.

“Josh (Kroenke) and whoever the leaders for the team become, they’ve got to figure out what fits with Jokic. It’s not talent. You (don’t) go get talent and say it’s going to work.

“You have the most talented player in the game of basketball today (in Jokic). He makes players play the right way and makes them better. Go get guys that fit around him and make him a little better. And make his job a little bit easier.”

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