Nuggets 2025 offseason preview: Will Denver make trade? First, team needs new GM ...Middle East

The 2025 offseason has a chance to be the most uncomfortable in years for the Denver Nuggets. Or it could be one of the most uneventful.

They are faced with an existential dilemma. The Western Conference caught up with them the first season after they won the NBA Finals. It seemingly passed them by in the second year removed from their championship.

So, can Denver still win with its 2023 core? It’s about to get more expensive. Resources to improve the roster around Nikola Jokic are severely limited, unless the team is willing to get risky on the trade market. And even then, it’ll take two to tango.

Here’s a breakdown of what to expect this offseason.

First order of business: Hiring new coach, general manager

When Josh Kroenke sent a jolt through Ball Arena by firing coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth three games before the playoffs, he made clear his intention to conduct searches to fill both positions after the season. The Nuggets were widely written off as a team that could do any playoff damage in the meantime.

Then, lead assistant turned interim head coach David Adelman guided them through a whirlwind playoff run, which ended one win short of the Western Conference Finals. Denver was lauded for its near-upset of the first-place Oklahoma City Thunder. Kroenke was left proud of the team’s resilience.

Adelman has been with the team since 2017. He’s a proven tactician, especially on offense. He’s popular with key players, including Nikola Jokic. He has interviewed for other head coaching jobs in recent offseasons. And he’s been attempting to usher in a new style of leadership by committee in Denver’s huddles and film sessions throughout the last month, willingly ceding the floor at times to encourage players to speak up more.

If Adelman doesn’t get the job, the Nuggets could go any number of directions. Other burgeoning head coach candidates around the league include Boston lead assistant Sam Cassell and Minnesota’s Micah Nori, who once coached on Malone’s staff in Denver. Or the Kroenkes could go the grizzled veteran route. Frank Vogel and Mike Budenholzer have both won championships in the 2020s, only to get fired twice since; Mike D’Antoni and Jeff Van Gundy have floated around in advisory or assistant roles in recent years.

The Nuggets should also feel some urgency to find Booth’s replacement so they can move forward with assessing the roster and building an offseason plan. Alignment between the new GM and coach will be a priority after the workplace culture rift caused by Malone and Booth.

Who’s under contract next season?

If player options are exercised, the Nuggets will have 13 players under contract for the 2025-26 season with $199.5 million in salary on the books.

The NBA salary cap will increase by a robust 10%, bringing the luxury tax line to $187.9 million, the first apron threshold to $195.9 million and the second apron to $207.8 million.

The Nuggets had the seventh-most expensive roster in the NBA last season, but they also made a concerted effort to stay out of the second apron by letting Kentavious Caldwell-Pope walk in 2024 free agency. That decision should inform any examination of their upcoming options. Don’t expect the payroll to exceed that second-apron number. The financial and competitive ramifications are considerable.

Extensions are about to kick in for Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon, both of whom signed for four additional years last summer. Gordon’s contract included an opt-in on what would have been his 2025-26 salary under his previous contract, saving Denver some money and providing some breathing room below the second apron. At least temporarily. His salary jumps to $32 million a year from now.

As a first-apron team, the Nuggets cannot take back more salary than they send out in a trade. But as long as they stay under the second apron, they are allowed to aggregate multiple players’ salaries to trade for a player with a higher salary. The team can also use the taxpayer mid-level exception to sign a free agent for up to $5.7 million (approximately), providing a bit more leeway for acquisitions. Last year, that flexibility resulted in the addition of Dario Saric.

Salary figures via Spotrac.com, verified by team sources | * Last year of contract is contingent upon player option | + Last year of contract is contingent on team option | Click here to view in mobile

Who becomes eligible for a contract extension this offseason?

Jokic becomes eligible to sign his next contract in July. The three-time league MVP is locked up under his current supermax deal until he’s 33 years old. From Denver’s standpoint, wanting to prolong that should be a no-brainer.

Christian Braun and Peyton Watson are entering the last season of their rookie-scale deals, meaning they’re both eligible this summer to sign a second NBA contract that would go into effect a year later.

The Braun negotiations should be intriguing. By the end of the Malone-Booth regime, he had achieved a rare status as a young player with popularity at all levels of the organization: from the coach, to the front office, to ownership. Does that mean the team will feel comfortable paying him potentially more than $100 million over four or five years? Denver is obviously playing with CBA fire every time it commits to another sizable contract.

Braun has earned a payday. If he gets it, the second apron seems almost inevitable in 2026-27, reinforcing the need to break up at least one other key player’s contract.

Who has contract options this offseason?

Saric and Russell Westbrook have player options. Saric, multiple sources told The Denver Post in April, is expected to opt in on his contract for $5.4 million, keeping him as the sixth-highest paid player on the roster. But the Croatian big man has reportedly been courted to return overseas after a disappointing NBA season in which he rarely played.

That could set the stage for a fascinating month of leverage games. If his priority is to play more in Europe, the Nuggets can tell him his only path there is to opt out — that they won’t trade him or buy out his contract if he opts in. But if he subsequently tries to call their bluff by exercising the player option, Denver will have to assess how desperately it needs the cap space and the roster spot.

If Saric is off the books, the projected payroll drops below the first apron by a hair. That would leave the Nuggets with three open roster spots and about $13 million to operate below the second apron.

Westbrook is another interesting case. By almost any measure, he was an exceedingly productive signing for Denver at his salary. His swings between success and failure are also more dramatic than perhaps any other NBA player’s. Case in point: The disastrous double-overtime sequence on April 1, when he missed an uncontested layup then fouled a 3-point shooter at the buzzer to cost Denver a key game in which Jokic scored 60.

Westbrook’s erratic decisions caused frustration at every level of the organization throughout the season, sources told The Post. But teammates also felt a certain loyalty toward him, recognizing the value of his leadership and ability to be a difference-maker when playing within himself. Gordon publicly defended him this month after an article published by ESPN was critical of Westbrook.

Westbrook averaged 13.3 points and 6.1 assists per game, shooting a career-high 51.7% inside the arc while delivering his second-best season from the 3-point line at 32.3%. But what that means for his future is unclear. He indicated last Sunday that he hasn’t decided what to do with his player option.

Who and what can the Nuggets trade?

“The core of this team was assembled under a different CBA,” Josh Kroenke said last offseason. “We drafted, we developed and we built this team under a different set of rules. Those rules have kind of changed on the fly.”

Indeed, it’s not so easy these days to contend when four players account for about 82% of the roster payroll and 78% of cap space below the second apron — a concept that didn’t even exist when Porter signed his current contract.

Porter was the sole focus of Nuggets trade rumors during the season, largely because Murray and Gordon had signing restrictions from their extensions, rendering them ineligible to be traded until the offseason. Well, the offseason is here.

Depth has grown increasingly problematic for Denver since it won the championship. The roster could benefit from reinforcements in any of these areas:

• Backup center depth behind Jokic

• Point-of-attack perimeter defense

• More 3-point shooting/spacing

However, there’s also a school of thought that another star-caliber creator is needed to alleviate Jokic’s burden. Kevin Durant is on the trade market this summer, among other stars.

Is there a trade out there that’s worth the risk of breaking up this core? Is it even riskier to stand pat with the same starting lineup? Is there even a trade partner willing to take on Murray or Porter? Where is the line between tangibly improving the roster and making a move just for the sake of change? All questions for a new general manager to grapple with.

The Nuggets’ trade assets are limited aside from their big contracts. They can use a young player like Watson, Strawther or Pickett to try sweetening a deal. And they have one future first-round pick available to trade: either their 2031 or 2032 pick. (Trading first-rounders in consecutive years is not allowed.)

Who is entering free agency?

Only two of Denver’s players have expiring contracts this summer, and both of them re-signed with the team last year on one-year veteran minimum contracts: DeAndre Jordan and Vlatko Cancar.

Jordan, who turns 37 in July, is a serviceable regular-season backup center who becomes less viable in the playoffs at this stage in his career. Beloved by teammates as a veteran voice in the locker room, he appeared in 56 games last season. He would like to return next season, he told The Post, but he plans to discuss his options with family. Retirement is on the table.

Cancar, 28, missed a large portion of the season after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery. He’s a play-making reserve forward and a close friend to Jokic.

How many 2025 draft picks do the Nuggets have?

The Nuggets have licked their plate clean. They’re the only team without a pick in the upcoming 2025 draft, meaning their only way to capture a prospect who catches their eye is to trade back into the draft.

Their first-round pick belongs to the Orlando Magic. It’s the final piece of the 2021 trade that brought Gordon to Denver. Their second-rounder is owned by the Phoenix Suns, who acquired it from Charlotte after Denver included it in a salary-dump trade of Reggie Jackson.

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Key Dates

June 25: NBA draft, first round.

June 26: NBA draft, second round.

June 29: Player option deadlines for Dario Saric, Russell Westbrook.

July 1: NBA free agency begins (unofficial); Christian Braun and Peyton Watson become extension-eligible through end of the offseason.

July 8: Nikola Jokic becomes extension-eligible.

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