Are Nikola Jokic & Nuggets still West favorites after DISAPPOINTING offseason? | Hoops Tonight

Jokic fanboys are delusional.

The idea that the Nuggets are still favorites is absolutely insane.

Knicks > Celtics next season.

More grit, more passion, fewer robots and overall more team cohesion. 😊

Mark it down! 😉

Steph Curry about to go on another revenge tour.

Being underestimated is always extra fuel for him! 👍👏🥳🥳🔥🔥🤩🤩

I truly believe nuggets would beat boston, that boston team, when they face adversity they always fail, this season they won cause their team is great as always but no adversity

Grizzlies need to trade Smart for DLo. Hahaha I’m a Lakers fan 😢😢😢

Who in the West as a core as young and as good as the Timberwolves? I get a lot of their role players and M. Conley are old, but the best parts of the team is super young and only getting better.

ANT is 22 and will take his biggest leap of his career after the Olympics imo. Jaden is 23 and showed where his offensive game is headed in the playoffs (think pippen 2.0), 6th man of the year is 24 and improving, KAT is in his prime at 28, NAW is 25 and still improving (Joker fucked his shoulder in prior series which ruined his shooting in WCF) and they just added two insanely good rookies that will provide instant offense as rookies. I think Ingles for Kyle is a good swap too cause you add more 3 pt shooting for spacing.

Timberwolves breaking through early. Give me Wolves over anyone in the West next year.

No they arent west Favorites anymore and Jokic got the biggest pass for leading a team that choked a 20 pt lead in a game 7 at home with a championship level team 😂Thats some James Harden rocket level choking. Other stars like Giannis, Curry, Bron would get killed for that.

This may not be a popular opinion, but I think Knicks are a better team overall than Denver Nuggets are today

Joker is the best player on Earth. Its not close

If you thought the nuggets were about to become a dynasty you were sadly mistaken.

Westbruh is toxic and bad attitude

Too bad for Jokic. If he had one or two teammates who regularly scored 20+ points, he would have won the championship multiple times in a row. But that’s difficult with these Nuggets... let’s be honest, without Jokic, the team wouldn’t even be playoff material, and that was the case in the past as well. Imagine if he were in Boston or another team, for example, Dallas, who really invest.

Jokic having the same or worse resume as Giannis but getting way more leniency for not coming through sure is something.

If only the Mavs got a mickey mouse finals opponent like the Nuggets did. The deference they get is insane 😂.

Feel like you are overrating Denver, but that's probably because of what you have seen in the past. Imo, from what we've seen last year, Jokic is nowhere near defensively as he was in '23 championship. We also saw Murray can be locked up quite easily in the playoffs. They're definitely like a top 3-4 team in the west still.

I’m a nuggets fan, and I think it’s pretty unrealistic to say the nuggets are favorites out west. The mavs, thunder, and Timberwolves all got better and we’ve been asleep all offseason. I still think we’re a good playoff team that could make the 2nd round or maybe conference finals if we get lucky with out matchups, but I really doubt we make the finals or win. We still have Jokic, Murray, mpj, and Gordon, but other than them we don’t look too great.

fk no. Theyre nowhere near what they were. How can you assume theyre getting better over other teams when they lost players? Losing KCP is the nail in the coffin. Brown cant step into that role. Hes NOT a shooter. Hes a hustle guy at the NBA level. jokic will be 30. Jamal is an old 28....ton of mileage on those legs and hes very injury prone. Jokic and gordon havent had injuries but they will at some point.

Im sorry but Dallas, OKC and Minnesota will all be better next season. Houston, San Antonio, golden state and Memphis will all be better. New Orleans, Pnoenix and Sacramento are still competitive. Denver is not getting 56 wins next season. I can see 47-50 wins. 50-52 wins if things go their way TOPS. 5th or 6th seed. not a top 3 seed any more

Well. Oh well.
Nuggets were not "favorites" last year and this year even less so. I don't think they'll make POs this season - explanation below:

Nuggets Owners and FO/GM just few weeks ago said:
Jeff Kroenke: "when you have the best player in the world (Nikola Jokic) - you need to go for it. We owe him that".
Calvin Booth: "I'm the steward of Jokic's prime".
And this is where Nuggets are at this point. Nuggets made ZERO acquisitions/trades and now the pool of available talent has dwindled down to 35yo Russ and couple of others that NO ONE WANTS.
TBH - Russ is not stupid, he's on the outside and he can see the Nuggets clearly - he's not coming there. And even the others - they'll be picked up by other piss-poor franchises. Not the Nuggets.
It's not inconceivable to expect Nuggets to end up with 4 (FOUR) open roster spots after the deadline.
Yep. That's how bad Nuggets Owners/FO/GM are.
Nuggets GM right now is in Europe (FA deadline) - trying to somehow retain Cancar (who's terrible and will be of no use - but cheap), get someone called "Saric" (that no one wants) and MOSTLY - appease Jokic and his agent who are FURIOUS. Calvin Booth is there to make a "grand gesture" about how Nuggets/He support Jokic and Serbia in the Olympics... It doesn't get more pathetic than that.

It's unfortunate that Jokic is in the Denver Nuggets. I can't imagine him being happy for being LIED TO by the cheap ownership, incompetent FO and the dumb scapegoat GM (Kroenkes picked Booth exactly for that purpose - to be the fall guy for what they wanted to do).

At this point - even trading Zeke out (no one wants that contract and Nuggets have nothing to [zero picks left, no cash] pay for getting rid of it) for anyone available (hard to imagine) would not give Jokic anything of value to play with.

It's hard to imagine (NBA historians jump in here) a franchise that failed so badly after just winning the championship. In short year - Nuggets LOST 3 major championship contributors, 7 picks, couple of other guys from the 3rd string - and GOT NOTHING to replace any of it.

It's almost mind boggling.

Nuggets eco-system is complaining about the CBA (trying to find excuses for and justify the incredibly embarrassing owners+FO+GM) - but that's simply a LIE. Owners and GMs in the league were the DRIVING FORCE behind the new CBA - and Nuggets Owners/GM/FO were in all discussions about it for about 2+ years now.

But - everything gets much more CLEAR and LOGICAL - when we consider that Kroenkes are in the midst of talks about SELLING the Nuggets franchise. Not many people got the wind of it - but it's true. Kroenkes are looking at capitalizing the title and the fact that Jokic is under a long term contract - and are hoping for a windfall on their initial investment. That's all this is about. That's why this "incredible" situation is happening - in order to close the deal Kroenkes can't spend any money and have to limit their costs, commitments, liabilities.

That's all this is about. Handful of (hundred million) bucks. In profit.

Jokic and Raznatovic are aware of this - and I expect we'll hear from them soon. Most likely in the form of them demanding a TRADE for Jokic.

Nuggets are done.

Malone played his starters into the ground in the season and they ran out of gas in the playoffs. Jokic played 79 games 35mpg which no other big man did. Malone didn't trust any of the young guys like Peyton Watson in the playoffs & tried to win with only his starters. In game 7 Christian Brown only played 7 minutes and no one else played at all

The revisionist history of Nuggets fans is crazy. Going from the Nuggets being the best team, current dynasty in the making, best contructed team around a superstar and Murray x Jokic being the best duo, to they aren't that good and don't have a 20+ scorer outside Jokic.

Love Jason but never agree with him.. without a couple of move Denver is done..

Nuggets management got lucky with Jokic and thought they were geniuses. They are in the process of wasting the prime of an all time great. Small market lack of vision and financial commitment

Man I'm SOOO WORIED right now as my Nuggs HAVE to do WHATEVER it takes to make this team as good as can be while having Jokic 😢

They don't deserve Joker. He should run, but he's country boy and he will stay.

Denver is the 3rd best team, record-wise, in the west at best. To be fair, they have experience over teams like okc, pelicans, etc.

Nuggets sadly don’t want to do what it takes to win a chip, painful to watch a team with potential just not care

They weren't West favorites even before letting a key piece walk.

Jokic won a ring without an all star and 48 games without Jamal and MPJ Nuggets will be fine still top 3 in the West and the best player in the world

Nuggets are done. They have no chance to even make it out of the West next season with this roster.

The real problem with Russell Westbrook is (besides the fact that he has declined in play since his prime years, and besides the fact that he makes so many bad decisions while on the floor) Russ believes HE'S STILL THAT GUY. Surely Denver could have made better use of their cap space than bringing him on. We'll see how much playing time he actually gets, and how quickly he gets benched by Coach Malone.

Calvin booth did nothing to address the bench plus they lost kcp and jackson it doesn't look good for denver.

Booth says young cheap guys are the answer. Malone will run his starters into the ground, and still won’t play young cheap guys. Malone sat Watson in the playoffs, to play a one and done Holiday. The Nuggets oligarch should step in and make sure the HC and GM are on the same page. This offseason Booth has the Nuggets behaving like nba losers act. Malone isn’t saying a word. There’s bad sh^t brewing in Denver. 🙃

Nuggets aren't a top 4 seed

Wow still tatum hate.. he says still not top player in world? Wow. Basketball is two ends of the court tatum is really good defender great rebounder was just the engine of the champs offense. At this point SGA still isn't as good as Tatum he needs to prove it for longer. To not call Tatum a top 10 at least player in league is nuts i think top 5 but i watch every Celtics game amd see on night to night what he does also for a superstar he plays ever game almost. Stars miss games all the time amd he don't.

Jokic was already hard carrying. Now, losing their only perimeter defender is gonna be a huuuge loss.

And MPJ is one of the most overpayed players.

I think the Suns are a real threat this year' with this new coach and added pieces they needed

Denver lost to the only 50 win team they have faced in the last 2 post-seasons. The only way they win the west is if they play the Lakers 3 times.

The problem with basketball pundits is that they fall in love with their own takes. They then spend their time trying to defend their flawed takes. I made the mistake of taking this guys takes seriously in the last playoffs and ended up looking stupid, especially in the west.

Booth should be fired... that guy did not do anything

Question:
Do you think the time might come when the NBA places a limit on the number of foreign teams allowed per team?
This is common practice in other countries.

Celtics are still the best team out west

Trying to justify the opinion that Denver is above Dallas After they just lost one of their five starters and didn’t pick up anyone is utterly insane. You just keep preaching that stuff brother, Dallas will wave at you as they go by with Klay riding shotgun.

OKC is a threat, but they couldn’t beat Dallas with HomeCourt advantage and Luka injured so I’m curious why people think they’re going to beat them with neither of those things and with a new 20ppg scorer playing for Dallas….

Braun can more than make up kcp defense. Don’t sleep on Strawhter… Watson and Holmes