The Denver Nuggets gave all they had, but it wasn’t quite enough, as they lost the Western Conference Semifinals in seven games to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Nuggets have been on a roller coaster ride ever since they fired Michael Malone with just three weeks left in the regular season. They beat the favored Clippers in another series that went the distance before coming up just short to OKC.
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Denver has some difficult decisions to make this offseason. Interim coach David Adelman acquitted himself well in getting the team to within a game of the conference finals, but there will also be no shortage of coaches eager to work with Nikola Jokic. The roster is in a tricky spot, with a lack of depth and not enough production from Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr., considering how much they make.
On the latest episode of All the Smoke, Matt Barnes called MPJ out for being overpaid and not contributing nearly enough in the games that count the most.
“At the end of the day, this man is making over $30 million [a year], he’s only giving you 9 points per game in the playoffs,” Barnes said.
He did give Porter credit for trying to play through a shoulder sprain this postseason, but in fairness, his presence may have hurt the Nuggets more than it helped. MPJ scored single digits in five of the seven games against the Thunder and three of the seven games against the Clippers in Round 1. Only once in 14 games did he go over his regular season scoring average of 18.2 points per game.
Porter has two years and over $79 million left on his contract. Murray’s extension doesn’t even kick in until next year, and then he’s locked in for four years and over $207 million. That’s an enormous portion of the cap tied up in two players whose play hasn’t justified such an exorbitant salary.
Barnes drove the point home that the Nuggets need to make some changes when he quoted Jokic’s post-game commentary. “After seven games, [Jokic] was asked, ‘Could the Nuggets win a championship with this roster?’ He said, ‘We didn’t, so obviously, we can’t.'”
The Nuggets lack pieces around Nikola Jokic
Any team with arguably the best player in the world has at least a puncher’s chance of winning the NBA title, but the Nuggets haven’t put nearly enough around Nikola Jokic to call themselves true contenders. Murray and Porter are vastly overpaid, and though Aaron Gordon, Christian Braun and even Russell Westbrook did all they could, it’s tough to win when two guys make so much but don’t pull their weight.
Barnes pointed out the difference between this Nuggets team and the one that won the championship in 2023. “I think they underestimated the Bruce Browns and the Jeff Greens and those smaller role players that really helped them secure their first championship in a long time.” Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is another one who knew his role but is no longer around.
Overpaying two players and letting winning players walk is a big reason why general manager Calvin Booth was fired alongside Malone. Whether the Nuggets make interim GM Ben Tenzer the permanent replacement or look elsewhere, they’ll need to figure out if there’s a way to trade Murray, Porter or both. If they don’t, fielding a better roster next year will be close to impossible and would waste another year of Jokic’s prime.
Given all the turmoil they overcame at the end of the season, the Nuggets should be proud of getting to the second round and giving the Thunder all they can handle, especially if OKC goes on to win the whole thing. Moral victories only go so far, though, when you have a transcendent player like Jokic. Success should be measured by rings, and the Nuggets as currently constructed don’t have an easy path to a second one.
