Kiz: When you’re the NBA champ, it’s not the champagne hangover that gets you, but the daily grind that makes it so hard to repeat. Here. We. Go. Starting Tuesday night, when the Nuggets raise their championship banner at Ball Arena, if it’s not LeBron James hellbent on trying to take down Denver a notch, it will be Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum or Giannis Antetokounmpo itching for a fight. Are the Nuggets built for this challenge? Or is their quest to repeat doomed to defeat?
Durando: When your roster’s depth gets worse, at least on paper, and other teams make ambitious improvements (welcome to being a champion in a salary cap league, Nuggets), the onus is on returning players to find ways to turn it up a notch. Otherwise, the game catches up with you eventually. The good news? I think there’s still clearly space for Denver’s second-, third- and fourth-best players to reach new individual heights. And when you share the floor with a surgeon like Nikola Jokic, the variations of shot-creation on offense don’t even feel finite. It’s absolutely achievable, but the path will be harder.
Kiz: Although repeating is a mean feat, it’s easier in the NBA than any other major pro sport in the USA. Since the turn of the century, we’ve seen an NHL team win back-to-back championships twice, while it’s only been done once during that time frame in the NFL or MLB. But the Lakers, Warriors and Heat have all pulled off a repeat since 2000, in addition to a separate three-peat by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. Are these Nuggets capable of winning another championship? Definitely. But I would give them no more than a 20% shot of again raising the Larry O’Brien Trophy at the end of this season.
Durando: If you’re asking which team is most likely to win the West, I would still say Denver. Jury’s out on whether Bradley Beal works in Phoenix or Chris Paul in San Francisco. Even in a conference this deep, it feels like the Nuggets’ to lose, and then good luck in a seven-gamer against Boston or Milwaukee. But for that same reason — the parity of talent from the top team in the West to the 11th — I would probably pick the field over the Nuggets. That’s what makes this season so delectable to me.
Kiz: In the era of NBA super teams constructed through free agency and trade, it seems to me Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth is applying the Spurs model of building a basketball family around Nikola Jokic, in the manner San Antonio stressed an all-for-one mentality centered on Tim Duncan. Unless Booth is willing to swap youthful assets for a more proven sixth man at the trade deadline, I see this season more about discovering if Christian Braun or Peyton Watson can grow into a meaningful core piece for deep playoff runs in years to come. If Joker is going to win a championship in the next 10 months, it’s probably more likely to happen with Serbia at the 2024 Olympics.
Durando: While history has shown that your point about the NBA being a more repeat-friendly league is generally true, we’re at a notably thorny blip within that history. It’s the first time since 1977-81 that the NBA has had five different champions in five years (Portland, Washington, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston way back when). That’s tough for any aspiring dynasty to navigate. Booth’s approach of playing the long game feels like the best bet, because blockbuster trades and major free-agent signings haven’t been rewarded since the Lakers won it in 2020. Maybe this year will be more strenuous for the Nuggets, but maybe that’s a risk worth taking.
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