Is Nuggets' title window closed? Nikola Jokić era is on life support as expiring contract looms over offseason

The Nuggets were upset by a banged-up Timberwolves team in the first round, so can Denver still build a contender around Jokić?

Sam Quinn

May 1, 2026

1:29 am ET

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14 min read

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A few minutes after the Denver Nuggets lost Game 4 of their first-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, their former coach, George Karl, offered an interesting observation. "Championship windows open and close faster than ever in the NBA," the former Coach of the Year posted. There's definite truth to that. Look no further than San Antonio picking second in last year's draft and winning 62 games this season, or the fact that it's been eight years since we've seen a repeat NBA champion. But where the Nuggets are concerned, the story is a bit more complicated.

It seems like the Nuggets should be at the peak of their powers right now. Jokić was in the MVP race for most of the season. Jamal Murray had his best season. They were unstoppable when healthy in the regular season. They only won their championship three years ago. How could they lose like this? Not in a glorious battle against San Antonio or Oklahoma City like everyone expected, but to an extremely shorthanded Timberwolves team that was already missing many of the pieces that helped them beat Denver two years ago? How could the window close this quickly?

The answer is that it didn't. Denver's window didn't close too soon. It opened too late. On March 25, 2021, the Nuggets traded for Aaron Gordon. It looked like that's when the window opened. For around three weeks, they were world-beaters. And then Murray tore his ACL. The timing of the injury cost Denver two postseasons. The window didn't really open until 2023, the year Denver won the title. You have four seasons worth of playoff memories of this team, but it's a six-year-old core. In the modern NBA, how many cores last that long?

The Nuggets have already taken many of the steps that long-lived contenders take to supplement such groups. They changed coaches last year. They traded a major player -- Michael Porter Jr. -- in a move that seemed like it would help on the court but was also fairly transparently motivated by finances (the Nuggets managed to duck the luxury tax at the trade deadline). They're now mostly out of tradable draft picks. There's not much youth left and, where it exists, it's no longer cheap. These are the traditional ways in which contenders decay. They just seem like they're happening for Denver earlier than they should because they didn't get to reap the short-term benefits of building this team until two years after it came together. This group is older, more expensive and more leveraged than it feels, and that leaves them enormously vulnerable moving forward.

Gordon has struggled with muscle injuries for two years. That probably isn't getting better in his 30s. Jokić's defense almost certainly isn't. They have little to trade in the name of supporting them. And then there's the money.

Denver's calamitous tax bill

Jokić makes the max and has for some time. Same with Murray. Gordon is about to start an extension that takes him from an average of around 16% of the cap to about 20% of the cap, just as his body may be breaking down. Cam Johnson was a step down from Porter Jr. on price, but is still owed more than $23 million. And then there's Christian Braun, coming off a miserable fourth season in which he didn't make shots or impact games defensively at nearly the level he did a year ago.

The five of them together, plus the depth players still under contract, essentially take Denver to the second apron line next season... without including breakout wing Peyton Watson, Sixth Man of the Year finalist Tim Hardaway Jr. or filling out the rest of the roster. Running back this roster, the one that couldn't even beat the hobbled Timberwolves, would mean going perhaps $20-30 million above the second apron as a repeat luxury tax payer.

There are owners who might take on a half-billion-dollar payroll to field a genuine championship contender. Joe Lacob and Steve Ballmer, for instance. Denver has paid the tax consistently in this era, but very little that the Nuggets have done in roughly a quarter-century under their ownership suggests that the Kroenkes will be willing to go to such an extreme. This is a franchise that didn't get a G-League team until 2021, that still practices in its arena rather than a separate, dedicated facility. They've simply never been known as an especially profligate franchise. They let the general manager who built this roster, Tim Connelly, walk for a bigger offer in Minnesota. If there is a firm budget here, the Nuggets probably have to either let Watson walk in restricted free agency or dump the contract of either Johnson or Braun before re-signing him in order to trim the tax bill to a more manageable level.

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