The Nuggets are a team that multiple NBA insiders are concerned about this coming season and one predicts that there could be big changes coming for the 2023 champions.
If Denver go in the same way did last season with a second-round exit, expect major changes, Zach Lowe says.
“If they lose in a similar round like a second round again this year, this feels like the year where if that happens, the next season something big is gonna change,” Lowe said on NBA on ESPN recently. “I don’t know what it is. I just know this core is enormously expensive. Aaron Gordon is gonna soon be up for a big extension that will give him a bigger salary number. The bench is young and untested. There are more questions than there really should be about a team that was the no-brainer favorite to win the West last season and fell two rounds short of where they wanted to get. If they don’t get where they need to get this season, I think something there is gonna change.”
Lowe’s ESPN colleague Brian Windhorst shared similar concerns when he spoke about Jamal Murray’s struggles in the playoffs and the Olympics and the fact his massive contract will be up soon.
“They have run out of time with cheaper contracts and the pressure has arrived,” Windhorst said
Meanwhile, Bill Simmons says out of 30 NBA teams, the Nuggets are is biggest concern heading into 2024-25.
“Last year is a complete fluke, I don’t understand what happened in that Game 7, maybe not a fluke but one of the most unusual Game 7s in the history of the league and then after they’re all talking about how they’re dead and people have played in two straight finals before,” Simmons said on his self-titled podcast. “… there’s no way the Nuggets had it harder than the Warriors. I don’t know where this goes, but I don’t like where we are,” Simmons said.
