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After an unexpectedly early exit from the NBA playoffs, the Denver Nuggets enter a 2026 offseason of uncertainty, with salaries rising and championship expectations feeling more distant by the day. How will the Kroenke family, Ben Tenzer and Jon Wallace react to getting eliminated by the Timberwolves in the first round? Here are the main storylines to watch this summer.

Top priority: Will Nikola Jokic sign contract extension?

All offseason talk has to start here, with arguably the most important person in the Denver sports landscape. Jokic declined a supermax extension from the Nuggets last July, with the mutual understanding that a more lucrative version of the same offer would still be on the table a year later.

The 31-year-old center has at least one more year remaining on his current supermax contract, with a player option for 2027-28. Signing an extension last summer when he first became eligible would have added three years and an estimated $207 million to the current deal. By waiting for this offseason, he’s able to tack on an additional $80 million (approximately) for a fourth year.

Speculation about Jokic’s future inevitably followed his decision to delay contract talks, as is often the case when a superstar turns down an extension. That chatter will only be amplified by an early playoff exit. But Jokic has given no indication that he wants to play anywhere other than Denver, and team sources have been confident dating back to last year that he’ll ultimately sign the extension.

“My plan is to be Nuggets forever,” he said at preseason media day last September. In a recent , he elaborated in his native language that he has found peace in Denver and covets his “organic” championship with the Nuggets, even if they never win another. All signs point to him following in the footsteps of single-franchise modern stars like Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki.

If one thing is clear, it’s that the Nuggets have a high floor as long as Jokic is on the court. They’ve won 50 or more regular-season games in four consecutive years. They sell out Ball Arena nightly. They have the longest active streak of playoff appearances in the Western Conference.

It’s the ceiling of a team built around him that’s in question now more than ever, especially as he potentially enters the post-MVP stage of his career.

Which Nuggets players are under contract in 2026-27?

The Nuggets tentatively have 10 players under contract for the 2026-27 season, with somewhere between $203.4 million and $213.8 million in salary payroll, depending on what they do with team options and non-guaranteed salary.

The NBA was reportedly projecting a $165 million salary cap as of March, with the luxury tax line estimated at $201 million, the first apron threshold at $209 million and the second apron at $222 million. Because the Nuggets have at least four roster spots to fill aside from the money already on the books, they’re currently projected as a second apron team. They’re widely expected to make moves allowing them avoid that threshold, and possibly others.

They finished the 2025-26 season with the 11th-most expensive payroll in the league: $200.7 million in cap allocations. But it’s notable that they also made a concerted effort to evade the luxury tax at the trade deadline, salary-dumping Hunter Tyson to Brooklyn and waiting out an injury to Spencer Jones before converting his two-way contract to a standard NBA deal. That left them with enough wiggle room to sign Tyus Jones with their 15th roster spot and stay below the tax. They had spent most of the season carrying only 14 players on the 15-man active roster. Both Joneses — Spencer and Tyus 鈥� were paid prorated minimum salaries.

Why is that relevant to this summer? Well, before 2025-26, the Kroenkes had paid the luxury tax three consecutive years — meaning that to finish either this season or next season with a payroll exceeding that threshold would trigger what’s known as the repeater tax. It’s basically a more severe tax penalty imposed on teams based on five-year windows, incentivizing owners not to spend excessively over the salary cap for prolonged periods. A team pays the repeater if it finishes a season in luxury tax territory after having also done so in three of the previous four seasons.

For the Nuggets to dodge it, they had to finish 2025-26 out of the tax, and they’ll have to do the same in 2026-27.

Two consecutive years out of the tax would reset their repeater clock, so to speak, allowing them to be a luxury tax team for another three consecutive years from 2027-28 through 2029-30 without paying the additional penalties.

The problem with that approach, of course, is that Jokic has enjoyed one of the most incredible primes of any career in NBA history, and he could be nearing the end of that prime this year and next. There’s no guarantee he’ll be at the peak of his powers anymore from 2028-30. The same goes for Jamal Murray, who just had a career year. He turns 30 next February.

Penny-pinching was achievable with relatively inconsequential basketball moves this year. That’s not the case next season. New contracts are going into effect for starting power forward Aaron Gordon and shooting guard Christian Braun. And that’s before addressing Peyton Watson’s potential raise. (More on that soon.) If the Kroenkes’ top priority is to dodge the repeater tax, their actions this summer will make that obvious; multiple salary-shedding moves would be required to pull it off.

And now that Denver has dramatically underperformed in the playoffs, the door is cracked open for wholesale changes anyway. The team did not exactly give ownership a firm reason to believe that paying the repeater next year would be worth it.

Here’s a look at the cap table.

Salary figures via , verified by team source | * Last year of contract is non-guaranteed or contingent upon team option | + Last year of contract is contingent on player option

Who has a contract option or a non-guaranteed salary?

Back in November, the Nuggets and backup center Jonas Valanciunas quietly agreed to restructure the third and final year of his contract, league sources told The Post. His full $10 million salary was previously non-guaranteed. Under the amended deal, Valanciunas is owed at least $2 million of his salary next season, in exchange for his 2026 guarantee date being pushed back from June 29 to July 8. This provides Denver with more flexibility to survey the free-agent market and evaluate potential trades before the deadline to release Valanciunas or guarantee his full salary. The new “league year” begins July 1.

Reserve point guard Jalen Pickett has a team option on the last year of his rookie-scale contract. He hasn’t been a consistent presence in Denver’s rotation since he was drafted with the 32nd pick in 2023, but the Nuggets should be incentivized to pick up the option and keep him around because they need cheap cap hits (like his $2.4 million) to fill out the back end of their roster.

Which Nuggets players are free agents?

Tim Hardaway Jr., Bruce Brown and Tyus Jones will be unrestricted free agents. Peyton Watson and Spencer Jones will be restricted free agents.

All three UFAs were in Denver on veteran minimum salaries. Hardaway will be the most difficult to retain after a 40.7% 3-point shooting season that earned him a finalist nod for NBA Sixth Man of the Year. 鈥淚 think it’s the best contract in the league right now,” Aaron Gordon said this month. If the 33-year-old Hardaway wants one more significant payday in his playing career, the Nuggets might be out of luck. They’ll have a better chance to affordably re-sign Brown, a locker room staple who has made it no secret how much he loves Denver.

Watson’s future is one of the biggest unknowns in the league this offseason. He’s due for his second NBA contract after he and the Nuggets didn’t come to an extension agreement before the season — Denver instead prioritized Braun, who signed a five-year, $125 million deal in October.

Watson went on to have a breakout fourth year. He averaged 14.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 54 games, shooting 49.1% from the floor and 41.1% from 3-point range. He did most of his scoring in January, when Jokic was injured and the Nuggets desperately needed secondary shot creators to step up. Shortly after Jokic returned, Watson suffered a right hamstring strain and never got to settle back in to his smaller bench role. With him out of the picture late in the season, the Nuggets also never got to fully test out how his improving talent with the ball could be integrated into their normal system.

It leaves many questions unanswered. How trustworthy was that one month? Was it a large enough sample size to meaningfully impact his financial value? How much cap space is Denver willing to commit to another role player while also attempting to lower its overall payroll? The Nuggets are prepared to pursue other corresponding moves in order to retain Watson, league sources have told The Post. But that doesn’t automatically mean they’ll match any number the 23-year-old is offered.

Restricted free agency is traditionally a process that favors the incumbent team, but the Nuggets’ finances will make this fascinating. After they extend a qualifying offer, Watson鈥檚 path to joining a new team will require him to sign an offer sheet, the terms of which Denver has the opportunity to match. The Nets, Bulls and Lakers are cap-space teams expected to show interest, league sources told The Post this season. Denver might have to decide where to draw a line in the sand if Watson has enthusiastic suitors. Is the number more or less than Braun’s average annual value of $25 million? Upwards of $30 million per year could get into uncomfortable territory.

Will the Nuggets trade key players?

If the Nuggets end up keeping Watson, it will almost definitely involve at least one significant sacrifice from the starting lineup. Three players are set to make between $21 million and $32 million next season: Gordon, Braun and Johnson.

Playoff basketball is informative. Failure this year was surprisingly illuminating. Braun and Johnson both struggled against Minnesota, while Gordon’s recurring soft tissue injury woes emerged again as a pivotal storyline in the first-round series.

Johnson is widely considered the most likely starter to go if Watson returns. His $23 million expiring salary is a reasonable, low-risk contract for a 6-foot-8 wing who shot 43% from 3-point range this season. He could fill a need for several other contenders that struggled with shooting, spacing and secondary ball-handling this year. (It’s worth noting that Denver could sorely miss those attributes.) In Brooklyn, he also showed his ability to assume a larger role on a tanking team. Point being: Denver could theoretically engage a variety of teams — good, bad and ugly — to find value for him. His impressive finish to the playoffs could give the front office pause, however. Even while his 3-pointer wasn’t falling for most of the Minnesota series, Johnson was the team’s third-leading scorer, capped by a 27-point Game 6.

Braun is coming off a disappointing fourth season that was characterized by a brutal ankle injury. This was the last year of his rookie-scale contract, making $4.9 million. His raise is about to go into effect. He’s under contract longer than anyone else on the roster. He had Jokic’s endorsement when the Nuggets extended him, according to a league source. If they want to trade him now, it would be bad business, in all likelihood. This is the nadir of his value. They would probably have to attach other assets to get out of his contract (and they are already short on future draft picks). And they would essentially be treating him as a sunk cost, one injury-hampered year removed from him being a candidate for NBA Most Improved Player. He can’t be ruled out as a trade candidate this offseason after his poor performance in the playoffs, but logic says the more productive path forward with him is to exercise patience and hope he can return to his 2024-25 form.

Gordon is the most uncomfortable option to consider because his value to the team is bordering on priceless. But his soft tissue durability, while no fault of his own, has become a major problem — enough that the Nuggets’ brain trust will have to at least discuss whether it makes sense to move on from the fan favorite. He has missed 77 regular-season games in the last two years. He was limited or out by the end of the playoffs in both 2025 and 2026. It’s increasingly clear that without him, Denver isn’t a championship-caliber team. The risk of keeping him as he ages into his 30s is that his body might simply be unable to withstand two consecutive months of basketball. The risk of trading him is that Denver is unlikely to ever find a more perfect fit for Jokic in the frontcourt. It’s one of the biggest roster-building catch-22s in the NBA going forward.

After the way Denver was eliminated, Murray’s name is also worth mentioning here as a wild-card聽 possibility. He struggled to get separation from Jaden McDaniels and establish a rhythm throughout the Minnesota series, while the Timberwolves hunted him on defense. Jokic doubled down on his confidence in the tandem after Game 6. Denver’s new front office has treated Murray as a franchise player, gauging his opinion on certain decisions (in addition to Jokic’s). But the argument for trading the 29-year-old guard now is that an opportunity has arrived to “sell high” if the Nuggets believe they can no longer win a title while fighting against the defensive deficiencies of both Jokic and Murray. Like trading Gordon, moving Murray would be a cold-hearted move. But nothing can be completely ruled out after a team with championship hopes crashed out in the first round.

It also must be noted that Denver doesn’t聽丑补惫别听to trade anyone to keep Watson. There are no rules requiring it. Only luxury tax bills.

How many draft picks do the Nuggets have in 2026?

The Nuggets possess two picks in the upcoming NBA draft: 26th (their own pick) and 49th (via Atlanta). Late second-round picks typically amount to nothing. The first-rounder is an important asset, however. With so many roster spots open and so little financial wiggle room, the Nuggets are likely to keep the pick and assess their roster needs; a player drafted in the 20s getting paid on the rookie salary scale will have a smaller cap hit than a player signed to the veteran minimum.

If Denver does keep the pick, it’ll be the first one used by lead executives Jon Wallace and Ben Tenzer in their regime, which started last summer.

If they want to trade the pick, they’re allowed to do so on draft night. None of Denver’s future firsts are currently eligible to be traded.