Winners: Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors

Let’s start with the blockbusters. The depth of the Eastern Conference is going to be harrowing next season, and two teams have gotten meaningfully better in the past few days. One came completely out of nowhere. The 76ers were forgotten. Not only had they not been linked to Jaylen Brown before they acquired him from their rival, but they had also been widely regarded as perhaps the least interesting team of the offseason. They were basically stuck with the same roster core that got swept by New York in the second round — two of the most burdensome, seemingly untradeable contracts in the NBA (Joel Embiid and Paul George), and two of the most electrifying, untouchable young guards in the league (Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe). At both ends of the spectrum of trade potential, zero maneuverability.

Then the Celtics came along. They were floating Brown to anyone willing to listen (including Denver). — the 36-year-old George, two first-round picks and two second-rounders — was an astonishing package that revealed Boston’s desperation and Brown’s sparse market. It was understood that Philadelphia would need to attach at least one first-round pick, probably more, to get off George’s contract. If that accounts for the two first-rounders in the deal, then the 76ers essentially got Brown for nothing.

Whatever the analytics community thinks of his value as a supermax player, one thing Brown does is play. He’s been available for 82% of regular-season games in the past five years and hasn’t missed a playoff game during that time. The 76ers just got a durable Finals MVP who’s seven years younger than the aging star they sacrificed. They have a team that should win a lot of games next season, even if Embiid is in and out of the lineup.

Toronto’s trade to reunite with Kawhi Leonard was likewise an absolute home run. Leonard does have his injury demons, but he’s such a perfect fit with the Raptors’ current roster that he’s well worth the risk (Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two firsts, two seconds). An emotionally satisfying trade for the city, and one with legitimate upside. Leonard and Scottie Barnes will be fun to watch.

Losers: Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks

The biggest trade of the offseason has turned out to be one of the most underwhelming. The Bucks were obviously going to be losers no matter what they got back for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Tough to feel excited about three first-round picks right after you’re forced to trade a franchise icon.

Miami, meanwhile, gave up a lot of young role players and walked away with a pretty stripped-down roster that … doesn’t seem that much better than the Milwaukee team Antetokounmpo is leaving?

Certainly, if LeBron James jumps on board, the 2026-27 iteration of the Heat will suddenly look more compelling. But this looks like an incomplete team right now, especially after losing free agent deadeye Norman Powell to Chicago. Pat Riley’s vision for the Giannis era probably involves multiple transaction cycles. Every trade deadline and offseason going forward is an opportunity to keep building out the supporting cast.

And even when that vision starts to come into everyone else’s view, there’s the question of whether Giannis and Bam Adebayo can fit together as a pair of non-shooting bigs in the modern game.

Miami can’t be called an outright loser after acquiring a top-five player in the league. But it’s not an immediate championship contender either.

Winner: The whiteboard and someone on it

Wearing a Wimbledon bucket hat, superagent Rich Paul went on his podcast Friday, rolled out a whiteboard and provided a literal illustration of his client LeBron James’ free agency options, including the perks of various potential destinations. (Steph Curry? Oil? Golf? Africa?)

As a piece of NBA content: 10 out of 10, no notes.

The whiteboard is an instant classic meme that will live on in the social media era of basketball fandom. And one of the 10 teams listed on it will eventually be rewarded with arguably the most valuable bargain in the history of NBA free agency. Depending on who you ask, James is still generally considered a top-20 or top-30 player in the league, even at 41 years old. He’s very likely to sign for less than $20 million (maybe even for the veteran minimum salary) to play with a contender.

From a basketball standpoint alone, it will be a staggeringly team-friendly deal. That’s before considering the merchandise and ticket sales, especially if James announces that his 24th season will be his last.

Someone will win big. In the meantime, James and Paul can relish being the center of attention in an NBA offseason, one last time, for old time’s sake.

Loser: Buyers being sellers

At the trade deadline in February, we wrote that one of the big winners was the trend of “sellers being buyers.” Tanking teams like Washington, Utah and Indiana collected win-now talent to stash for the next season. Now the Wizards can unleash Anthony Davis and Trae Young alongside No. 1 overall pick AJ Dybantsa and recent No. 2 pick Alex Sarr. The Jazz will play a starting lineup with Jaren Jackson Jr., Lauri Markkanen and newly drafted Darryn Peterson. The Pacers, even after losing their pick to lousy lottery luck, will add Ivica Zubac to a core that reached Game 7 of the Finals a year ago.

We’re seeing the inverse of that strategy from multiple would-be contenders this summer.

Boston’s decision to trade Brown was jarring in large part because it signaled a willingness to take a step back next season. Brown and Jayson Tatum never ended up getting a chance to play to the final buzzer of a season together after they won the championship. Tatum was out for the end of the 2025 New York series and the 2026 Philly one. Who’s to say they couldn’t have won the title in 2027 with Tatum fully recovered from his torn Achilles?

Equally fascinating is Charlotte’s decision to sell high on LaMelo Ball after the best season of his career — and his first with 50 or more games played since 2021-22. We’re not too far removed from Ball being perceived as a losing player with negative trade value. The Hornets jumped at an opportunity to get back a starter-level role player (Naz Reid), a first-rounder, three first-round swaps and three second-rounders for him. That could very well prove to be a shrewd if cold-hearted decision.

But for us neutrals, it’s a shame that nobody will ever know what would’ve happened had Charlotte decided to run it back with a starting lineup that posted a league-best 25.7 net rating from Jan. 1 through the end of last season. Ball was the engine of that offense, a brilliant playmaker with positional size and a talent for making his teammates better (when he wasn’t launching one-legged logo 3s early in the shot clock).

Just one scribe’s hunch: The Hornets will miss him. They have an abundance of shooting but not much shot creation, especially after flipping Miles Bridges for Royce O’Neale and Grayson Allen. That trade was another savvy bit of business by a front office that seems to know what it’s doing. Still, it indicates an organizational willingness to temporarily regress — and a belief that last season wasn’t real.

This approach could become more common. Trades and extensions are the new free agency in the current CBA landscape. When playoff teams get antsy under pressure to offer long-term max extensions to second-tier stars, they might simply opt to trade those players. Get something back while you can; make the contract negotiation someone else’s problem. The difference in the two situations this summer? One team sold high; another team miscalculated and thought it was.

Winner: Walker Kessler

The biggest individual winner of the offseason, and it’s not particularly close. Nothing about Kessler’s situation said “four years, $130 million, player option.” He was a restricted free agent coming off a season-ending injury. He played five games for Utah last year.

But the Lakers had cap space, and Luka Doncic wanted them to get him a shot-blocking, rim-running center to catch his alley-oops. That manufactured leverage for Kessler, who ended up in Hollywood via sign-and-trade. The Jazz made the most of it, getting back two first-round picks and two swaps — basically an added payment from Los Angeles to guarantee safe delivery of the asset, rather than dealing with the risk and suspense of an offer sheet.

Think about what those picks say: Kessler (at $32 million per year) was deemed more valuable than Jaylen Brown (at $60 million) this week. It’s an incredible career move for the 7-footer, who got paid handsomely — maybe even overpaid — and should automatically look good playing with Doncic.

An admittedly biased take from someone who covered Kessler in college: That contract isn’t as much of a reach as most NBA observers have labeled it. His job next to Luka will be simplified — roll, catch, finish — and he’s got a burgeoning jump shot that could diversify what the Lakers are able to do with him. Defensively, he’s already one of the best rim protectors in the game. (I should know. I’ve tried to score on him.)

The Lakers will attract a range of opinions for the next three months. They’ve used their cap space to overhaul their team around Doncic and Austin Reaves, despite the fact that they seemed content to move on from arguably the best player in this free agency class. Can the combination of Kessler, Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Collin Sexton raise this team’s ceiling? Or will Los Angeles remain a clear level below OKC and San Antonio?

Loser: Julius Randle (and Tim Connelly if this doesn’t work)

The way this turned out for Randle in Minnesota is pretty tough. Two years after the Knicks traded him for Karl-Anthony Towns, he watched his former team end a 53-year championship drought, then immediately got traded — not just traded, but salary-dumped — to the other team in New York that might as well not exist compared to the Knicks. He’ll get to experience the city’s joy during their victory lap next season. He just won’t get to take part in it.

Randle was excellent for the Timberwolves in the 2025 playoffs. Not so much in 2026. Getting rid of him was the means by which Minnesota acquired Ball. It was also Connelly’s way of admitting that he lost the KAT trade.

The Wolves had clearly reached their ceiling with a Randle-Rudy Gobert frontcourt, getting crushed in the Western Conference Finals two consecutive years. They felt like they had no choice but to pivot. Now they’re pretty much out of draft capital and out of methods to improve their roster around Anthony Edwards if the Ball experiment crashes and burns. No pressure.

Under-the-radar winner: Chicago Bulls. They’re under new front office management, and it shows. With a new lottery system that “relegates” the odds of the worst teams, they can’t be excessively bad next season. But they’re not trying to be a true playoff contender, either. Enter Norman Powell and Nic Claxton, two solid players on good contracts to help Chicago have an identity in the first year of Caleb Wilson’s career. Poaching coach Tiago Splitter from Portland was a nice touch. Nothing extravagant this summer, but smart moves and a sense of direction.

Under-the-radar loser: Detroit Pistons. Until further notice. Patience at the trade deadline last season was one thing. The No. 1 seed in the East was comfortable with the likelihood that its flaws would be exposed in the playoffs. They were. So now … still nothing. Running it back with Jalen Duren on a more expensive contract and swapping out Tobias Harris for John Collins isn’t going to cut it. The East will be too good. It’s time for the Pistons to go get a secondary scorer.

At least, that’s what Rich Paul’s visual aid suggests.

James is indeed considering the Nuggets as a potential free agency destination, his longtime friend and agent said on “,” a podcast that Paul hosts with Max Kellerman.

As a discussion guide for the show’s LeBron segment Friday, with James’ name at the center and 10 teams orbiting it. Five of those teams were scribbled on the outer edges of the board: New York, San Antonio, Dallas, Boston and Golden State, the last of which caused Kellerman to wonder aloud if Paul was trying to throw people off the scent. The Warriors have been widely considered one of the favorites to land James for his 24th season.

Then there were the five teams closest to James’ name, expressed as quartets — the projected starting lineups that LeBron would hypothetically be joining.

Cleveland, Philadelphia, Miami, Minnesota, Denver.

“Is Denver actually a legitimate destination?” Kellerman asked.

“It wouldn’t be on the board (if it wasn’t),” Paul replied.

The four players listed to represent Denver were Jamal Murray, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon and Nikola Jokic — a decision almost as curious as the one to relegate Golden State to the exterior. Notably absent was Peyton Watson, a restricted free agent who is also Paul’s client. The Nuggets entered this offseason prepared to trade at least one starter (with Johnson seen as the most likely candidate) to help them re-sign Watson, wanting to signal that he was their top priority.

No such trade has materialized two days into free agency, and no contract agreement has been reached with Watson yet.

That Denver has seemingly taken a step back on the trade front, at least for the moment, can ironically be interpreted as an aggressive stance. The Nuggets aren’t required by rule to clear out any salary to make room for a new Watson contract. They have Watson’s full Bird rights, having drafted and developed him over the last four years. They can spend as lavishly as they want to keep him — even into the second apron. It’s just that NBA owners, including the Kroenkes, have shown a tendency to treat the second apron as a self-imposed hard cap.

The Nuggets are projected to be a second apron team if they re-sign Watson and don’t cut any other salary. They would also be paying repeater tax penalties.

But in a crowded field of LeBron suitors, perhaps that’s the best way to stand out as a committed championship contender. For now, Paul’s omission of Watson on the whiteboard reads as a leverage play.

“They’ve got one big hurdle,” he said of the Nuggets’ offseason, referring to Watson.

The Denver Post first reported on Wednesday that the Nuggets had contacted James to show interest in the 41-year-old forward, who’s nearing the end of a legendary career. Paul’s whiteboard confirms that the interest is mutual, even if Denver isn’t the frontrunner. He has said that James is willing to sign a low-cost deal and that his decision will be based on “happiness.”

The superagent also wrote the name “Kroenke” on the board, referencing James’ friendship with Nuggets president Josh Kroenke, then taking note of owner Stan Kroenke’s recent track record of winning championships in various sports leagues.

The four players listed for Cleveland were Donovan Mitchell, James Harden, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen.

For Miami: Davion Mitchell, Andrew Wiggins, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo.

For Philadelphia: Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, newly acquired Jaylen Brown and Joel Embiid.

For Minnesota: Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball, Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert.

Meanwhile, Denver’s roster remains unchanged. Teams are officially allowed to negotiate with free agents starting at 4 p.m. MT next Tuesday (because they definitely haven’t already been negotiating with anyone; that would never happen). It’s the epicenter of transaction season, with a number of trades also likely to take place in the surrounding hours and days.

The Nuggets are expected to remain engaged in trade talks as much as any team during this time, with looming luxury tax constraints and Peyton Watson set to become a restricted free agent. Before the critical week arrived, co-general managers Jon Wallace and Ben Tenzer spoke to reporters after the draft. While they made a point of not going into detail on specific plans, here are a few takeaways from their comments and other relevant notes to Denver from around the league.

Wallace wants ball-handling, ‘creativity’

After being named captain of his national team, Nikola Jokic recently took part in a rare interview scrum with reporters in Serbia, where he has no contractual media obligations (unlike those required of him during the NBA season). With his usual bluntness, Jokic said the Nuggets weren’t a good enough team to win last season based on the results.

Denver’s brass was asked about those comments on Wednesday, and Wallace responded by sharing some thoughts on the team’s internal and external goals.

“I think for your leader to say that, you can’t deal with a problem until you acknowledge it as a problem. And he did that,” Wallace said. “I think any time you get bounced in the first round like that, everyone’s gotta look themselves in the mirror. I think a large part of that is health. I think a large part of that is, as our team has entered into a more seasoned state individually, the type of basketball we play. The way we prepare, the way we attack teams is gonna have to change a little bit. And I think our guys were able to kind of have that opportunity to communicate amongst themselves about what’s gonna be needed from them this summer.

“Obviously, what we did (in the draft) was trying to plug a couple of holes in that … guys who can help with the toughness, defensive ability, rebounding. And now from there, we’ll look to see what we can do in terms of adding the creativity. … The ball-handling.”

From coach David Adelman to Wallace, the Nuggets have been unafraid to admit they want more players who can create a shot or an advantage off the dribble. That seems to be a theme around the league after recent playoff runs by Oklahoma City (SGA, Jalen Williams, Ajay Mitchell, Cason Wallace), Indiana (Tyrese Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, TJ McConnell, Bennedict Mathurin) and San Antonio (De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper) — teams that had a surplus of ball-handlers capable of taking over for a possession.

Wallace said the Nuggets tried to move up in the draft for a point guard. Now that they were unable to accomplish that, they’ll be eyeing creators on the trade market in free agency. Wallace’s allusion to “the type of basketball we play” was probably in regard to that; Denver’s lack of quickness and rim pressure stood in stark contrast to Minnesota’s aggressive downhill attack during the playoffs.

Peyton Watson’s free agency landscape

Part of Denver’s vision for a team with more shot creation involves Watson, of course. Multiple team sources have reiterated to The Post in recent days that the 23-year-old wing is a top offseason priority. The front office’s comments on Wednesday also indicated as much.

“We feel good about where that’s at,” Tenzer said, “and we hope Peyton is here a long time.”

“A lot of the guys that we already have in-house, we expect to have those guys here for a long time, as Ben mentioned,” Wallace added later, not mentioning Watson by name but clearly referencing him. “And so a lot of that is just, make sure we communicate. We already have good relationships with those guys. Really following up, making sure they’re in a good spot and good space for us to hopefully get something done in the future.”

A couple of recent transactions bode well for Denver. Coming into the offseason, the Lakers, Bulls and Nets were seen as the biggest threats to throw a big offer sheet at Watson because of their financial flexibility. But Minnesota’s salary dump of Julius Randle last Monday took a chunk out of Brooklyn’s cap space and Chicago’s. The Bulls acquired Nic Claxton’s $23.3 million salary in the trade. The Nets absorbed about a $10 million payroll increase by turning Claxton into Randle.

Later in the week, Los Angeles agreed to a max extension with incumbent free agent Austin Reaves that will pay him an estimated $41.3 million next season, . The Lakers have more moving parts to sort out next week, most importantly, LeBron James. They’re also reportedly under pressure from Luka Doncic to pursue a rim-running center.

Nuggets ‘confident’ they can re-sign Spencer Jones

He’s been much less discussed than Watson, but Jones will also be an important restricted free agent for the Nuggets next week. He emerged last season as a viable 3-and-D wing who plays with a physicality that Denver otherwise lacked.

After earning a standard contract, he told The Post that he wanted to enter restricted free agency this summer rather than take more guaranteed years with the Nuggets. Now is his chance to test the waters and find out if any suitors will approach him with an offer sheet. Denver doesn’t have much financial wiggle room for the back half of the roster, but Wallace had this to say on Wednesday:

“I think Spencer’s done himself a lot of favors this past year, specifically how he stepped in and defended, made shots. He was just a big part of what we did. But we feel confident. He’s a homegrown guy. You want to reward those guys for sticking to the plan and really developing themselves. So we feel confident in where we are with him.”

Like Watson, Jones is due a qualifying offer by the end of Monday.

Jonas Valanciunas reportedly Europe-bound

According to an overseas report by BasketNews, Denver’s backup center is prepared to sign a contract with the Lithuanian Euro League team Zalgiris Kaunas — an unsurprising development after Panathinaikos tried to lure him away from the NBA after the Nuggets traded for him last summer.

In 2025, they had no reason to release him from his contract. This time, due to the payroll crunch, it’s a near certainty that Denver will let him go — whether via trade, waive-and-stretch or clean release. Tenzer said the team is still evaluating how to handle the situation. Valanciunas has a $10 million non-guaranteed salary for next season, with $2 million of it guaranteed.

“We saw the reports, too,” Tenzer said. “But you know, we saw that last summer, so it’s all good.”

Tim Hardaway Jr. free agency

Late last season, Adelman said unprompted that he would love to have Hardaway back for a second year. The veteran guard joined the Nuggets in 2025 on a one-year veteran minimum contract and went on to post one of the best shooting seasons of his career. After finishing third place for NBA Sixth Man of the Year, he might have priced himself out of the minimum, which is what Denver will be relying on to fill out roster spots.

One potential Hardaway suitor to watch is Miami. The Heat will be looking for spacers to put around Antetokounmpo, who might already be dealing with crowded driving lanes because Bam Adebayo is his new frontcourt partner.

Hardaway has feasted on open shots created by Jokic and Doncic in recent years. Giannis would be a nice addition to his collection of superstar teammates in a city he calls home. Tim Hardaway Sr. spent parts of six seasons in Miami, making three All-NBA teams with the Heat. If they approach Tim Jr. with a marginal pay increase, it might be a natural fit.

Sean Keeler: Baby, you should drive that Carr. In a perfect world, you’re not just re-signing Peyton Watson this summer. You’re sticking his profile into the 3-D printer and adding clones of him. And of those clones, Cameron Carr of Baylor is the one worth dealing for, on paper. He’s a 6-foot-5 wing with a 7-foot-long wingspan. He’s got a 42-inch vertical leap. He features a high release point and a quick trigger. He’s got the quicks to close and the length to guard spots 1-4 on the floor. Even better, he’s 21, with seven or eight peak seasons still ahead of him. If you want someone who won’t back down whenever Jaden McDaniels, Ayo Dosunmu, Terrence Shannon Jr. and Anthony Edwards are hunting the HOV lane to the rim, Carr’s your guy.

Renck: Talking with our Nuggets expert Bennett Durando, the realistic targets for a deal start at 14 or 18 with the Charlotte Hornets and likely end with the Raptors (19) and Pistons (21). These are teams who want to become serious contenders after dipping their toes in the playoff waters last season. Would the Nuggets hit the reset button and ship Aaron Gordon to the Hornets for Carr or Texas’ Dailyn Swain? Or could they land Swain or Arizona rugged forward Koa Peat by inching up the ladder a few picks? Swain is a versatile defender who can get to the rim. He must improve as a shooter. Same goes for Peat. But Peat projects as an alley-oop replacement for Gordon, fitting perfectly with a space-creating center like Nikola Jokic. He would also add a layer of toughness needed on the boards and at the rim.

Keeler: Got to admit — I do like the idea of re-Peating with a younger Aaron Gordon playalike. I remember coming away impressed by what Peat did in Boulder a few months back (12-for-15 shooting from the floor) against CU. Downside? He doesn’t — at least, not right now, at any rate — have AG’s shooting touch, and it sounds as if teams will be perfectly content to leave him open anywhere past about 9 feet away from the rim. He also doesn’t have AG’s hops, mind you. Although it’s fair to wonder if AG at present has AG’s old hops, too

Renck: It is my belief that the Nuggets must go backward to compete with the league’s upper crust again. Trading Cam Johnson or Aaron Gordon — or both — makes sense to keep Peyton Watson. If a team wants to take Christian Braun’s contract, fine. But no salary dumps. The Nuggets need draft capital to maximize their reinvention over the next few years. They must hit on the first round. DaRon Holmes II has been a ghost since being drafted due to injury and ineffectiveness. As long as Jokic is on the Nuggets, they are a postseason team. But how they play in the postseason will depend largely on the drafts the next two seasons. It is worth moving someone to move up.

Keeler: Said it before, gonna say it again: You need more P-Swats on this roster, not fewer. While his contract is a beast to move, Jamal Murray’s trade value might never get any higher than it is right now, given a spate of (relatively) good health. Nuggets Nation has wanted the Zeke Nnaji contract moved for what feels like a decade now — but I’d imagine that trading up to the 12-16 sweet spot of the first round will require a much bigger piece on the table than our man Zeke, sadly. And a much bigger swing on the part of the three-headed monster that is Josh Kroenke, Jon Wallace and Ben Tenzer. But that said, Carr’s upside is more than worth it. The Nuggets could do a lot worse than the second coming of Devin Vassell or Trey Murphy III. If you’ve only got one more chance to remake your core around the Joker, why not go wild?

With a Game 7 upset over top-seeded Oklahoma City, Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs guaranteed that an eighth different team in as many years will be crowned champion of the NBA. Such variety seemed impossible as recently as 2018, when the Golden State Warriors were at the height of their reign and decades of history suggested the NBA would always be the American sports league most characterized by dynasties.

But with a collective bargaining agreement averse to super-teams, everything changed. New luxury tax thresholds were introduced, imposing punitive roster-building restrictions on big spenders, scaring teams away from keeping their championship cores intact. The second apron became the boogeyman to front offices. Unrestricted free agency has crept toward extinction. The art of roster architecture has been replaced by the tedium of money management in many cases.

The Nuggets have been profoundly impacted by a system designed to make it harder for them to win Nikola Jokic a second ring. Other repeat dreamers have been thwarted as well. Boston essentially salary-dumped multiple Finals starters last offseason. Even the indefatigable Thunder will face uncomfortable decisions this summer (and next) as its payroll spikes into the second apron.

Titles are not to be taken for granted anymore. One is the new two.

As the Spurs and Knicks tipped off their best-of-seven series this week, we endeavored to rank all 16 teams that have reached the NBA Finals (including them) during the eight-year era of parity, dating back to 2019. Thirteen different franchises have fielded a Finals team during that time, including seven different Western Conference champs in the last seven seasons.

Which one-hit wonders have stood out most in a decade defined by the elusiveness of sustained dominance?

1. Boston Celtics, 2024 

• Regular season: 64-18 (1st in East)
• Net rating: 11.7 (1st)
• Playoffs: 16-3
• Playoff net: 8.6

The only team on this list that won 60 or more regular-season games and never faced elimination in the playoffs. The Celtics are a fitting choice for the most dominant team of the parity era so far because they’re the rare case of an NBA champion without an inner circle Hall of Famer. Instead, they caught lightning in a bottle with a starting lineup featuring five All-Star-caliber two-way talents: Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown (the franchise cornerstones) were surrounded by Jrue Holiday, Derrick White and Kristaps Porzingis.

2. Oklahoma City Thunder, 2025

• Regular season: 68-14 (1st in West)
• RS net rating: 12.7 (1st)
• Playoffs: 16-7
• Playoff net: 8.6

OKC has a fair case for the No. 1 spot, but nitpicking is the only way to differentiate between this team and Boston. The 2025 champs are docked a few brownie points only because they had to survive two home Game 7s against hobbled opponents. That doesn’t make the banner any less valid, but it does leave room to distinguish between their regular-season dominance and their ability to close out a playoff series. Still, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams were brilliant throughout this run, and OKC’s depth (aided by a lopsided 2024 offseason trade for Alex Caruso) suffocated top-heavy teams like Denver.

3. Golden State Warriors, 2019

• Regular season: 57-25 (1st in West)
• RS net rating: 6.5 (2nd)
• Playoffs: 14-8
• Playoff net: 3.1

The most difficult team to place, for obvious reasons. Crushing injuries to Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson symbolically marked the end of Golden State’s dominion and the beginning of the post-dynasty NBA. But when the two-time defending champion Warriors were healthy, they were still, you know, arguably the greatest roster ever assembled. They still almost pushed Toronto to a Finals Game 7 even after Durant tore his Achilles and Thompson his ACL.

4. Denver Nuggets, 2023

• Regular season: 53-29 (1st in West)
• RS net rating: 3.3 (6th)
• Playoffs: 16-4
• Playoff net: 8.0

The Nuggets lack the eye-popping regular-season résumé of Boston or Oklahoma City, but they still controlled the No. 1 seed in their conference for the last four months of the season without dropping. More importantly, they proved their stature with the second-most dominant title run of the teams on this list, mowing through Anthony Edwards, Durant, Devin Booker, LeBron James and Anthony Davis in the West. Perhaps this will be the only year it all comes together in perfect harmony around Nikola Jokic, the most decorated player of the decade so far.

5. Los Angeles Lakers, 2020

• Regular season: 52-19 (1st in West)
• RS net rating: 5.6 (5th)
• Playoffs: 16-5
• Playoff net: 6.9

It’s hard to escape the skepticism that has greeted LeBron and the Lakers for years since they emerged from the bubble, where they won the pandemic championship in an empty gym. But make no mistake, this team was a wagon. Aside from James and Davis, Los Angeles had a stellar defensive supporting cast headlined by Alex Caruso and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, both of whom went on to solidify their status as winning players with other champions higher on this list.

6. Toronto Raptors, 2019

• Regular season: 58-24 (2nd in East)
• Net rating: 5.8 (3rd)
• Playoffs: 16-8
• Playoff net: 5.6

One of the wildest playoff runs in league history, from Kawhi Leonard’s four-bounce buzzer beater to win Game 7, to the 2-0 series comeback in the Eastern Conference Finals, to the upset of Curry’s injury-hampered Warriors. It was Leonard’s masterpiece, but the roster around him was deeper than it’s given credit for: Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, Danny Green, OG Anunoby (until he missed the playoffs due to appendicitis), Norman Powell, Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka each left their marks. A delightful team.

7. Milwaukee Bucks, 2021

• Regular season: 46-26 (3rd in East)
• Net rating: 5.8 (4th)
• Playoffs: 16-7
• Playoff net: 5.3

Sure, if Kevin Durant’s foot was behind the 3-point line, Milwaukee’s season would’ve technically ended in Game 7 of the second round. But every champion needs a little bit of luck. The Bucks just got slightly more than most. They also got an absolute tour de force of a playoff run from Giannis Antetokounmpo, who scored 40 in that Game 7 against Brooklyn, then 50 in a Game 6 win over Phoenix to close out the best Finals of the decade so far. If the Giannis era is indeed about to end in Milwaukee, at least they’ll always have 2021, when the stars aligned for Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday.

8. San Antonio Spurs, 2026*

• Regular season: 62-20 (2nd in West)
• Net rating: 8.4 (3rd)
• Playoffs: 12-7*
• Playoff net: 11.0*

They’re a few wins away from making eighth place look criminally low. For now, consider this one last gesture of trepidation toward a radically young team. By prevailing over Minnesota and OKC in back-to-back slugfests, the Spurs have shattered every precedent that experience is a non-negotiable playoff virtue. Victor Wembanyama is wise beyond his years, and Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper don’t seem to care that their combined age equals one LeBron.

9. New York Knicks, 2026*

• Regular season: 53-29 (3rd in East)
• Net rating: 6.4 (5th)
• Playoffs: 12-2*
• Playoff net: 19.8*

An 11-game win streak to bulldoze through the East playoffs forced NBA analysts to reconsider how good this Knicks team might actually be. If they can end Madison Square Garden’s title drought without needing a Game 7, they’ll join Denver and Boston as the only champions of the era to go 16-4 or better. Like the 2024 Celtics, they don’t depend on a bona fide all-time great (though Jalen Brunson will certainly achieve New York immortality if they finish this thing off). It’s the four-man core of Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges that has fueled this run, plus an unexpectedly free-wheeling use of the bench by first-year coach Mike Brown.

10. Golden State Warriors, 2022

• Regular season: 53-29 (3rd in West)
• Net rating: 5.5 (4th)
• Playoffs: 16-6
• Playoff net: 4.9

Of all the teams to raise a banner during this era, the Warriors probably had the flimsiest roster — the last remnants of their dynasty and some new friends they met along the way. That’s ultimately a credit to Curry, who averaged an efficient 31, six and five to knock off Boston. This championship is his greatest achievement. Klay Thompson and Draymond Green’s glory days were in the rearview mirror, Andrew Wiggins was the team’s second option, and Otto Porter Jr. started the last three games of the Finals.

11. Indiana Pacers, 2025

• Regular season: 50-32 (4th in East)
• Net rating: 2.1 (13th)
• Playoffs: 15-8
• Playoff net: 2.1

Basketball fans around the globe will never stop lamenting the timing of Tyrese Haliburton’s torn Achilles tendon, moments after an awe-inspiring barrage of deep 3s early in Game 7 of the Finals. Thanks in large part to their four ridiculous last-minute comebacks — one in each playoff round — the Pacers will go down in history as one of the most exciting teams that didn’t win the title.

12. Phoenix Suns, 2021

• Regular season: 51-21 (2nd in West)
• Net rating: 5.9 (3rd)
• Playoffs: 14-8
• Playoff net: 4.2

Up 2-0 on Milwaukee, then later down one point with the ball on the last possession of Game 5, Phoenix was as close to a ring as any Finals loser this century. Chris Paul and Devin Booker formed one of the best backcourts on this list. But 18 months later, the team was sold, and young role players Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson were shipped off to Brooklyn in the fateful Durant trade.

13. Boston Celtics, 2022

• Regular season: 51-31 (2nd in East)
• Net rating: 7.4 (2nd)
• Playoffs: 14-10
• Playoff net: 3.9

Playing in their fourth Eastern Conference Finals together, Tatum and Brown finally broke through. Also buoyed by Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart, the Celtics survived Game 7s against Milwaukee and Miami to gain a 2-1 series edge over Golden State. Then they got fried by Curry.

14. Dallas Mavericks, 2024

• Regular season: 50-32 (5th in West)
• RS net rating: 2.1 (15th)
• Playoffs: 13-9
• Playoff net: 2.6

These regular-season numbers disguise a team that was altered at the trade deadline and dominated down the stretch. PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford were savvy acquisitions to assist Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving on an impressive playoff run, highlighted by a six-game upset of the top-seeded Thunder. Little did Doncic know it would be his last chance in Dallas.

15. Miami Heat, 2020

• Regular season: 44-29 (5th in East)
• Net rating: 2.7 (7th)
• Playoffs: 14-7
• Playoff net: 1.9

Playoff risers in the bubble. An unimpeachable Jimmy Butler performance made the Finals look closer than they were, forcing Game 6 and delaying LeBron’s fourth title.

16. Miami Heat, 2023

• Regular season: 44-38 (7th in East)
• Net rating: -0.5 (21st)
• Playoffs: 13-10
• Playoff net: 1.9

Props to the Heat for milking everything it possibly could out of the Butler era. This is the only Play-In Tournament team to ever reach the Finals. Butler, Bam Adebayo and Erik Spoelstra outdid themselves, needing only five games to upset the top-seeded Bucks in the first round.

Is the No. 1 seed overrated? Yes and no

Everybody knows how unprecedented it is that seven different teams have won the last seven NBA Finals. But here’s an interesting, less-discussed subplot of the league’s parity era: With Detroit’s Game 7 loss to the Cavs last weekend, a No. 1 seed has been eliminated before the conference finals in seven straight years (and eight of the last nine). That’s quite a surprising streak in a league that’s generally considered the least upset-prone of the major American sports.

• 2026: Pistons (60-22) lost 4-3 to No. 4 Cavaliers in Round 2
• 2025: Cavaliers (64-18) lost 4-1 to No. 4 Pacers in Round 2
• 2024:���ճ�ܲԻ��� (57-25) lost 4-2 to No. 5 Mavericks in Round 2
• 2023: Bucks (58-24) lost 4-1 to No. 8 Heat in Round 1
• 2022: Suns (64-18) lost 4-3 to No. 4 Mavericks in Round 2
• 2021: 76ers (49-23) lost 4-3 to No. 5 Hawks in Round 2
• 2020: Bucks (56-17) lost 4-1 to No. 5 Heat in Round 2
• 2018: Raptors (59-23) lost 4-0 to No. 4 Cavaliers in Round 2

It’s enough to at least raise the question of whether seeding is overrated.

The answer to that question remains a definitive no.

The surviving No. 1 seed has still won the last three championships, sustaining a trend that spans the history of the NBA: The best team usually wins. Upsets may be a little more prevalent, but OKC, Boston and . The regular season has remained a pretty good indicator of which team is going to hoist the Larry O’Brien.

A No. 1 seed has won roughly two-thirds of all championships. Only eight No. 3 seeds have won, and only two teams seeded lower than that have pulled it off — the 1969 Celtics (No. 4) and 1995 Rockets (No. 6). The third-place Nuggets felt like they had a shot as they entered the playoffs this year, but they would have been an anomaly.

Pour one out for the Pacers

The closest any recent sub-three has gotten to the title was last June, of course, when Indiana’s magical run was cut tragically short in Game 7 of the Finals. Tyrese Haliburton’s torn Achilles tendon is a “what if” for all eternity. The Pacers deserved some good karma. In the middle of a lost season, they took one of the gutsiest risks you’ll see in the NBA — trading their 2026 first-round pick, top-four protected, to the Clippers for center Ivica Zubac.

The logic behind it made sense: The four headliners of this draft class could fit Indiana’s roster and immediately contribute to a win-now cause. Fifth or lower, the Pacers were willing to lose for a veteran of Zubac’s stature.

The game of chance was nonetheless nerve-racking. After finishing with the league’s second-worst record, the Pacers entered the draft lottery with a 52% chance to keep their pick and a 48% chance to forfeit it to Los Angeles. The lowest it could fall was sixth. It was a coin toss.

If any team in the NBA deserved to win a coin toss, it was them.

They walked away empty-handed. The pick fell to No. 5, to a Clippers team in the middle of a salary cap circumvention scandal, rubbing salt on the wound.

Indiana, with AJ Dybantsa, Caleb Wilson, or Cameron Boozer coming off the bench, would have been a sight to behold. Instead, the book is closed on one of the most cursed years any franchise has ever endured. (We haven’t even mentioned Haliburton’s case of shingles.) If the Pacers want a second chance on the biggest stage, they’ll have to make their own luck.

East could be a gauntlet in ’26-27

A perennial laughingstock compared to the Western Conference, the East should be fun and fierce next season. Indiana’s anticipated return to form (even without a lottery pick) adds a proven title contender to the mix. Boston, New York, Detroit and Cleveland shouldn’t be any less dangerous on paper, roster changes pending.

Orlando was a team considered talented enough to make a deep run this season, and now Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner will have a new coach to offer a fresh perspective on how they can optimize that talent. Philly’s health is fickle, but the upside is evident after a first-round upset of Boston. Atlanta and Toronto are playoff teams on the rise, with the trade resources to power up. Then there’s Charlotte, one of the most compelling teams of all — another ascending core with reason to believe it can win the conference after finishing 2025-26 on a 33-15 surge.

Giannis Antetokounmpo looms over the entire landscape. His exit from Milwaukee represents a paradigm shift. Wherever he gets traded in the next month will leap ahead as a contender. Any number of East hopefuls could go after him.

This all leaves a feeling that the Pistons were a little too content to treat 2025-26 as a house-money year. They handled the trade deadline the same way Oklahoma City did in 2024 — by doing nothing to address obvious holes in a first-place roster. They preferred to see things through in their current form, gain playoff experience and evaluate next steps afterward. The Thunder had so much premier talent that GM Sam Presti needed only to supplement his stars in the summer of 2024. Detroit appears farther from a championship, more in need of substantial upgrades — not just better shooting around Cade Cunningham, but a secondary star capable of creating off the dribble.

Those needs were already apparent in February, when a more manageable path through the East lay ahead. By waiting, the Pistons might not have helped themselves. What if the house money year turns out to be their best opportunity?

Where do the Timberwolves go from here?

The West should remain the more top-heavy conference, at least. on Monday night was proof of that. Twenty-eight general managers will wake up in a cold sweat at some point this summer, jolted out of a nightmare about that game.

Victor Wembanyama, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the juggernauts surrounding them aren’t going anywhere.

Even if Presti has to make sacrifices to the second apron, his roster is such a cornucopia of talent that it’s difficult to imagine OKC doing anything except winning 60 games over and over again. Meanwhile, Wembanyama has broken basketball.

It’s a league-wide existential crisis. But it has to be more dramatic than the other superstar-laden teams in the West. Teams with a player good enough to incentivize aggressive roster moves that are nonetheless unlikely to close the gap. Teams like the Nuggets. And the team that has their number.

For as much as they’ve crossed paths and evolved into a box-office matchup, Minnesota and Denver seem to form a pretty clear secondary tier in the conference right now. The Wolves pushed San Antonio to six, but they went out of the playoffs with a whimper for the third consecutive year of Anthony Edwards’ prime. They’ve trailed by 30 points in each of their last three elimination games.

Their superstar is much younger than Denver’s, but he’s stuck in the middle of SGA and Wemby’s generations. The Nuggets at least did themselves a favor by capturing a title before this Thunder-Spurs thing became a problem.

Tim Connelly is no stranger to blockbuster trades, and it feels like there’s another one coming this offseason. The Timberwolves need a pure point guard to spare Edwards after he spent a year playing out of position. They also need a frontcourt reboot — the Julius Randle-Rudy Gobert combo may have reached its ceiling already. New York is emerging as a potential winner in the KAT trade. It doesn’t help that Donte DiVincenzo is likely out for most of next season.

This all gets at a central theme: the summer trade market could be busy and messy, with many good teams desperately grasping for greatness. Wembanyama is going to prompt some intriguing, possibly rash, decisions.

A trendy pick to skyrocket in the West

For a few years now, there’s been at least one young Western Conference team that catapults up the standings from the lottery more dramatically than anyone predicts. This season, it was the Spurs with a 28-win increase from 13th place to second. The year before, it was the Rockets going from 11th to second. In 2023-24, the Thunder jumped from 10th to first.

Everyone has eyes on Charlotte in the East. In the West, Utah wants to be that team next season. The Jazz loaded up at the trade deadline by acquiring Jaren Jackson Jr., waited out one last year of tanking and got rewarded with the No. 2 overall pick. They could have an opening day lineup of Keyonte George, Darryn Peterson (or another top prospect), Lauri Markkanen, JJJ and Walker Kessler, with Ace Bailey off the bench. They have the assets to make other aggressive moves.

If anyone is going to steal a top-six seed in the West from one of this year’s contenders, Utah will be a popular pick to be that team. Bad news for Denver: It’s yet another divisional opponent trying to win, along with OKC, Minnesota and the lurking Blazers. Life is not getting easier for Nikola Jokic and company.

“Why did the Cubbies lose the 2003 NLCS?” he would ask.

If they answered “Bartman,” or “Steve Bartman,” or anything that sounded remotely like “Bartman,” my pal would wish ’em well, shake his head, and move on. (The correct answer, then and now, is )

We decided the other day that the same test could be applied to Michael Porter Jr. and the Nuggets.

“Would Denver have beaten the Timberwolves in 2026 if they still had MPJ?”

If somebody answers yes, they’re saying something. They’re telling you they’ve never really watched the Nuggets without telling you that they’ve never really watched the Nuggets.

They’re telling you they follow this team via TikTok. Or Xwitter highlights. Or only when the Nuggets happened to be playing the Lakers in the postseason.

“I guess they might miss me,” Porter, now of the Brooklyn Nets, cracked this past week when asked about his former team’s epic choke job “I don’t know. Probably not.”

Yeah, probably not.

MPJ was a good soul, tougher than old leather, He was also a notoriously here.

The brighter the lights, the tighter Porter got. The closer MPJ flew to the sun, the more his wings melted.

When last Denver fans saw Porter in the NBA Playoffs, the pride of Mizzou averaged 7.4 points, 5.3 boards and 0.6 dimes per game in the 2025 Western semis against Oklahoma City. Porter shot at a 25% clip from beyond the arc (9-36).

Yes, MPJ put up those numbers with just one working shoulder. Yes, he played hurt, played through all kinds of pain. Again — tough, tough, tough dude. The spirit was willing, even as the body failed him.

“If I would have been on the Nuggets,” , “we wouldn’t have lost to the Wolves.”

Cherish your history. Just don’t revise it. Remember the last time the Nuggets were eliminated from the postseason by Minnesota? No? Quick refresher: MPJ was Deadpool in Los Angeles and Nicepool in Minneapolis.

With two functional shoulders, Porter averaged 10.7 points, 5.7 rebounds and an assist against the Timberwolves in the 2024 Western Conference semis. He made 32.5% of his looks beyond the arc (13-40).

MPJ dropped 20 on Minny in Game 1. He would go on to score nine or fewer in five of the next six contests. With the Nuggets leading 3-2 in the series, he’d average just 7.5 points in Games 6 and 7, two setbacks that loom even larger in hindsight, and was 2 for 12 on treys.

“I’m a better player than I played in this series,” Porter said after the Nuggets blew Game 7 to Minnesota and Anthony Edwards at home. “I’m a better shooter than I shot in this series. In the NBA, you’ve got to be able to separate off-the-court matters with your on-the-court play. So I don’t have any excuses. … I told my teammates, ‘Sorry.’ I feel like this is on me.”

It wasn’t all on MPJ, to be fair. But when the Nuggets needed a hero,

Cam Johnson, the man who came over in the trade that sent Porter to the Nets last summer, averaged 14 points, 3.2 boards, 2.3 assists against Minnesota in the first round this season. Faced with elimination in Game 6, Johnson dropped 27 points, eight boards and five treys on the Wolves.

The memory. Oh, how it cheats.

It’s not the guy. It was never the guy. It was the contract. Porter came with a $38.3-million cap hit in ’25-26 and a $40.8-million cap hit next season.

The Nuggets don’t land Tim Hardaway Jr., Bruce Brown, Jonas Valanciunas and Johnson if they keep MPJ.

The Nuggets don’t win 54 games in the regular season if they keep MPJ.

The Nuggets don’t go 11-6 while Nikola Jokic is hurt if they keep MPJ.

The Nuggets probably don’t see peak Peyton Watson if they keep MPJ.

And the Nuggets probably don’t get past Minnesota in ’26 if they keep MPJ. No matter what your favorite fantasy basketball expert says while he’s thinking with his thumbs.

“I didn’t like that (Aaron Gordon) was hurt, I didn’t like that (Watson) couldn’t do his thing,” Porter told the ‘Road Trippin’ Show.’ “I was talking to Christian Braun during the series. He hurt his ankle the first game, and he played through it same way I played through a shoulder injury last year. Now, he’s getting killed on social media, especially since the comments he made. Those are my guys. I wanted them to do well.”

Meanwhile, the four guys who replaced him averaged 33.2 points per game in the Wolves series. Let him go. As the Nuggets just proved,

“I have full faith in Coach Adelman,” team president and KSE vice chairman Josh Kroenke said Friday at Ball Arena. “I think he coached a hell of a season, all things considered.”

Kroenke defended Adelman when pressed during a news conference about Denver’s decision to retain him for a second season. The Nuggets were eliminated by Minnesota in the first round of the NBA playoffs, marking the first time since 2022 that they haven’t advanced to a second-round series and bringing a sour end to Adelman’s first season as an NBA head coach.

“This isn’t an organization that makes changes like we made last year lightly,” Kroenke said, referring to the 2025 firing of Michael Malone. “We don’t take those decisions lightly. So I think the quote from myself last year was that we needed to reinvent ourselves, but not reinvent the wheel. And I think we did that in a lot of ways. I want to give credit to, one, DA, and then (the front office) for pressing a lot of the right buttons last summer to put ourselves in a new kind of (situation to) turn the page without fully breaking apart a true championship team.”

Adelman, who turns 45 next week, was a Nuggets assistant under Malone from 2017-25. He took over as interim head coach last April, with three games left in the regular season, and led the Nuggets to the second round of the NBA Playoffs, where they came within one win of upsetting the eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder. With the locker room’s endorsement, Adelman was able to shed the “interim” tag.

His first full year at the helm was defined by injury instability. He used 28 different starting lineups in the regular season. He navigated a month without three-time MVP Nikola Jokic, the longest absence of his 11-year career, going 10-6 without the superstar center. And he shepherded the team into the playoffs on a 12-game win streak. The Nuggets finished with a 54-28 record, good enough for the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference.

But they crashed and burned in the first round, losing in six games to their archrivals. By the end of the series, the Timberwolves were missing star guard Anthony Edwards and starting two-guard Donte DiVincenzo.

Jokic stuck up for Adelman after the season-ending loss, asserting that the outcome wasn’t his fault. Jamal Murray also praised the first-year coach in the aftermath of a disappointing Game 6.

“While we’re very proud that we won 54 games, I’m most proud of that stretch (in January), the way that the coaching staff was without Nikola,” Kroenke said. “I think when Nikola is on your roster, you should be winning 50 games probably. So that’s a great accomplishment in most NBA circles, but for us, I think that’s where we expect to be. And we expect to be even higher. I thought that if this group was healthy, that this could be a 60-, 65-win team.”

A man who never tires of helping out — even when it means helping complete strangers change a tire.

Won’t lie: It’s been a brutal few days for the Grading The Week interns, who make scour social media for Front Range items of note. Especially as the Nuggets just performed one of the most epic face-plants in Colorado playoff history up in Minnesota.

Man, those memes are mean. And Jaden McDaniels was right, which stings even more.

But first, let’s get the good stuff. From a good dude.

Bolles’ tire-changing moment — A

Earlier in the week, to her feed showing a very large, muscular man with the number “72” on his right sleeve adjusting the bolts on the driver’s-side front tire on the side of a busy road.

In the video, our “72” — who’s clearly Bolles, the Broncos’ Pro Bowl left tackle and — appears to be explaining what he’s doing to a young man standing just behind him, taking mental notes, as the traffic passes them both.

“OK?” Bolles says at one point. “And you go around …”

The video loops from there, because, well, TikTok. But the accompanying caption sums it up rather neatly — which, when translated from its original Spanish, reads:

“Thanks to this gentleman, a player for the Denver Broncos, who helped me change my tire. He is an angel; God bless him.”

And let’s be straight — this tale fits GB’s M.O. to a ‘T.’ The former first-round draft pick, now 33, is also a former Eagle Scout. Bolles, the Broncos’ 2025 nominee for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, has been a fixture in the community over the last decade or so,

True hearts never lie. True protectors never rest. Like his ex-Broncos teammate Justin Simmons, who announced his retirement earlier this week, Bolles is one of those guys you’d be proud to call a friend or a neighbor.

Actually, he’s one of those guys you’d call to help you move. Or to help carry a piano up five flights of stairs. Or to help change a tire in a pinch.

At any rate, the next time one of our wheels comes off, Bolles is the guy we want in our corner. To say nothing of our pit crew.

Nuggets-Timberwolves — F-minus minus minus minus minus minus

For obvious reasons. Shot-making comes and goes. But effort is a constant you can control. The thing that stuck dagger after dagger into the hoops kids on the GTW crew was watching Minnesota in Game 6 — again, without Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo and Ayo Dosunmu — seemingly beat the Nuggets to every 50-50 ball.

And beating Denver to what felt like 70% of the loose balls and what felt like 75% of the possible rebounds. The more you think about it, the worse it looks — a Nuggets team that started two All-Stars lost in six games to a No. 6 seed that on Thursday was missing three wing guards who averaged 55 points and eight 3-point makes during the regular season. That’s not just an Aaron Gordon thing. That’s not just a Peyton Watson thing. It’s a culture thing. It’s an accountability thing.

David Adelman = New Tiger King? — F

Watching the Nuggets for the last eight days or so was a hard enough slog. But ever since compared a picture of Nuggets coach David Adelman to one of And Heaven help us, we’ve tried.

Vice chairman Josh Kroenke placed his hands on Jamal Murray’s shoulders as he said a few words to the star guard, who was tormented by the worst possible ending to the best year of his NBA career. First-year head coach David Adelman took an unusually long time to unwind before speaking to reporters. He was beaten to the podium by Nikola Jokic, usually the most unhurried superstar in the league after games. The order of operations felt as backward as the series of events that preceded it.

Other executives, coaches and support staff loitered in the hall, speaking in hushed tones if at all. There wasn’t much to say. They were still recovering from the whiplash of a 4-2 first-round playoff defeat that few saw coming.

Visible to them on the other side of the curtain, separated only by that superficial barrier, was Tim Connelly. The man who built the Nuggets, then built the team destined to destroy them. The man who says he still roots for them 78 games out of 82. The man who couldn’t be wrangled in 2022, when he walked away for the same job title and more money in Minnesota.

He was one of the first people greeting the Nuggets on the court after the final buzzer of their season. He hugged Jokic and Murray, the franchise cornerstones he drafted in 2014 and 2016. He politely ushered them into an offseason of discomfort and doubt.

After he skipped town, the Nuggets kept ascending, all the way to their first NBA championship in 2023. Since that moment, they’ve spent three years in decline. They bottomed out Thursday with a 110-98 season-ending loss to Connelly’s Timberwolves, who overcame injuries to Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo and Ayo Dosunmu.

“Unacceptable,” Nuggets guard Christian Braun said.

A second championship has never felt more out of Jokic’s reach. If it wasn’t Rudy Gobert standing in his way, it would have been Victor Wembanyama or Chet Holmgren.

“I mean, we just lost in the first round,” the three-time MVP said, “so I think we are far away.”

What happened?

The Nuggets were at a loss for sweeping conclusions in the aftermath of a humbling Game 6. They were sentenced to an early exit by their fatal flaws — vertical athleticism, ball-handling, 1-on-1 defense against quick guards — but they were also betrayed by their greatest strengths.

Jokic shot 44.6% from the field and 19.4% from 3-point range. It was his 17th career playoff series. It was the first in which he failed to deliver a 30-point performance. His Game 6 was a microcosm of his season, which he had recently assessed as “inconsistent.” Moments of brilliance in a 14-point third quarter were offset by stretches of inadequacy for a superstar, at both ends of the floor. He scored 13 in the other three quarters combined, missed his only shot attempt of the last eight minutes, provided little paint resistance against Minnesota’s driving guards and was dominated on the glass by Gobert.

“I needed to play better,” he said. “I must play better. I think I was getting in the rhythm from the third game. Little bit better in rhythm. But I needed to play much better the first couple games, first three games, just to get everybody involved, just to get the guys open, score. So I mean, give them credit. They were better this series.”

Murray’s shooting splits, dragged down by his 4-for-17 Game 6, were just as unflattering. He finished the series 35.7% overall and 26.2% from deep. If it wasn’t Jaden McDaniels hounding him, it would have been San Antonio’s Stephon Castle in the second round, or Oklahoma City’s Cason Wallace and Lu Dort down the road.

“I just didn’t show up tonight,” he said. “So that’s on me. The leader’s gotta show up.”

It was an especially cruel ending for him. He’s likely to be enshrined on his first All-NBA team this month. But it was also endemic of a symptom from Denver’s season-ending loss last year. In Game 7 at Oklahoma City, Murray was held to 13 points on 16 shots. Elite defenses have increasingly tested and thwarted Denver’s once-impenetrable two-man game in the playoff moments that often steer front offices in their decision-making. As Jokic and Murray both took the blame for Denver’s crash landing, it no longer mattered to the court of public opinion that they partnered for an astronomical 127.8 offensive rating this regular season.

All that mattered, suddenly, was the 193-minute sample of time they shared on the court during the playoffs. They produced a 103.2 offensive rating together against Minnesota.

“I mean, I think we are still good,” Jokic said when asked about his confidence in the duo moving forward. “I think we created the looks. Sometimes you need to make it. I think a miss doesn’t make you a bad player, and misses don’t make you a bad decision-maker. It’s a miss-or-make league. So we couldn’t make any shots. … I’m confident in my and Jamal’s two-man game.”

It wasn’t just them. Denver’s entire scoring ecosystem collapsed in Minnesota, enough to wonder if the series might prompt an existential crisis about the state of the roster, the state of the system. When Jokic played this regular season, the Nuggets never scored fewer than 100 points. They were held under that benchmark in all three road losses to the Timberwolves.

In Adelman’s introductory press conference as head coach a year ago, he was asked to pinpoint any traits he felt the roster needed more of entering his first full season. “There’s a premium on shot-making at the times you need it,” he answered.

“And when you get in those moments, it’s not just about making shots during the season. I never look at percentages because that’s not real when you get in those moments.”

The Nuggets led the NBA in 3-point shooting for the regular season (39.6%). On wide-open 3s, when the nearest defender was at least 6 feet away, they were 42.8%. The margin between them and the second-place team in that category was 2.3% — equal to the margin between second place and 17th.

It wasn’t real. They shot 32.1% on wide-open 3s in their six playoff games.

Their 2025 offseason acquisitions were mostly non-factors in the series, with the exception of Cam Johnson’s two gutsy elimination-game performances. Even those were somewhat unlocked by Minnesota’s injuries; Johnson no longer had Edwards guarding him by Games 5 and 6, enabling Denver to attack a mismatch.

Tim Hardaway Jr., a Sixth Man of the Year finalist on a minimum contract, shot 34.8% on his 3s. It was a 6% drop from his regular season. Bruce Brown committed nine turnovers to nearly match his 10 assists. He struggled in Game 6 especially, finishing the series 44.1% from the field. Backup center Jonas Valanciunas was a DNP for the first four games.

“I think you have to look at the different formulas of how we played (offensively) this year, what was most successful,” Adelman said when asked about the offense’s failure to translate its success to the playoffs. “And you have to really break it down more so into the types of teams that we struggled with, and what are the answers there to make things flow better for us. And I think that takes time.”

As he broke down the season-ending loss, the door at the back of the room was cracked open from the outside. Kroenke was listening from the hall.

Despite chatter that Adelman may already be on the hot seat one year into his tenure, the immediate sense within the organization is that he’ll be back for a second season. Before wiping out in the playoffs, he led the Nuggets to 54 wins in a regular season that forced him to use 28 different starting lineups due to various injuries. Jokic and Murray both defended him after the Game 6 loss.

“Right now when you’re frustrated and you’re pissed off, I could say a million things,” Adelman continued. “But that’s not gonna help us. We have to sit down as a group and really take a deep dive into who we are, who we can be as a group, who’s coming back that can help us do that. Right now, it’s gonna be what it is. There’s gonna be a narrative. There’s gonna be all these things. You have to have a real conversation about how to get better.”

Braun struggled to find his groove within the offense and lost confidence in his ability to go up strong around the rim, a painful coda to the most injury-plagued year of his life. The Nuggets prioritized him over Peyton Watson last offseason, extending him for five years and $125 million. The contract takes effect next season.

A $10 million raise is about to kick in for Aaron Gordon as well. He was a key variable missing from the second half of the series, sidelined by a calf injury. For most of the season, it was a hamstring. Last year, it was the other calf and the other hamstring. When the Nuggets struggle at either end of the floor, they usually refer to his absence and its domino effects — on their floor-spacing, on back-line defense, on ball-handling depth. He’s been one of the NBA’s most invaluable glue guys of the decade.

Those excuses ring hollow, from Jokic’s perspective, after faltering against such a depleted version of the Timberwolves. The two best players remaining in the series by the end were Nuggets. Or should have been.

“Oklahoma missed probably the most players of everybody, and they’re still No. 1 and still dominating the league,” Jokic said. “So I hate those ‘if’ situations. … I don’t want to blame injuries for not making the second round in the playoffs.”

What’s next?

Uncomfortable discussions loom about Denver’s core around Jokic, including whether the 30-year-old Gordon can stay healthy for eight consecutive weeks of playoff basketball at this stage of his career. The Nuggets know from experience how many roster flaws he covers up. But those flaws bubble to the surface every time he’s hurt. At the very least, he will no longer be considered off the table as a trade candidate when team brass meets to discuss next steps, league sources have told The Post.

One of the Nuggets’ top priorities will be retaining restricted free agent Peyton Watson, and if they do, at least one current starter is almost guaranteed to be sacrificed in a corresponding cost-cutting move.

Johnson is considered by league sources the most likely candidate to be traded, in part because he has a reasonable $23 million expiring salary next season. But Gordon and Braun will also be in a similar salary range. Denver’s first-round flame-out was disastrous enough that anyone other than Jokic could feasibly be shipped off.

“Obviously I have confidence in us getting back and (winning a title) because we have done it. … This team is so good that every time you lose early is a disappointment,” Braun said. “So we’ve gotta be better. I know we can do it with this group. Whatever happens (this offseason), happens. We’ve gotta find a way to get better. You can’t blame anything. You can’t blame injuries. You can’t blame health. They had injuries, too, and they kicked our (butt).”

The opponent only added to the pain. With so many guards out, Connelly’s Timberwolves got a 24-point boost from Terrence Shannon Jr., the 27th draft pick in 2024. The Nuggets traded three future second-round picks to move up in that draft from 28th to 22nd, in part because they suspected Minnesota was going to poach their preferred prospect at No. 27. That prospect was DaRon Holmes II, who tore an Achilles tendon two weeks after the draft and has played only a handful of meaningful NBA minutes in his first two years.

Minnesota has now advanced deeper into the playoffs than Denver three consecutive seasons, starting in 2024, with Denver’s infamous 20-point Game 7 collapse. The Timberwolves gleefully celebrated their comeback at Ball Arena that night. Jaden McDaniels tried to rub it in the Nuggets’ faces with a meaningless dunk in the last minute. Jokic protested. It didn’t escalate. But it laid the groundwork for similar fireworks in the rematch two years later, with McDaniels at the center of all bitter emotions.

The 2024 loss stung because the Nuggets knew they were good enough to win the championship. The 2026 loss stings because they were jolted awake to the unforeseen reality that they weren’t good enough.

Not athletic enough to match the Timberwolves’ defining skillset. Not tough enough to withstand their physicality for the length of a series. Perhaps not offended enough by their bulletin board material offerings.

“If you saw the interviews, all of them are excited to play us. They got up to play us,” Murray said. “They enjoyed playing us. And we have to match that. We have to feel the same way about them. I’m sure we will next year. They took this matchup, you could say, kind of personal and wanted it really bad. We’ve gotta want it more.”

On the other side of the curtain, Connelly beamed at his team’s resilience. His head coach and players took a victory lap in the media. He could bask in the satisfaction of an increasingly one-sided rivalry more quietly. The series result itself was already a bitter enough pill for his old friends down the hall to swallow. They’ll be processing it for the next few months. Denver might find itself reeling from the fallout.

That which he built, he could also dismantle.