But when legalized sports betting debuted in Colorado in 2020, another tradition took hold at those Lot W tailgates: sports gambling. Now, when the family assembles before the home games, they discuss parlays and point spreads almost as much as they talk about Bo Nix and Sean Payton.

On a warm January day, while partying outside their late-model Winnebago painted with blue-and-orange stripes, they figured out the wagers they planned to put on the Broncos’ final regular-season game, against the , and other NFL matchups.

They weren’t alone. Sports betting and fantasy football dominated conversations throughout the parking lots as tailgaters speculated how much they might win.

The gameday bets — putting a little money on the line — are all part of the fun of football Sundays, said Joe Canales, a family friend who joined the tailgate.

“We all get excited when somebody wins,” he said.

Legalized sports betting is changing the face of sports and fandom in Colorado as people wager billions annually on games and on the athletes who play them. In the six years since voters approved Proposition DD, the state’s gamblers have wagered more than $30.6 billion on sports, averaging $425 million a month.

For years, sports betting was taboo within the professional leagues as commissioners and team owners kept gambling at arm’s length for fear of scandal. Now, leagues and teams promote their partnerships with gambling companies. Fans watching games on TV are inundated with sports-betting ads, and those in the stands can see gambling companies’ names painted on courts and fields.

Bettors often care more about individual athletes’ performances than about their hometown teams as they wager on how many three-point shots a basketball player will make or how many touchdowns a quarterback might throw, multiple people told The Denver Post. Athletes feel the pressure, whether it’s because they receive angry messages on social media from people who lose money or from gamblers seeking an edge from inside information.

Legalized gambling is also threatening the integrity of sports, with fans fearing athletes, coaches and referees may alter calls or plays to influence the outcomes of bets. Just before the NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament kicked off, Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, that found a majority of Americans — almost 60% — believe sports betting affects the integrity of college basketball.

“It����ap ruining the relationship between a player and their sport, and it����ap ruining the relationship between fandom and the athletes,” said Montee Ball, a former Broncos running back who leads the , which focuses on athletes’ mental health.

All of that is forcing coaches and administrators to incorporate gambling and mental health awareness into athletes’ training, with education now starting as early as high school for athletes in Colorado.

In the past six years, sports betting scandals have rocked professional and college leagues, ensnaring Colorado athletes such as hometown basketball legend Chauncey Billups, who was implicated last fall as an unnamed co-conspirator in a rigged NBA betting scheme.

This story, which examines how gambling is changing sports, is the third in The Post’s series about legalized sports betting’s impact on Colorado. The first story looked at an alarming rise in gambling addiction, while the second installment covered how sports wagering’s tax revenue benefits water projects in Colorado.

Sports betting has existed in America as long as athletes have laced up their high-top sneakers. In the past, gamblers sought bookies in secret to place bets, collect winnings and pay debts. Gamblers turned to offshore sportsbooks once the internet became accessible.

Now, sports fans place bets from their phones, often in the middle of games, thanks to a that overturned the , allowing states to set their own laws regulating sports betting. Colorado acted quickly, putting the question to a ballot referendum in November 2019; voters allowed sportsbooks to open for business in May 2020.

And, almost as quickly, Denver’s professional sports teams announced business deals with gambling companies.

An evolving relationship

Just a little more than a decade ago, the was so antagonistic toward sports gambling that the league’s commissioner threatened to suspend Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo over his plans to attend that was being organized by a company he owned.

The NFL prohibited players from participating in any event sponsored by a gambling-related company, and the league so narrowly defined gambling that fantasy football was included, even though those games pit people against each other rather than the house, which keeps the profits.

Players are still not allowed to bet on the NFL, play daily fantasy games or visit sportsbooks during football season. But the league and team owners have embraced sports betting.

Denver’s major sports teams are reluctant to talk about those new business relationships, with every professional team as well as the University of Colorado Boulder and its football coach Deion Sanders declining The Post’s interview requests.

The Broncos and the Colorado Rockies sent prepared statements via email, declaring that they follow the rules while protecting their players and the games’ integrity.

“In compliance with the NFL’s gambling policy, all members of our organization undergo comprehensive training on the subject,” the statement from Broncos spokesman Patrick Smyth said. “For players, this includes mandatory in-person education as well as in-season communication and other resources from the team and league.”

The Broncos inked their first business deal with sports-betting app in June 2020 — one month after Colorado’s sportsbooks opened for business.  The team also partnered that summer with , which opened a now-shuttered luxury lounge inside the stadium, and . Today, BetMGM is the team’s lone sports-betting partner.

The Colorado Rockies partner with Denver-based , allowing the company to have a sign on the outfield wall.

also partners with bet365 as a sponsor for the and . That , which allows bet365’s logo to be placed under the Avalanche’s ice and on the Nuggets’ baseline, is in place through the 2028-2029 season.

Courtney Brunious, an assistant professor at the , said he was not surprised Denver’s teams did not want to talk about their business relationships with gambling companies.

“There’s still a certain stigma attached to it,” said Brunious, who teaches sports business. “It’s still — I don’t want to say an uneasy relationship — but it’s an ongoing and evolving partnership. It’s not necessarily something they want to put a spotlight on.”

The gambling companies are eager to associate with professional sports because it puts their names in front of enthusiastic fans, Brunious said. The teams benefit from sports gambling because people who bet money on games are more likely to watch them on television, boosting coveted audience numbers.

The sure thing, Brunious said, is that those relationships will not dissolve. There’s too much money at stake.

“It’s not going away,” he said. “It����ap going to require adjustments to make sure all parties are protected as much as possible.”

The sports teams and betting companies are entwined with each other’s success.

Every decision a team makes is analyzed by gamblers and can move a betting line up or down, changing the fortunes of those who wager and those who make money off of it.

When the Los Angeles Rams on June 1 traded for reigning defensive player of the year Myles Garrett, that team became Las Vegas oddsmakers’ favorite to win the next Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the odds for Garrett’s former team, the Cleveland Browns, dropped to 200-to-1 from 115-to-1, according to a news release from Circa Sports.

Peter Jackson, the chief executive officer of , FanDuel’s parent company, explained in a February how “player narratives” impact his company’s revenue. When the NFL’s most popular players are not in the playoffs, the fans bet less money, he said.

“There was one player we had on our books over the course of the year that had more money bet on him in the course of the season than the Pats did,” Jackson said, without naming the player. “This player stuff is super important, and when we don’t have those key players making the playoffs or the Super Bowl, it really does impact player engagement and betting volumes.”

Pressure and harassment

Players are well aware that fans’ interest in their performance is more intense when money is on the line.

They already face performance anxiety because players are super competitive and want to win, said Ball, who played for the Broncos during the 2013 and 2014 seasons. Professional athletes also know that an injury or a bad game can cost them playing time and shorten their careers. Now, they also have pressure from fans who want to win money by betting on whether they throw a touchdown pass or catch an interception.

“The athletes can’t escape it,” Ball said. “They shouldn’t have to turn everything off because John is screaming on Twitter, ‘I hope you tear your ACL.’ ”

Athletes in all sports are reporting an increase in harassment since sports betting became legal.

Nuggets guard Bruce Brown brought it up on Oct. 23 in the wake of an NBA sports-betting scandal, telling reporters, “Obviously, after every game, we get DMs about not hitting people’s parlays. There’s been games where I’ve been called every name in the book, just because I didn’t hit a three or two. I mean, that����ap just the state of the game we’re in, since sports betting got legal. So I mean, just kind of deal with it. Not think about it. Don’t check your DMs after games.”

Cory Fox, senior vice president of public policy and sustainability at FanDuel, said the company banishes gamblers from its app if they are caught harassing athletes. The other legalized sports books have similar policies.

“First and foremost, we find the harassment of athletes abhorrent,” Fox said.

In June 2025, FanDuel who heckled Gabby Thomas, an Olympic gold medalist in track. The fan, who goes by “Mr100kaday” and describes himself as “The Track and Field Bully,” posted a video of himself hurling insults as Thomas signed autographs and claimed that his heckling caused Thomas to lose the race and allowed him to win a $1,000 parlay bet.

FanDuel is working with sports leagues to develop a process to identify and investigate harassers so they can be banned from the app, Fox said.

“It’s also true there has been an increase in bad behavior,” he said. “This is something we’ve seen globally and it has a lot of factors involved.”

Temptation lurks

There is another dark side to sports gambling — rigged performances.

A major betting scandal rocked the NBA in October when the Terry Rozier, a former Charlotte Hornets point guard, who stands accused of participating in an illegal sports-betting scheme using inside NBA knowledge to defraud sportsbooks and for checking out of a game early to benefit bettors. He has .

And the city of Denver was shocked when Billups, who was then the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, was linked to the Rozier scandal as an apparent unindicted co-conspirator. Billups was also for allegedly participating in a Mafia-backed illegal poker scheme to defraud unwitting players during card games. He has also pleaded not guilty.

Other sports-betting scandals involving athletes with Colorado ties:

• Denver Broncos defensive lineman Eyioma Uwazurike was suspended for the 2023 season for gambling on NFL games, including five involving the Broncos
• Colorado Rapids midfielder Max Alves was removed from the team in 2023 in the wake of a match-fixing investigation in his home country of Brazil
• Jontay Porter, the brother of former Nuggets starter Michael Porter Jr., was banned from the NBA in 2024 after he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors about his health and limited his participation in one or more games for betting purposes while playing for the Toronto Raptors

Sports betting scandals are almost as old as sports themselves. Think of the Black Sox scandal during the 1919 World Series, when multiple team members conspired with professional gamblers to throw games.

, who played in the NBA for eight years and overseas for three, said gambling is part of the culture for professional athletes.

During his 11 years of pro ball, teammates would bet on anything — trick shots during practice, card games on the road, even which referees would call a playoff game, Funderburke said. It’s the nature of being competitive and confident.

“You’re taught at an early age to bet on yourself,” he said. “You’ve overcome the odds, right? Little League, high school, college, now in the NBA, you’re playing against the best in the world. You always feel like you can overcome the odds. And with athletes, they feel like they can win at just about anything.”

Funderburke, who now works as a financial adviser, speaks out against gambling and tells his clients there are better things to do with their money. He traveled to Colorado in May to encourage lawmakers to pass a bill that would establish guardrails on sports betting in an attempt to curb addiction rates.

“Here’s the problem with the culture,” he said. “Most of the guys that I know — and I won’t say names — who had issues with gambling, not only end up having financial constraints and issues, but their marriages and their families deteriorate at the same time, which I think is much worse than any type of financial problems.”

The professional leagues and universities know the temptation is there and they are working to combat it.

But they are not always successful.

The controversy surrounding Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby serves as the latest example.

‘A source of heartburn’

Days before the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament, sent a warning to all of its athletes: Sports betting is against the rules.

“It is still to a large degree one of the worst violations you can have,” said , CSU’s associate athletic director for compliance. “With sports wagering, the door pretty much gets shut down. Like a positive drug test too many times, your eligibility is just shot.”

However, the Sorsby case upended that policy for college football.

Sorsby made thousands of impermissible bets worth at least $90,000 on college and pro sports, including some on his team when he was a freshman at the University of Indiana. The NCAA suspended Sorsby after he was caught and admitted to gambling, but he sued in an attempt to play his senior season.

A Texas judge ruled June 8 through a temporary injunction that Sorsby should be allowed to play during the upcoming season after serving a two-game suspension. The ruling could overturn NCAA rules, and it propelled college football into uncertainty as to what happens if other student-athletes bet on their own games.

The decision undermined a longstanding NCAA policy that forbids college athletes from gambling on sports and bans them if they’re caught betting on their own teams.

College sports are rapidly changing, with athletes able to earn money from their schools, booster clubs, television commercials and social media feeds. They have more money in their pockets now — in some cases, millions of dollars, Siemer said. The temptation to bet on sports lurks, he said, especially for high-level athletes who believe they know more about their sport than anyone else and can predict wins and losses on sports-betting apps.

“That’s a source of heartburn for us,” he said. “We don’t want to legislate morality, but they have more money now than when they just had a scholarship, and we want them to be smart with it.”

Every student-athlete signs a gambling agreement, acknowledging that they cannot place bets and cannot provide insider information to others, Siemer said.

Each year, CSU brings in experts to talk to students about the risks of gambling and to educate them on the NCAA’s rules that prohibit gambling. The athletics department wants them to understand how important it is that they do not leak tips about injuries or game strategies to others, who might benefit from the inside knowledge, Siemer said.

Last year, a presentation to students revealed just how much money was bet on each sport during a single season, and while Siemer said he could not remember the specifics, he recalled that it was “jaw-dropping.”

While football is the most popular sport for gamblers who bet on CSU sports, other teams also see healthy amounts of wagers, he said.

“I think the presumption is everyone is betting on football,” Siemer said. “Well, it’s not just football. It’s all of the sports. These sports-betting companies will put a line on anything. It doesn’t matter. Women’s tennis. Women’s soccer. The presumption that it’s all on football and basketball should be put to bed.”

Nip it in the bud

Aside from talking to athletes about the pitfalls of gambling, the leagues and teams are turning to professional monitors for help. The NCAA’s major conferences contract with , a company that specializes in sports compliance and integrity.

Matt Heap, a former deputy director, manages IC360’s , a program that monitors betting among athletes at more than 150 universities and more than 25 professional sports leagues.

“That monitors every game, every goal, every pitch,” he said.

Prohibet coordinates with sportsbooks to detect irregular gambling patterns, Heap said. The colleges also provide identifying information — dates of birth, driver’s licenses, phone numbers — on every student-athlete, making it easier to detect prohibited bets. Prohibet also monitors coaches, trainers, administrators and referees to identify irregular betting patterns.

The program can even find crossover bets from different internet addresses that can connect student-athletes to accounts owned by friends and family, he said. Word is spreading among college athletes that they can get caught, he said.

“It nips it in the bud,” Heap said. “The ones that continue to do it and push it are the ones they need to keep an eye on.”

IC360 also works with NCAA athletic departments to educate athletes on the rules surrounding gambling and to warn them about the pitfalls surrounding them. Even telling a friend, family member or classmate about a team member’s injury can sway bets, Heap said.

“Something that seems as innocent or innocuous as that can be the first sign someone is trying to get a hook into a player,” he said. “You guys are targets because someone who wants to manipulate a game outcome has to have a player, a ref or some other game official.”

Those who work with athletes believe education about sports betting must start at a younger age.

Last year, the paired with the to start a gambling awareness program for high school athletes.

CHSAA officials wanted players, parents and coaches to understand the rules and the consequences of violating them, commissioner Mike Krueger said. It’s becoming a national issue at the high school level.

Legal sportsbooks don’t take wagers on high school sports because it is prohibited by state laws, but offshore betting sites accept those wagers, as do emerging prediction markets. People must be 21 to open a legal sports betting account in the U.S., but young people access them through family members and older friends.

“It’s recognizing the reality,” Krueger said. “That’s where we’ve got to have the awareness. While sports betting continues to expand across our society, our responsibility remains unchanged. We look at it as a student well-being issue and not just around rules enforcement.”

READ MORE FROM THIS SPECIAL REPORT: Colorado’s gamble on sports betting

A month after their capitulation against the Timberwolves, the Nuggets have made watching the NBA Finals a painful experience.

Lost in the headlines of the breathtaking Victor Wembanyama squaring off against the soul-crushing Jalen Brunson is a buried nugget that relates to the Nuggets.

In Game 1, the Spurs used 10 players, including 12 minutes from ABA veteran Harrison Barnes and 10 from backup center Luke Kornet. Ten players logged in for the Knicks, including nine with at least 11 minutes. Landry Shamet clocked 33. Entering Game 2, the last time New York lost was April 23.

Which brings us back to Denver and its rookie coach’s mistake. The offseason was dedicated to trading Michael Porter Jr. to reinforce the bench. The Nuggets added Tim Hardaway Jr., Bruce Brown and Jonas Valanciunas, providing more suitable roles late in the season for Julian Strawther and eventually Tyus Jones.

And yet, they became ghosts until it was too late. Even with Aaron Gordon hurt, even with Jamal Murray suffocating under the Saran-Wrap tight defense of Jaden McDaniels, David Adelman leaned on a seven-man rotation.

It brought back memories of last postseason when the Nuggets bench was Russell Westbrook. Singular.

Hardaway delivered a pedestrian performance with 10.8 points in 23 minutes per game, but never percolated from beyond the arc. Bruce Brown looked out of sync, assuming a spark plug role at home and a cheerleader spot on the road. Brown netted 19.2 minutes a game, scoring 6.3 points, but with nearly two turnovers. Spencer Jones was the only player to exceed reserve expectations with 6.5 points in 24 minutes.

And for all of the bluster about keeping Nikola Jokic fresh, Valanciunas was nonexistent. He was bad when he was in, but was it because Adelman clearly lost confidence in him? Why not use him as a roughneck to foul McDaniels hard early in Game 3 and Game 4?

The Bonus Jonas brother only appeared in four games vs. Minnesota, contributing 2.8 points and 1.3 turnovers in 6.3 minutes.

And don’t get me started about Strawther and Jones. Strawther appeared twice, logging 18 total minutes and making two shots. Jones checked into three games, and clearly should have been used sooner in the series to take pressure off Murray to initiate the offense with Gordon hurt.

Jones was solid, averaging 1.7 assists and no turnovers in his 30 minutes.

The Thunder, Spurs and Knicks look so far away, the Nuggets could have telescope night for the first 5,000 fans on opening night and no one would blanch.

This is a critical offseason for the Nuggets. They need to trade multiple players, starting with Cam Johnson and Gordon. But they cannot move forward without Adelman learning lessons.

Nobody wants to hear about the defensive metrics ranking better than expected against Minnesota. The Nuggets failed the eye test. And they were not athletic enough.

But if the playoffs tell us anything, it is that depth matters. Adelman will be given decent bench players. If the Nuggets are going to surprise anyone next postseason, he must do a better job of using them.

Don’t Bet On It: Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby trampled the NCAA gambling rules. Hopefully, the treatment he received for his addiction takes. However, Sorsby wants a judge to grant him an injunction to play this season. Please. Sorsby bet on games involving teams he was on. He should be banned. Full stop. Allowing him to return makes a mockery of any rules on the subject.

Sing along: College baseball getting a bump with so many upsets in the regionals was fantastic. The lasting story? West Virginia fans and players singing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver after knocking out Kentucky. Understand, it is not a song in West Virginia. It is an anthem. It is played after sporting events and “it is almost always the last song played at a wedding reception,” said Cathy Rennard, president and CEO of Carnegie Hall in Lewisburg. “It is wonderful the way that it connects people.”

The harsh reality is that very few players available for the veteran minimum salary end up impacting teams at a championship level. Expecting to improve from good to great merely by signing guys out of the bargain bin is a fool’s errand.

But a clever vet minimum acquisition can pay dividends over the course of a season. The Nuggets have pulled off two of the savviest signings of the last two years, in terms of regular-season production relative to salary. Russell Westbrook was a chaotic but dynamic player in 2024-25, shouldering a high usage rate and playing a huge part in Denver’s first-round playoff series against the Clippers. In the next free agency cycle, a new front office scooped up Tim Hardaway Jr., who proceeded to shoot 40.7% from 3-point range and finish in third place for Sixth Man of the Year.

Both players ultimately struggled in the playoff rounds that ended Denver’s 2025 and 2026 seasons — a reminder that role player output is fickle, and that even the successful minimum signings shouldn’t be over-relied on during a series. But that doesn’t change the fact that both players were essential in their own ways to Denver’s survival of the 82-game grind.

Jon Wallace and Ben Tenzer will need to make use of the veteran minimum again this summer as they seek creative ways to assemble a competitive bench despite likely payroll restraints. If the Nuggets shed enough salary via a trade, they might be able to open up part of , giving them a little more spending money to throw at free agents. But for the most part, they’ll be working on the minimum scale. (A player’s minimum salary is dependent on his service time in the league, but his cap hit is a fixed number regardless of experience beyond two years, so that teams aren’t incentivized to choose younger players just for the cap space. Next year’s projected vet minimum cap hit is $2.45 million.)

One advantage the Nuggets have as they try to pitch players? Evidence of countless others who’ve benefited statistically and financially from playing alongside Nikola Jokic. We’ve compiled a list of 20 free agents they could try to lure to Denver this summer. For the sake of the exercise, we’re only looking at potential newcomers here — not Denver’s own free agents, who are also candidates to re-sign (Hardaway, Peyton Watson, Spencer Jones, Bruce Brown, Tyus Jones).

LeBron James, Lakers F

Look, what kind of a list would this be if we didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to start with LeBron?

Let’s preface by recognizing this is probably not happening. If James signs for the minimum outside of Los Angeles this offseason (and that’s a big “if”), it’s way more likely to be somewhere that A) maximizes his chances of going out with a fifth championship (*coughs* Eastern Conference), and B) has either some emotional resonance (*coughs again* Cleveland) or historical gravitas (*something must’ve gone down the wrong pipe* New York). And that’s all if the conveniently located incumbent team with ample cap space and his son on the roster doesn’t make enough of an effort to retain him for one last contract.

Alternatively for the Nuggets, there’s the sign-and-trade route — if they’re willing to get older while helping the Lakers get younger (Peyton Watson? Cam Johnson?), and if they can navigate the salary cap obstacles (you can’t complete a sign-and-trade if you’re in the second apron), and if James is onboard with the whole thing. In any case, a complex alignment of the stars would be required to get him to Denver.

But if you want to talk yourself into it, you can start with the fact that James and Josh Kroenke have a friendship that dates back years. Or that Kroenke once sent LeBron a Nuggets jersey in a cheeky attempt to recruit him to Denver. Or that Jokic’s Serbian agent, Misko Raznatovic, posted a photo to Instagram of him and LeBron on a boat last summer, captioned: “The summer of 2025 is the perfect time to make big plans for the fall of 2026!” Or that James has long admired Jokic’s basketball IQ and has seen it up close in three playoff clashes between their teams. Or that Jared Dudley, a former teammate and noted confidant of James, is David Adelman’s lead assistant coach. Or that to land the all-time great back in March. Anything is possible in a league where Luka Doncic can get traded to the Lakers in the middle of the night — maybe even something as wacky as LeBron leaving the Lakers for a less prestigious team in a landlocked smaller market.

Khris Middleton, Mavericks F

Denver pursued Middleton pretty aggressively before the buyout market deadline earlier this year. The three-time All-Star ultimately chose to play out the season in Dallas, where he had landed in February as part of the Anthony Davis trade. Once an NBA Finals hero for Milwaukee, Middleton turns 35 this offseason. He’s entering the twilight of his career. Does that mean he’ll be open to signing a cheap deal with a contender? He’s worth revisiting as Denver goes looking for ball-handlers who can take over the scoring load on a random Tuesday in January when Jamal Murray is out.

Collin Sexton, Bulls G

Sexton can probably get paid more than the minimum if he wants. But the 27-year-old combo guard has never appeared in a playoff game, and Denver is a winning team in need of his specific talents. He’s a quick driver with a bit of maniacal competitive energy to him. That personality has never really experienced the NBA spotlight, though, as Sexton has spent eight years in the wilderness of several rebuilds. If the Nuggets are feeling ambitious, he’s the kind of player they could try to convince to take a cheap, short-term contract — a “prove it” year that could parlay into more money later.

Nikola Vucevic, Celtics C

The Jonas Valanciunas experiment was smooth enough in the regular season, but underwhelming in the playoffs. The Nuggets are unlikely to bring him back at a non-guaranteed salary of $10 million. They’ll need a new backup center, especially if they remain reluctant to play DaRon Holmes II. Can they find another veteran innings-eater for less money than they paid the last one? Vucevic would make a lot of sense. A trade deadline acquisition for Boston on a $20 million expiring salary, he never established a consistent role in a frontcourt with two younger centers. If a handful of contenders recruit the 35-year-old Montenegrin, his friendship with Jokic should give Denver an upper hand. Vucevic is certainly flawed (especially on defense), but he’s also a viable five-out big man and a vocal locker room leader.

Bogdan Bogdanovic, Clippers G

Speaking of Jokic’s friends, how about his longtime partner in crime on the Serbian national team? Bogdanovic has a $17 million team option next season. The Clippers might want to pick up the option to use it in a salary match for a trade, but if they choose to let him walk instead, he could be drawn to Denver, where he would be an affordable bench option. Bogdanovic seems to be a scorer in relative decline, but maybe he can capture some of that Serbian pick-and-roll chemistry with Jokic.

Keon Ellis, Cavaliers G

After getting traded from Sacramento to Cleveland this February, Ellis didn’t get as much playoff run as expected with the Cavaliers. The Nuggets could look to add some point-of-attack defense on the perimeter with the 26-year-old wing if he doesn’t want to re-sign with the Cavs.

Gabe Vincent, Hawks G

Vincent is coming off a down year that saw him shoot just 35.2% from the field while getting traded from Los Angeles to Atlanta. He turns 30 this summer.

Matisse Thybulle, Trail Blazers G

How much do the Blazers want to spend on a wild card like Thybulle as they take their next steps toward contending? He guards at a high level — when he plays. His durability has become a major concern, on top of his offensive limitations, as he has played only 45 games over the last two years. Maybe his value hasn’t dipped all the way into minimum territory, but he’s another dynamic defender the Nuggets might want to keep an eye on.

Gary Payton II, Warriors G

The Golden State veteran could add leadership and defense if he finds a new home this offseason. Wherever he ends up, it’ll likely be on a minimum contract. Fellow Warriors guards De’Anthony Melton (player option) and Seth Curry could also be on the market, as their team faces an uncertain future of building around Seth’s brother.

Jordan Goodwin, Suns F

Waived by the Lakers last summer, Goodwin found a home in Phoenix, where the former two-way player continued to develop as a reliable 3-and-D rotation player. The Suns might just do everything in their power to retain him.

Aaron Holiday, Rockets G

Long ago, the Nuggets were in trade talks to acquire Jrue Holiday before he went to Milwaukee. They had Justin Holiday on their roster two years ago when they tied a franchise record with 57 wins. The third Holiday brother is on the market this summer after averaging 11.2 minutes for Houston in the playoffs.

Jordan Clarkson, Knicks G

The 34-year-old scoring guard averaged 8.6 points in 17.8 minutes with New York this season. His minutes have predictably decreased in the playoffs, but he’s headed to his second career NBA Finals nonetheless. Nuggets connection: Clarkson and Josh Kroenke share University of Missouri basketball roots.

Guerschon Yabusele, Bulls F

There’s been a lot of smoke involving Yabusele and a return to Europe. If he stays in the NBA, though, Denver is a landing spot that might appeal to the French power forward after bouncing between Philly, New York and Chicago over the last two seasons.

Andre Drummond, 76ers C

Another backup center option. Drummond was in trade rumors around the deadline, but nothing came of them. (Instead, Philadelphia ducked the luxury tax by handing over Jared McCain to the best team in the league.) There are a few free agent bigs who are probably out of Denver’s price range (Mitchell Robinson, Robert Williams III, Kristaps Porzingis). Drummond, like Vucevic, is sort of in that next tier — affordable former All-Stars who can give you a short stint of minutes each half. For a younger alternative? Perhaps Marvin Bagley III (27), who finished the season strong in Dallas.

Harrison Barnes, Spurs F

Barnes’ on-court role decreased throughout the year, but there’s no reason to think the Spurs won’t want him back anyway for his locker room leadership. If he has the choice between signing a minimum in San Antonio or in Denver, he seems more likely to stay where he’s at. Not a shabby situation down there in Texas.

Josh Okogie, Rockets G

Okogie played well on a one-year minimum deal in Houston. In fact, he might’ve played himself out of needing to sign for the minimum again this summer. If he doesn’t have enough of a market to get the taxpayer mid-level exception, Denver could swoop in and pursue the 3-and-D wing who’ll be 28 on opening day.

Jeff Green, Rockets F

We started this list with the oldest active player in the NBA. We’ll finish it with the fifth-oldest. Not only was Green a valued presence on Denver’s 2023 championship team; he’s also a close friend and former college roommate of Nuggets co-general manager Jon Wallace.

When it mattered most, the Avs opened up their chest and showed heart. And guts. Embarrassed in the first period, stifled in the second, the Avs did something that almost never happens in this town with this team.

They clinched a playoff series at home for the first time since 2008, their 4-3 overtime victory over the Minnesota Wild in Game 5 an instant classic.

Did the Avs, known for the last three years as pretty skaters, roll up their sleeves and hammer out one of the most impressive playoff victories in franchise history?

It is difficult to articulate how impressive this rally was. The Avs were vapid after the first 20 minutes. Goalie MacKenzie Blackwood was benched, and the sellout crowd was stunned into silence. They trailed by two goals with 4 minutes left in the game.

Suddenly, a hot mess became Bo Nix against the New York Giants.

Click. Jack Drury redirected a goal. Boom. Nathan MacKinnon rocketed a wrister over Jesper Wallstedt’s shoulder to tie the score at 3 with 1:23 remaining.

“A heck of a shot by an unbelievable player,” Wild coach John Hynes said.

And then Brett Kulak, another one of general manager Chris MacFarland’s impressive in-season additions, delivered the winner after Marty Necas dogwalked a defender before delivering an on-stick assist. It was made more impressive when Necas admitted he wasn’t even supposed to be on the ice, but jumped on when seeing the Avs a man short.

“Marty got his wheels going around the O-zone,” Kulak said, “and I was able to find a perfect spot to get a shot. It was special.”

Every team that wins a Stanley Cup shows cardiovascular resilience. But the Avs beat the Wild into the offseason with dirt-under-the-fingernails grit. Take note, Nuggets. This is what leadership and toughness look like (and why Bruce Brown was booed when shown on the JumboTron).

After wandering through disappointment, injuries and suspensions since winning rings, hockey’s best team is back where it belongs. In the Western Conference Finals. Bring on the Knights and their Renaissance Festival pregame show. Bring on the Ducks and let MacKinnon drown them with his snorkel and flippers.

The Avs could not have scripted this series better. They beat arguably the NHL’s second-best team without having to return to Minnesota. They bought themselves extra rest and they lit their building on fire with unbridled hope.

“It����ap gotta be as comebacks, No. 1. That building was special tonight. It was so loud,” MacKinnon said. “That����ap why you play the game. It was a really cool moment for everybody.”

Everything is falling into place. Except for this. You know that one thing that no team wants.

A goal without a plan is just a wish. A team without a goalie is a death wish.

Did you see the Avs sleepwalk through the first period? Despite the kind of win that creates goosebumps, they cannot mask the fact that they have a goalie issue. It is short of a controversy, but it is full of uncertainty.

Blackwood was given a chance to show he is the Avs’ No. 1 goalie with his second straight start. And he yielded three scores in the Wild’s first eight shots, the last one conjuring images of Charmin and demanding his benching.

“When it comes to a goalie switch, in a regular-season game, I would have left Blackwood in there. He was no different than the team. He wasn’t good enough,” coach Jared Bednar said. “I was looking for a spark.”

The crowd seemed to know this was coming. When Blackwood was introduced, he received lukewarm applause. Bednar has acted for weeks like he wants to endorse him. Now, the question is more sobering: Can he trust him?

Or is it time to turn back to Scott Wedgewood? Wedgewood delivered the best bullpen performance of his career. With the defense finally on point, he did his part. He stopped seven shots.

That is all he faced. And exactly what the Avs needed, especially in the second period when one more slipping through would have spelled doom.

What made this night so weird was what preceded it. The Avs were coming off their best game of the postseason. Their walrus was in the net. And it looked like he was trying to stop shots with his tusks instead of his stick.

The burgundy and blue showed up with the same lineup as Monday night in Minnesota and looked completely different until an active second period and frantic final four minutes in the third to tie the score after an icing call created a margin for a comeback.

The way the game ended makes it difficult to talk about anything other than winning. Remember, this team was built to win a championship. Period. Nothing else matters. That is how good the Avs are.

But are they caught in a tangled web because of the growing uncertainty in the net?

Bednar is now batting .500 on his goalie decisions, which happens to be the only hard choice he has had to make this postseason. Sure, he has tinkered with the lines because of injuries to Sam Malinski and Artturi Lehkonen.

Nothing, though, is more delicate and dangerous than switching goalies. He has benched the starter twice in three games. Wedgewood was pulled after underwhelming work in Game 3. However, he was more akin to a pitcher getting yanked when his infielders committed errors behind him.

Blackwood was not good. There is no other way to say it.

Those who believe this hand-wringing is unnecessary point to the 2022 Stanley Cup run that featured Darcy Kuemper and Pavel Francouz.

Going with Blackwood after a win followed a script. Stick with the hot glove.

It nearly burned the coach as the Avs brought a Wild team that was really tired and mostly dead back to life.

“There were moments in the game where we were down, but we had enough guys who were upbeat and positive that dragged other guys into the fight,” Bednar said. “It was a struggle.”

There was no special pill for Minnesota. Blackwood, and a spotty defense on junk in front of the net, provided the smelling salts. Want to know how to mute your home ice advantage? Allow a goal in the first 34 seconds to Marcus Johansson.

The Wild arrived draped in desperation. They wore it like a fitted suit coat. The Avs countered with a listless first period.

But in the end, the Avs won in unforgettable fashion. They showed remarkable heart. And with an offense like this, maybe it doesn’t matter who is net.

“This was the most stressful (playoff) win,” Bednar said, “I have ever been a part of in my career.”

Is Adelman the right guy for the job? And the team? I don’t think so.

— Sam C, via email

The team seems to be a collection of disparate personalities. … Was Michael Malone the secret to the team’s success? He seemed uniquely tuned in to how to handle these very different players’ needs for guidance (until the conflict with Calvin Booth eclipsed that). Adelman seems more like a passionless technician who can’t or won’t work on meshing the team’s personalities. The team’s lack of in-game fire compared to peak Malone has me wondering.

— Casey, Denver

I’ve heard this sentiment a lot recently, and I find it a little misguided. Last week, I came across the video of Jamal Murray’s 2024 playoff buzzer-beater to beat the Lakers. It’s one of the most memorable games I’ve covered on the Nuggets beat (top three at minimum?), so of course I was instantly reeled in by the highlight. My eyes wandered to Denver’s bench, studying the reactions as Murray released the shot and fell backward into his teammates. Perhaps the most animated of all is the bald guy with the clipboard who jumps for joy and punches the air.

Evidence of Adelman’s emotion is pretty easy to find unless you willfully ignore it. Players have said on the record that he can be startlingly direct with them, that he wields an intensity but reserves it for behind the scenes. “I probably seem pretty calm, but I am kind of psychotic sometimes,” he said himself in March, before the calmness became a popular criticism.

From my point of view as The Media, accusing Adelman of being passionless or unable to motivate his players just because he’s usually a more stoic sideline presence and a less fiery postgame quote than his predecessor is unfair to the position he’s in.

Michael Malone lost the locker room largely because his fire-and-brimstone approach to the job grated on players. That’s not to discount his coaching chops or his accomplishments in Denver — his name will be in the rafters someday, and rightfully so — but it’s just the reality of how his tenure ended. When he blasted his team’s effort at press conferences, it might’ve felt satisfying to fans watching on TV who felt the same way. But to many players, it sparked frustration, not inspiration. Adelman took over the job with that needle to thread. By nature, he’s certainly a cooler head than Malone to begin with, but he also had to be a little reticent about calling players out publicly.

He did criticize the Nuggets for their effort two or three times this season — he wasn’t completely unwilling to do so — but he was conservative with those bullets. By firing fewer of them, the times he did felt more revealing, from my perspective as the person who was often eliciting postgame comments from him.

For the most part, he prioritized substance over style in his messaging. He didn’t shy away from the obvious when someone played poorly. He didn’t pretend Jamal Murray shot 80% from the field in a game if he shot 20%. He just didn’t discuss it with any bluster. He was matter-of-fact without being harsh on his players. His approach to media actually reminded me of Jared Bednar, whom I covered briefly on the Avalanche beat.

By no means am I saying Adelman is above criticism. Part of a head coach’s job is to be accountable for the team’s failures, and this Nuggets season unquestionably ended in failure. He’s earned praise over the years for being one of the masterminds behind a great offense; that means he must also be willing to accept blame when that offense sputters. He understands that. In his end-of-season presser last week, he pointed out that the Nuggets allowed Minnesota to guard their two-man game straight-up too much throughout the series, 2-on-2 with Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels, reducing Denver’s shot quality. Role players didn’t get as many open looks. Nikola Jokic and Murray didn’t sufficiently bring weaker defenders into the action. That’s part execution, part coaching. Jokic, Murray and Adelman needed to be better.

But I think there’s a difference between criticizing him for that and ridiculing him for his measured approach, which was a key reason his employers hired him and a reason his employees advocated for him last summer. Arguably the most important aspect of being an NBA head coach today is managing personalities in a locker room with a payroll exceeding $200 million. You need your players to think highly of you. As of now, the two most important people in the building do. And that’s more important than the court of public opinion.

Based on last year’s moves during the offseason, what letter grade would you have given our front office at the time? What is our dynamic duo/power of friendship front office’s letter grade potential this offseason?

— Madalynn, Denver

Without literally grading them, I essentially gave Ben Tenzer and Jon Wallace an “A” last summer. They managed to simultaneously improve the depth of the roster and decrease the payroll — a balancing act that satisfied their fans, their star player and their bosses in the owner’s suite.

In hindsight, there are a few decisions that sting. They had to part with an unprotected first-round pick to swap Michael Porter Jr.’s controversial contract for Cam Johnson’s more modest salary. That’s an asset they’d like to have now, even if Johnson ultimately outperformed Porter in recent playoff games.

The Jonas Valanciunas, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown acquisitions were successful in the regular season but disappointing against Minnesota. Valanciunas, in particular, was out of the rotation for most of the series — but it’s not like Tenzer and Wallace were kicking themselves, wishing they had kept Dario Saric as they watched Game 4 fall apart.

The Nuggets also swayed Russell Westbrook into declining his player option by telling him he wasn’t wanted back for a second season. That decision looks bad on paper now, especially when athleticism and ball-handling have been pinpointed as 2026 offseason priorities. But I still feel inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one, because efficient ball-handling is what they really need. Westbrook’s recklessness was costly last year. His turnover rate caused a lot of headaches internally.

Choosing to keep Spencer Jones for a second season on a two-way contract ended up being a huge win. The Nuggets should want to make sure they keep him in restricted free agency this summer.

And speaking of restricted free agency, the obvious winner for most regrettable decision one year later was choosing Christian Braun’s extension over Peyton Watson’s. It seemed like a self-explanatory decision at the time. Now Braun is coming off his worst season, and Watson is coming off his best.

It will be much more difficult for Tenzer and Wallace to earn an “A” this year. The payroll restraints are far more inhibitive, and the most likely outcome — as I see it — is that Denver will tip off the 2026-27 season with a noticeably worse roster than the 2025-26 team.

Who can you see leaving the Nuggets roster in the offseason?

— Ed, Auburn, New York

Apologies for the temporary cop-out answer, Ed, but I’m planning to write a more in-depth answer to this exact question soon. (That’s right, it’s a shameless plug for another story that is yet to be written.) Without going into detail on my reasoning, my educated guess is that Denver loses Cam Johnson and one other top-six player.

Which season-ending loss to Minnesota was worse: 2024 Game 7 (blowing a 20-point lead at home) or 2026 Game 6 (no Ant, Donte or Ayo)?

— Lucas, via email

Perfect way to wrap this up: with the most self-loathing question of the day. We appreciate your vulnerability, Lucas. We’ve all been there as sports fans at one time or another.

My take is 2024. After Denver was eliminated a couple of weeks ago, I wrote: “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.”

The former is going to be more painful to reckon with over time, I think. If the Nuggets end up winning only one championship with Jokic, there are two critical moments that Coloradans will look back on as the tragic what-ifs. First will be Murray’s ACL injury, which sidelined him for the 2021 and 2022 playoffs, neither of which ended with a particularly dominant, convincing champion (Milwaukee and Golden State). Second will be that second-round Game 7 in 2024.

Obviously, there’s no telling what would have happened next. But the Nuggets won a franchise-record 57 games that season with the same starting five that won the title. They ranked in the top 10 in defensive rating, which feels impossible to imagine now. They would’ve been clear favorites to beat the fifth-seeded Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals. And in the NBA Finals, they would’ve faced an elite Boston team that had lost to them twice in the regular season. At minimum, I think NBA fans missed out on a potential classic series, regardless of who would’ve won.

This year, the Nuggets dug their grave on the last night of the regular season, whether they care to admit it or not. They weren’t going to knock out Minnesota, San Antonio, Oklahoma City and New York consecutively. Especially after they fell behind 2-1 to the Wolves in a series they needed to end quickly. Losing to such a depleted team might be more embarrassing, but decades from now, it won’t be as haunting.

“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,

Denver capitulated to the Minnesota Timberwolves in six games, a championship bid ending in vacant stares and shaking heads. Braun accepted responsibility. Then he elaborated. 

“I just think I’m the leader of this team,” Braun said. “I’m the vocal leader of this team. And when we don’t play well as a whole, you can blame whatever you want … You can blame anything. But I didn’t play well enough as an individual, and I didn’t have this team ready enough to play in a tough series. So we’ll be better. I’ll be better. I’m looking forward to next year, when we can respond.”

Braun deserves criticism for his awful playoff performance and his lost regular season due to an ankle injury. His quote, on the surface, was absurd. More concerning is that it set off no alarms among his teammates.

How could it? Minutes earlier, Jamal Murray admitted that the Timberwolves wanted it more, and took “it kind of personal.”

Braun meant what he said because he has grown into an outsized role over the past three years in a locker room with a three-time MVP, a player whose number will hang from the rafters and a veteran known affectionately by fans as Mr. Nugget.

This is why the Nuggets are doomed without adding their own version of Gabe Landeskog.

The Avs are 51-7-8 with Landeskog in the lineup this season. But his real value lies in his leadership.

He is the captain, and leads by example, both physical and verbal. Teammates can go to him with concerns, and he is able to communicate points to the coaching staff. Avs players will do what he tells them out of respect, out of love, not fear (that is reserved for Nathan MacKinnon’s glare).

And he takes up for them on the ice.

The importance of this cannot be overstated. You want to mouth off, Landeskog will talk with his fists. You want to take a run at MacKinnon or Cale Makar, a hard check into the boards will be postmarked with vengeance.

Landeskog takes his role seriously.

No doubt Braun does, too. But the loss to the Timberwolves revealed that he is miscast.

Want to be the leader of the team? After Jaden McDaniels called out Nikola Jokic, Murray, Aaron Gordon, Cam Johnson and Tim Hardaway Jr. as “bad defenders,” Braun should have been waiting, mouth frothing.

The first time McDaniels took the ball to the basket in Game 3, Braun should have fouled him in a way that conjured images of  The second time McDaniels exploded to the hoop, Braun should have fouled him in ways that brought back memories of .

Hard. Clean. Enough is enough. Instill toughness.

Braun did none of it.

Yet blaming him is misguided.

The fact that he felt comfortable talking the way he did tells you everything that is wrong with the Nuggets’ current roster and coaching staff.

Why would he not think he is the leader? His play reflected his team. He was timid, passed up open shots, and was not a lock-down defender. Like his teammates, he accepted accountability and, by virtue of his actions on the court, took nothing personally.

As the Nuggets enter an offseason of uncertainty, it is clear the roster no longer works, especially since all indications are that David Adelman is safe. An argument can be made for letting Adelman learn on the job, but he fueled concerns that he is a better offensive coordinator than head coach with the playoff collapse.

This is not second-guessing.  I wrote six weeks ago that the Nuggets needed a player to provide bad cop energy, to give the team an edge and keep everything in line when the defense slipped because they ran off the last coach who urged them to guard people.

Something has to give.

Maybe it starts with trying to move Gordon to the Celtics in exchange for Colorado legend Derrick White. And obviously, trading Johnson must be discussed as a way to bring back Peyton Watson. He must be a top priority.

The Nuggets are over the luxury tax and both aprons. And if history is a guide, it is hard to see ownership absorbing any financial penalties next season.

Compliance starts with moving on from backup center Jonas Valanciunas, spreading $2 million over three seasons rather than paying him a $10 million salary. And it is unlikely Hardaway comes back unless he signs a team-friendly deal, his situation not dissimilar from Bruce Brown’s after the Nuggets won their championship.

The Nuggets must treat failure as a curriculum.

Looking at the Thunder, the Spurs, and the Timberwolves, there is no way to see the Nuggets as a championship contender. They do not match up well against elite teams. Their scoring was a problem against Minnesota, but not as much as the lack of physicality and protection against drives to the rim.

It has shown up on the road where flaws are typically exposed. In their last 10 postseason games away from Ball Arena, the Nuggets are 2-8, including six losses by double digits.

The Nuggets’ front office of Jon Wallace and Ben Tenzer received high marks for building a new bench last offseason. That is exactly what was needed on the spreadsheet. It accounted for strategy, not chemistry.

Now, they are faced with solving a problem they inadvertently created with an inexperienced coach and a roster absent a mean streak.

The Nuggets boast too many good vibes guys. They don’t have a Landeskog. Or a MacKinnon.

There are players with these traits, but they are not displayed with the consistency that, in hockey parlance, would demand a C or an A on their chest.

This is how Braun found himself in front of a microphone after Game 6. He is a veteran with a high basketball IQ. A proven winner.

But he cannot be this team’s leader.

Two years from now if he has lived up to his contract extension? Sure.

When he is averaging 18 points per game and stifling top scorers in the fourth quarter? Yep.

But until then, he needs to become a face in the crowd with a louder, more proven player’s voice filling the room. A player like Landeskog.

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 — 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. “I 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’s 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  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 �󲹱�����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.

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.

It might have cost him a few reps. It was still a memorable way to announce himself to his teammates.

“That was disgusting,” Jonas Valanciunas said. “Seeing the open elbow. No tooth. That was disgusting.”

“Literally the first play,” Cam Johnson said, “was a firework.”

Jones was entering his second season with the Nuggets on a two-way contract. He had spent most of his rookie year in their version of Siberia, assigned to their G League affiliate team, the Grand Rapids Gold. He wasn’t quite a nobody. He wasn’t exactly somebody, either. The only two-way player Denver retained from 2024-25, he was antsy to prove himself worthy of more playing time at the NBA level. He had planned to be a training camp try-hard. He was playing the long game.

“We’ve got so many offensively talented guys,” he said. “It would have been much harder to get on the floor that way. So I knew this was the opening.”

Unceremoniously taking out a teammate’s tooth laid the groundwork for Jones’ season-saving heroics seven months later. At the time, late last September, he couldn’t dream of checking into an NBA playoff game because wasn’t eligible to do so. Players on two-way contracts are maxed out at 50 regular-season games in the NBA and none in the postseason. The rest of their time is reserved for the minor leagues.

But Jones was just the kind of annoying that Denver needed on its active roster, which faces a perennial deficit of defenders. By the end of February, the Nuggets had signed him to a regular NBA contract for the rest of the season. By Game 5 of their first-round playoff series Monday, he was starting for the injured Aaron Gordon, scoring 20 points and guarding the Timberwolves’ best available player.

“Some guys want opportunities,” coach David Adelman said after Denver’s 125-113 win staved off elimination. “Other guys take them and run with them. He’s done that the whole season.”

Adelman fondly remembers a preseason game in Vancouver, where Jones went scoreless in 14 minutes against the Toronto Raptors. It was less than two weeks after his messy encounter with Strawther. He guarded Brandon Ingram that day with the same audacity. “I’ll never forget that,” Adelman said.

“It was minimal minutes. But it showed that he had confidence in himself that he could guard high-level players. … He’s got self-confidence, and he’s got a coaching staff and a locker room that believe in him.”

There were other hard-nosed highlights and tough lessons sprinkled in throughout Jones’ season, bookmarks in the story of his ascent. He checked into games for sometimes as little as one possession at first, the sole purpose being to guard an opposing star on the last play of a quarter. He bumped heads with All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns and stumbled away with a concussion. He pioneered a 13-point fourth-quarter comeback in San Antonio by figuring out how to play center at 6-foot-8.

He learned from subtle last-second lapses while defending Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic, both of whom drained game-winning shots over him. Adelman was tough on him in those moments. He knew he could be. Jones wore his failures comfortably and publicly. He often reflected by posting on LinkedIn, the preferred social media platform of a Stanford grad who almost pursued an entrepreneurial career in the healthcare industry before signing in Denver as an undrafted free agent. Even now, he often walks to and from Ball Arena for practices and games. More time for introspection for one of the only Nuggets who doesn’t own a car.

Committed to the ugly

It all traced back to training camp, where Jones wiped up the blood and didn’t allow the tooth to wedge itself into his subconscious. It certainly didn’t meddle with his defensive dogma for the rest of Denver’s preseason practices.

“He was hacking the whole time. They weren’t calling the damn fouls,” Bruce Brown said. “He was driving me full-court.”

“I mean, look,” Jones said, laughing. “Part of being a great defender is like, yeah, you’ve gotta be aggressive. You’ve gotta show that aggressiveness. And that comes with the fouls. That comes with being called a hack. So, yeah. … I broke Julian’s tooth. Stuff like that. Literally hacking the whole time, trying to pick up full-court. Then doing it preseason, doing it a couple times in games. It’s just a natural progression. And then eventually, you’ve gotta smooth out the kinks.”

The Nuggets have needed to lean on his ruggedness. His commitment to the ugly. It offsets their elegance offensively. Even at that end of the floor — where Jones was Denver’s third-leading scorer behind Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray in Game 5— he did most of his work with his unmistakable, unorthodox, zigzaggy shooting form. His hips jolt to the left, while his arms rear back to the right. He shot the 3-pointer at a 39.6% clip this season.

His final stat line, with the season on the line and a hole in the lineup: 20 points on 7-of-9 shooting overall, 4-of-5 from deep, three rebounds, three steals and three blocks. It was his second career 20-point game.

“Coming into the season (on a) two-way, the goal was to get a standard contract,” he said. “Then you have a standard contract, and the next goal was, yes, let’s try to get in the playoff rotation.”

Not even he dared to envision a starting role in the playoffs. But with Gordon sidelined by left calf tightness for the second time in three games, the Nuggets were confronted by a shortage of big wings capable of guarding Julius Randle for an entire game. Jones stepped in and did it for 37 minutes.

If Gordon remains out, which Adelman is counting on as a possibility, Jones will be asked to continue shouldering that matchup. It unexpectedly became one of the series’ premier, defining matchups on Monday. With Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards out, Randle shifts up the hierarchy. He’ll be expected to serve as their primary scorer and playmaker as they try to close out the series Thursday in Minnesota, and if necessary, in a Game 7 in Denver.

Gordon is ordinarily an ideal defender for him. But his mobility and strength were visibly limited when he tried to tough it out in Game 4. The Nuggets fell to 27-10 this season when Gordon plays. They were 27-20 without him entering Monday’s elimination game at home.

Randle scored 27 points to lead Minnesota in the loss. But his six assists were also canceled out by five turnovers, most notably a Jones steal with four minutes remaining. It extinguished the Wolves’ late comeback.

“He just competes, man,” Adelman said. “Randle’s an All-Star. Randle’s a load. And nobody in this room would want to be near Randle in their lives. And (Jones) just stands there and takes the hits. I thought he was really good outside of one time (at) not fouling him, either, where he made him take tough contested shots. A couple times, (Randle) got to his right shoulder and he laid the ball in with his left hand. But that’s why he gets paid a ton of money, because he’s a really special player. But the stuff early, he pushed him out. That’s the thing with Randle. If you concede space, just go home. I think Spence did a good job of competing for the spot.”

No appendages were lost. Jones was prepared for the bloodlust of the rivalry, the physicality required. He’s at the center of it now. All these months after starting the season at the center of a bloody training camp transaction.

“I think he came in with a clear idea of what it would take to carve out a role for himself,” Johnson said. And he knew that was gonna be with effort and intensity. … He’s done a great job of that all season, and he’s reaped the rewards.”