The 1-acre property features a resort-style pool and direct access to Little Dry Creek and the High Line Canal Trail.

The 5,600-square-foot, five-bedroom, six-bathroom home on Grand Ave. was completely reimagined by the Booths, who bought the property for $1.6 million in 2019.

When they bought the home, they wanted it to connect with the creek running behind it.

“We were drawn first to the home’s privacy and serene setting, especially its quiet connection to Little Dry Creek and the nearby trail,” Keisha Booth said.

“But there was little relationship to the outdoors, so we removed an exterior wall and added floor-to-ceiling windows, opening the interior fully to the creek’s movement, the trees and the surrounding landscape.”

An artist herself, Keisha Booth said the renovation became as much a personal creative project as a real estate one.

She designed the gardens and reshaped each room to feel “both elevated and intimate,” with light, texture and nature woven into daily life without sacrificing ease of entertaining.

A dedicated wellness wing houses a private sauna, and the finished lower level adds a game room and a bespoke pet studio.

Calvin Booth spent parts of eight seasons with the Nuggets front office, joining as assistant general manager in 2017 before being promoted to general manager in 2020. He and former head coach Michael Malone built the roster around Nikola Jokic that delivered the franchise its first NBA championship in 2023. Booth and Malone were both let go by the team in April 2025. Calvin Booth has since done consulting work with college basketball programs.

Listing agent Bridget Marx of Kentwood Real Estate said homes of this scale and finish rarely come to market in Cherry Hills Village.

“This estate reflects a complete, no-expense-spared transformation,” Marx said.

The Booths are moving out of the Denver area.

Keisha Booth said she hopes the next owner finds the same sense of calm and connection to nature that drew the couple to the property in the first place.

“This place has offered community, opportunity and the space to build and accomplish so much together,” Keisha said. “It will always remain a meaningful chapter.”

Because if this was David Adelman’s idea, the man’s got some serious crown jewels. Nikola Jokic’s coaching staff got a little bit better this week. Although it’s not hrd to imagine that David Adelman’s job security as head coach just got a little bit worse.

, the Nuggets have landed Dave Joerger to be David Adelman’s “coach-in-waiting.” Sorry. To be Adelman’s “co-coach.” Dang it! I meant “lead assistant coach.”

Whatever. If you’ve been pining for a veteran NBA voice with playoff experience to start whispering in Adelman’s ear, Joerger’s your man.

New Dave has served as a head coach or assistant with five NBA franchises since 2007. The 52-year-old Joerger had a fairly successful run as the head man in Memphis from 2013-16 (147-99, three playoff berths) followed by a less successful run right after that in Sacramento (99-148, no playoff appearances), before he hooked onto Doc Rivers’ staffs in Philly and Milwaukee.

Josh Kroenke gave Adelman the dreaded public vote of confidence a few months back after a team built to win it all couldn’t win four games out of seven against a Minnesota roster that was missing Anthony Edwards.

At first blush, hiring Joerger now feels an awful lot like hedging bets with your head coach — and right after a massively disappointing playoff series during which said coach got schooled on about eight different levels by Chris Finch.

The Nuggets will put on their for David and Dave, of course, the same one they wore for years in front of the cameras while Michael Malone and Calvin Booth were snarling at one another behind the scenes.

All is not well when you’re the only NBA franchise swimming in the second apron of the salary cap. Although, on paper, this is the type of tweak that could actually work.

The presumption is that Joerger is boarding the S.S. Kroenke to serve as Adelman’s Vic Fangio, his Vance Joseph. New Dave is regarded as something of a defensive mastermind in hoops circles, although his units’ statistical results over the last decade have been, shall we say, more inconclusive on that assumption.

Joerger’s Grizzlies ranked among the NBA’s top 10 in defensive rating in 2013-14 (103.8 points given up per 100 possessions) and 2014-15 (101.2), only to slip to 20th (107.1) in Year 3, his last in Bluff City. His defenses over three seasons as the head coach in Sacramento checked in at 26th, 27th and 21st, giving up between 110-111 points per 100 possessions.

As an NBA assistant the last three seasons, the defensive variance has largely continued. While working with Rivers, the Bucks ranked No. 12 in defensive rating (112.7) in ’24-25 but dipped to 26th (118.3) this past season.

a fresh set of eyeballs certainly couldn’t hurt. Especially after Minnesota forward Jaden McDaniels so gleefully stuck his fingers in them this past April.

“Go after Jokic, Jamal (Murray), all the bad defenders,” McDaniels infamously offered after his Timberwolves snatched a soul-crushing 119-111 victory at Ball Arena in Game 2 of Denver’s first-round capitulation. “Tim Hardaway (Jr.), Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, the whole team. Just go at them. Yeah, they’re all bad defenders.

“They don’t (have) people that can defend the rim. And if (Jokic) is there, we’re still more athletic than them. And (we’ve) just got to be able to finish when we do (get to the rim).”

Did they ever. During a first-round series loss that rattled the Rockies, the Nuggets allowed 29.8 shot attempts in the restricted area — the most of any Western Conference postseason participant, according to NBA.com tracking data. Their 20.5 field goals given up in the restricted area against the Wolves were also rock-bottom in the West bracket.

History says Joerger should help on that front. And help Jokic, Lord willing.

Fun fact: The new Nuggets assistant’s Memphis teams allowed the fewest field-goal tries in the restricted area of any NBA defense (24.9) during the regular season in ’15-16, and ranked second in fewest allowed in ’14-15 (24.4) and ’13-14 (23.9). Joerger’s first two Kings squads as a head coach allowed the fourth-fewest attempts among NBA defenses in the restricted area in ’16-17 (23.9) and the fifth-fewest in ’17-18 (25.1).

Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph then, Jokic and Aaron Gordon now. Hopefully. If New Dave can somehow get Jamal Murray on board with the whole “grit and grind” part of the equation, don’t just give that man an extension. Hand him a Nobel Prize.

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Former Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth drafted Pickett with the 32nd overall pick in 2023. The 6-foot-2 reserve combo guard has struggled to break into Denver’s everyday rotation throughout his first three years in the league.

His $2.41 million salary next season would’ve offered the Nuggets a sliver of cap relief, but they chose instead to move on from the former Penn State star, seeking a fresh slate of point guard depth. Monday was the deadline to make a decision on his option.

Pickett, 26, will be a free agent for the first time in his career. He averaged 5.2 points, 2.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 16.1 minutes per game last season. He appeared in 50 games, highlighted by a career-high 29-point, seven-assist performance in January to lead the Nuggets in an upset over Philadelphia without their entire starting lineup.

Pickett is shooting 38.7% from 3-point range on two attempts per game in his first three years. He also boasts a sturdy 3.63 career assist-to-turnover ratio.

But he’s remained a deep bench option under two different head coaches in Denver, from Michael Malone to David Adelman. Booth was fired in April 2025. Then, new co-general managers Jon Wallace and Ben Tenzer signed veteran point guard Tyus Jones off the buyout market late last season when the Nuggets wanted ball-handling depth. Jones received playoff minutes over Pickett during their first-round series against the Timberwolves.

Qualifying offers

The Nuggets extended qualifying offers to Peyton Watson and Spencer Jones on Monday — a formality that ensures they’ll become restricted free agents on Tuesday.

Watson’s qualifying offer was $6.5 million. Jones’ offer was the minimum. Wallace and Tenzer have indicated that Denver is hopeful it can retain both players. The incumbent team will have the right to match any offer sheet a restricted free agent receives from an outside team.

Watson is regarded as one of the top free agents on the market, restricted or otherwise. The Lakers, Bulls and Nets were projected to be the three main cap space teams with the ability to throw a big offer at Watson coming into the offseason, but the Clippers have emerged now as another potential suitor. They’ve been shedding salary in recent days and clearing out cap space, including $16 million Monday when they declined Bogdan Bogdanovic’s team option. Bogdanovic, according to a league source, will be a Nuggets target in unrestricted free agency.

Everyone thinks Jared Bednar is a great guy. But he is no longer a good fit for the Avalanche.

He is the best coach in franchise history. Yet, running it back would be the worst thing the organization could do.

Bednar’s resume saved him when the Avs fizzled for three consecutive years after winning the Stanley Cup.

What happened in this Western Conference Final hit different.

The best team in hockey was clobbered. The Avs were broomed away like so many cigarette butts and plastic daiquiri cups, the seventh No. 1 seed swept in NHL history.

BTS came back and performed at Allegiant Stadium across the interstate. BTA (belt to bleep) returned in Game 4 at T-Mobile Arena.

The Golden Knights, so underwhelming and uninspiring that they fired their coach with eight games remaining in the season, put the Avs out of their misery with a 2-1 victory.

Leave the miracles to Mike Eruzione, the 2004 Boston Red Sox and that perm-coiffed dude who married Selena Gomez.

This Avs’ exit needs to come with a major announcement, that president Joe Sakic and general manager Chris MacFarland have decided to dismiss Bednar with one year remaining on his contract.

There is no joy in writing this. It is not all Bednar’s fault that the Avs picked a bad week to play their worst hockey, failing to win a game in a playoff series for the first time since 2008. They almost got shut out in a closeout.

So, let’s meet in the middle and say half the onus is on Bednar because of a system that no longer works in the postseason against defensive-minded, possession-oriented pests like the Dallas Stars and Knights.

Just like their matchup against Las Vegas, the Avs are boxed in, frustrated, with no easy way out. Some version of this problem arose when Seattle and Dallas eliminated the Avs, but there was compelling evidence to stick with the coach, given Valeri Nichushkin’s absences and Gabe Landeskog’s injury.

There is no good reason for what just happened over the past six days. Only excuses.

Are the Avs, a team that won 16 more games than the Golden Knights during the regular season, so fragile that they stood no chance without Cale Makar for two games and Nathan MacKinnon compromised for a few periods?

All we talked about was their depth, starting in October and louder after the trade deadline in March when MacFarland cemented his executive-of-the-year status.

They were a Noah’s Ark team — two of everything. And no player could sway the outcome in one game? Embarrassing.

Captain Mark Stone missed the first two games of this series, and it did not undermine Las Vegas. He was a catalytic force on Tuesday, catching a long lob in stride behind the defense in the first period, most notably Nazem Kadri, and whipping it around Mackenzie Blackwood’s left leg for a 1-0 lead.

If not for Blackwood’s acrobatics, the Avs would have been routed.

Still, the Golden Knights were winning.

After the particularly disturbing Game 3 loss, when the Avs lost for only the second time in 76 playoff games when leading by three goals, Colorado resorted to whimpering.

Down 3-0, Bednar kept pointing to the metrics, insisting they were dead even. OK, Kenny Atkinson. How about we simmer down on the analytics and focus more on the manalytics.

When the Avs needed a big hit, big shot or big stop, they failed to deliver. That is what defines the postseason: shining in the clutch. Under Bednar’s watch, the Avs wilted under the LED lights washing over Bruno Mars Drive and The Strip.

The players are not blameless.

MacKinnon did not produce a goal in the series. Marty Necas, paid to provide the big performances previously delivered by Mikko Rantanen, had one in the postseason.

Brock Nelson aged like Keith Richards, and never looked the same after returning from the Olympics. Devon Toews made costly mistakes unbecoming of a player of his caliber. Kadri did not plug in the power play — 1-for-10 against Las Vegas. And even before he got hurt, Nichushkin did nothing of note.

So many breakdowns. So many errors in their own zone.

Does some of that fall on Bednar? Sure.

“At the end of the day, coaches are coaches,” Makar said in a somber postgame locker room. “He means so much to this team, and he’s allowed us to play our games and process that from years and years for this. He deserves a lot of credit for getting us to this point. Again, he’s not playing the game, he’s not out on the ice.

He’s giving us everything we possibly can, information-wise, to go out there and be the best we can be, and unfortunately … you feel like you let people down. He’s one of those guys that you feel like worked so hard, the whole coaching staff, everybody. You just feel like you let them down a little bit.”

Bednar could have changed line combinations sooner. Could have tweaked the power play lineup. Could have challenged bad calls with ferocious intensity. Could have pulled Scott Wedgewood in favor of Blackwood after the second goal on Sunday.

In reality, there is no single reason why Bednar should go. It is the aggregate.

For the past four years, the Avs have not only failed to raise another Cup — we can all agree one is not enough with this core — they have not reached the championship round.

Stand pat, always an option for Kroenke Sports, and the Avs might be a top seed again. But the regular season is not the problem. The Avs have aced those pop quizzes.

The playoffs are the final. Or the Final, if you will. That is a huge part of the grade when entering with title-or-bust expectations.

Since 2022, they are 0-for-4.

Truth is, if two-time champion Mike Shanahan can get fired by the Broncos, no professional Colorado sports coach should be safe forever. Shanahan, the GM, got Shanahan, the coach, canned. Bednar’s scheme is what could do him in.

For those defending Bednar, it is understandable. It is also misguided.

The Avs are stuck with multiple big contracts — MacKinnon, soon-to-be Makar, Landeskog, Necas, Kadri, Nelson, Toews, Blackwood, Sam Malinski — that will limit their movement unless they are willing to eat money.

It is much easier to switch out the person standing behind the bench than those sitting on it.

This could go one of two ways, like most things. The Avs thank Bednar for his services and hire a young genius like DU’s David Carle or a veteran like Bruce Cassidy. Then, they win a Cup.

Or Bednar succeeds elsewhere, and the Avs fade, making it clear the players, not the system, were the problem.

It is worth finding out.

The feeling is that Avs officials never want to pull the plug on Bednar because they like him and love how he works with everyone (which is why his situation is not comparable to Michael Malone with the Nuggets).

Whatever the case, ownership has given Sakic and MacFarland freedom to try everything the past two seasons with roster upgrades. After this playoff meltdown, they now have a responsibility they can no longer shirk.

As hard as it might be, it is time for Bednar to go because sticking with him, as the series with Las Vegas showed, is a losing bet.

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.

Sean Keeler: If Tom Thibodeau is the answer, are we asking the right questions? The Nuggets need to find their Sean Payton. There. I said it. If you can’t make sweeping upgrades to the roster, you have to make upgrades at head coach, someone who raises everybody’s floor. But here’s the catch: The Walton-Penner Group knew they needed a splashy head-coaching hire for the Broncos after the franchise had tried a slew of untested or unworthy options, someone with championship experience, regardless of the cost. Ime Udoka and Joe Mazulla made $11 million. Do you see Stan Kroenke and Josh Kroenke forking over Payton-like money to replace Adelman with a sexier name? Because I sure as heck don’t.

Troy Renck: I never thought they would fire Adelman because the Nuggets were not going to pay three coaches — Adelman, Michael Malone and a new hire. But the Nuggets were so thoroughly outclassed, it became a worthy talking point. How you lose matters. Fault landed on Adelman’s doorstep for a reason. He deserves to grow on the job, but he should be coaching for his position next season. Here is why. Kroenke gave Adelman too much credit for how he is behind closed doors, for the regular season, specifically the 10-6 record when Nikola Jokic was injured. It was an impressive accomplishment. But it was also a pop quiz. Kroenke admitted that any team with Jokic should win 50 games. He expected 60-to-65 victories if healthy. OK, Adelman gets a A- for the season, but bombed the weighted final, otherwise known as the postseason. That must figure into the evaluation.

Keeler: Bombed it? More like slept through it. It’s not fair for the greatest player in franchise history, and one of the best centers ever, to let months of the prime of his career just fritter away while his head coach “learns on the gig.” I don’t doubt that, given time, Adelman can — and will — improve. To your point, the first-time coach was handed a debut regular season that had about 3.5 years worth of injury disasters, and he still steered that ship to 54 wins. But this is a playoff sport, my friend. November-March is for show. April-June is for dough. And Adelman’s postseason resume looks Pillsbury soft right now.

Renck: Kroenke appeared to let Adelman off the hook because of complacency, injuries and the lack of ball handlers to navigate pressure. Somehow, the latter is the answer to everything because it will allow the Nuggets to initiate their offense earlier, providing an option when the two-man game fizzles. So Adelman is blameless for not trusting his bench earlier, not making offensive adjustments when Rudy Gobert was off the floor or drawing a technical in Game 3 to send a message that the Nuggets were not going to back down? Adelman looks a lot more like a great offensive coordinator than a head coach. He has another season to prove this wrong or it is time to move on.

Keeler: There’s a reason they booed. I respect Adelman’s hoops acumen, but I don’t envy his position, because his record will always be judged relative to Michael Malone’s. You never want to be the guy who follows the guy. If I’m Josh, I challenge Adelman to freshen this thing up even more. At times, his Nuggets looked stale; other times, they looked predictable. Stale, predictable and old, is no way to go through the NBA, son.

Sean Keeler: My goodness, are we doomed to be Bucks West? Because it all feels very Bucks West right now. Joker is our Giannis, a Euro legend in a flyover market, on a flyover team let down by his flyover organization. Murray flipped his usual script, and the ending stunk. The Blue Arrow was an All-Star in November and a falling star in April. Denver is 3-8 in the last three postseasons when Murray scores 18 or fewer in playoff contests. Playoff Mal? The guy who could take over a postseason contest? Gone. Vanished. A ghost. Murray has produced just two games of 34 points or more over his last 32 postseason appearances. Over the previous 32 playoff tilts, he’d done it six times. The Arrow turns 30 in February. The aim comes and goes. . So if someone will willingly take that $50 mil off your books, you’d be crazy not to entertain the offer.

Renck: The nightmare scenario, impossible to envision when the Nuggets made over their bench last offseason, came together as the Timberwolves ran Denver off the floor. Can we be honest? The Nuggets need to get younger and more athletic. Sometimes health makes decisions our mind won’t. Gordon is Mr. Nugget, forever a Denver legend. But it is time to move on. Gordon will be 31 in September and has missed 76 regular-season games the past two seasons because of a battery of soft-tissue hamstring and calf injuries. Gordon has $103.6 million on his contract over the next three years, if he picks up a player option in 2028-29. That sounds like a lot. It is not. Gordon is a glue player who will have a market. Can you move him back to Orlando or Washington for a first-round pick? Gordon is not the problem. But in pursuing a solution, poison pills must be swallowed to reshape this team for one more championship run with Jokic.

Keeler: You win or you learn, right? The OKC series last year showed that the Nuggets were getting older and slower. This year’s Minnesota series confirmed it. Josh Kroenke is running into the same thing that helped accelerate the Rockies’ decline after the ’17 and ’18 postseasons that feel so, so, soooo long ago. The Nuggets fell in love with their core pieces the way Dick Monfort fell in love with his starting pitchers from a decade ago, overpaid to keep them — and now they’re too old, too hurt, or both. It took the Spurs landing a young Kawhi Leonard to help Tim Duncan notch his last NBA title in 2014. Peyton Watson could be that Kawhi. But you’ve got to re-sign him first.

Renck: The Nuggets deserved better after adding depth last offseason. But in shaking up the beaker, the chemistry never aligned. This team lost its edge, its hunger, its willingness to take slights personally. It is why an argument can be made to move on from Murray — wouldn’t Toronto love to have him? His number belongs in the Ball Arena rafters, but Denver cannot beat the top defensive teams with the two-man game anymore. Cam Johnson is easier to ship out, but only if it means keeping Peyton Watson. Watson is critical to the offseason. He is long, rangy, defensive, and 23. When thinking about who the Nuggets must become, he is exactly who they need to be.

Keeler: Moving Gordon would hurt the most. Moving Johnson would hurt the least. Murray’s salary means you’d have to either get one or two bad contracts back or another aging superstar in return — and probably both. The Kroenkes tried it Michael Malone’s way, but it didn’t fly without Malone’s snarling and shaming. If the Nuggets don’t blow it up now, they risk riding this core straight off the nearest cliff.

“Definitely if we were in Serbia,” he said after the Nuggets’ season-ending loss on Thursday night to the Timberwolves, “we would all get fired.”

He made the quip in response to a question about what changes are needed in Denver this offseason. His joke was coupled with a deflection: It’s not his decision, the three-time MVP claimed, even though Nuggets brass runs practically every major decision by him.

Yet when the topic of coach David Adelman came up, Jokic did offer up a staunch opinion.

“It was nothing (to do with him),” he said, insisting that criticism of Adelman is unfair. “It’s not his fault that we could not rebound. It’s not his fault that we could not catch the ball very well. So there is nothing to blame to David Adelman. It was all us.”

Adelman’s first regular season at the helm was characterized by resilience. The Nuggets won 54 games despite a litany of injuries.

His first playoff run ended in disaster — a first-round exit at the hands of the rival Timberwolves, who finished the series without their starting backcourt available. It was the first time in four years that Denver failed to win a playoff series.

Jokic and his co-star, Jamal Murray, both defended Adelman after the shocking season-ending loss, as hot-seat chatter began to inevitably circulate about the rookie head coach. Adelman has worked for the Nuggets since 2017.

“He is amazing,” Murray said. “He is still getting his feet wet with all the adjustments and injuries, and managing emotions and all that stuff. It’s a hard job. You have a lot of different personalities you have to think about, and game-time decisions. Possession by possession. It was a great season for all that we went through. I just wish I could’ve done better for my team tonight.”

Jokic and Murray both took the blame after a 110-98 Game 6 loss. Adelman also took accountability for Murray’s poor performance and the series’ overall result.

“I’m the head coach,” he said. “I take responsibility for things that didn’t go well here.”

Adelman, 44, took over as interim head coach last April when Denver fired Michael Malone with three games left in the regular season. The Nuggets reached the second round of the playoffs and took first-place Oklahoma City to seven games. The Thunder advanced to win their first NBA title.

The Nuggets felt like they salvaged a season that had been spinning out of control when Malone and ex-general manager Calvin Booth lost their jobs. Adelman was promoted to the full-time gig. A new front office was assembled around him. Denver was lauded for its offseason moves, which supplied more depth to help Adelman navigate the regular season.

But in the playoffs, the Nuggets succumbed to a Minnesota team missing Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo as it closed out two of its four wins.

“Complete disappointment,” Adelman said. “We went into the series with belief we could win. I felt really good about the build-up to Game 1. And after Game 1, you felt good about the way we started Game 2. And obviously, that fell apart. But it’s hard to look at the whole thing in its totality right now, because right now, it just sucks. … For it to end like this is extremely disappointing.”

Adelman highlighted overall day-to-day team management when asked about lessons from his first year as an NBA head coach.

“I think I learned something every week, every month,” he said. “I’ll be honest. You learn how to coach in different ways, dealing with different things. That goes not with just the basketball. But with the players daily. The film sessions. How you schedule things. And I know that’s not basketball related, but it really does matter when it comes to winning, flow, formula, routine for players. There’s things that I thought went really well and other things that I have to reconsider. And in these jobs, in any of these jobs, if you’re not trying to get better, then you shouldn’t be doing it.”

It’s accounts that scramble from hashmark to hashmark, depending on the week and the narrator, looking to buy more time. Only the offseason’s pocket — the Broncos’ four-month window to refresh, reset, renovate, resuscitate and reload — is collapsing fast, and Bo Nix still can’t plant hard on his right foot.

Allegedly.

NFL recovery timelines are fluid, historically, as personal and unique as a fingerprint. Yet recovery narratives typically aren’t. When it comes to Nix’s surgically repaired right ankle, we don’t know whom to believe, do we? Or whom to trust.

In January, Broncos coach Sean Payton said this:

“What was found was a condition that was predisposed — they always find a little more when they go in. It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when.”

Only Nix turned right around and replied with this:

“Nothing predisposed, nothing that was there originally. That might have gotten confused. (It was) just a simple step with my foot up in the air, my body weight came down on it, sort of got twisted up.”

Payton: “When you look at the play and you’re trying to evaluate it — the operating surgeon said that this was going to happen sooner than later. Now, you go about the rehab, proper orthotics, all those things.”

Nix: “I don’t think (Payton) really should share how many surgeries I’ve had in the past, to be honest with you — he doesn’t even really know that. But it’s going to be good to get back, get back to work … Nothing really that concerns me, nothing that scares me moving forward.”

On Jan. 27, insiders said Nix’s full recovery would likely take 12 weeks.

On April 28, they said it would take … another 12 weeks.

Nix recently underwent a second ankle procedure in Alabama to clean up some issues, sources told The Post’s Parker Gabriel.

This little news dump came after Payton had said the following just this past Saturday:

“(Nix) had a recheck that was scheduled … He’s doing great. We’re excited about his progress. Nothing to report. These guys will be coming in here. He’s here.”

So why chew on a nothing-burger? Because the meat’s still mooing. And moving. Right along with the goalposts.

Look, healing timelines are fluid. The most important thing is Nix’s mobility being close to 100% by mid-August. Not mid-July. Or late April.

It took how long to find another franchise quarterback? The Bo Show is 24-10 over the last two regular seasons. This defense is good enough to carry the Broncos to the AFC Championship, but Nix is the key that unlocks that final door, that trip to the Super Bowl. Discretion is the only path.

The concern is the degree to which the Broncos, from the top down, have been driving on both sides of the road — while talking out of both sides of their mouths.

This was CEO Greg Penner on Nix in March:

“He’s attacked his recovery in the same way that he attacks preparing for games and has just done a terrific job. He’s ahead of schedule. No concerns at all for OTAs and (we) go forward from there.”

He will not.

This was GM George Paton on Nix, also in March:

“He’s ahead of schedule. He’s done a great job. He’ll be ready for OTAs.”

He is not.

The Broncos say one thing. Bo does another.

Again, it’s not the ankle. It’s the theme. If the Broncos knew in February and March what they know now, they should have hedged publicly and not set a deadline as hard or as optimistic as May or June. Don’t say O-T-A if you don’t mean it.

And if they didn’t know in March what they know now, that’s an even redder flag, hypothetically.

Nix’s rookie contract, one of the best bargains in Front Range sports right now, is up after the 2027 season. The going rate for the average annual value of second contracts for star AFC quarterbacks is roughly $50 million to $65 million. If the Broncos and Nix aren’t singing from the same page on recovery times now, what kind of harbinger is that for extension talks that could well define this franchise for the next decade?

Will there be scars from the back-and-forth/he-said-he-said between Nix and Payton? You don’t get to the point of coach and QB1 barking at each other on the sidelines if those wounds haven’t already been ripped open privately first. The more layers of the onion you peel, the more it feels as if offensive coordinator Davis Webb isn’t just optimal for Nix-Payton to work here. He’s essential.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Let’s put it this way: For years, there was a lot of smoke coming from Ball Arena when it came to Michael Malone and Calvin Booth, even as both tried their darnedest to play nice in front of the cameras. Management eventually had to put its worst internal fire out by blowing everything up.

Nobody’s saying this is a like-for-like. But you wonder. If any kind of Bo-Sean disconnect deepens, and the Penners don’t pick a side, history will happily do it for them.

Before Game 5 between the Nuggets and Timberwolves on Monday night, Finch applauded the lack of suspensions handed out by the league for an altercation at the end of Game 4. Jokic took exception to a garbage time layup by Minnesota’s Jaden McDaniels with 1.3 seconds left in that game, confronting the Timberwolves wing who’s gotten under Denver’s skin throughout this first-round playoff series.

“Thought the league did an outstanding job adjudicating that situation,” Finch said. “Honestly, I’m not mad at Jokic. I think both players, having coached both, are fierce competitors. It’s one of those things that happened in the game, and that’s the most important thing. The game was still going on (when McDaniels scored). But I don’t think that there was any ill intent even though there was a lot of emotions.”

The NBA investigated the incident on Sunday. Jokic received a $50,000 fine for starting the altercation, which spilled into the court-side seats at Target Center. Minnesota’s Julius Randle was fined $35,000 for his involvement in it. Players who left their benches were not penalized, even though the NBA rulebook states they’re subject to one-game suspensions.

Players who travel farther from their bench are more at risk when the league litigates these incidents. In this case, that meant Denver’s players, including Aaron Gordon.

“I thought the league did a good job of letting that thing breathe to the point where they could sort it out,” said Finch, who used to be an assistant coach for Denver under Michael Malone.

Gordon was ruled out for Game 5 anyway with left calf tightness, which has been ongoing since Game 2 last week. He struggled to play through pain for 23 minutes in Game 4, registering nine points and one rebound.

McDaniels has been the main character of the series, between his Game 4 show-boating and his trash talk after Game 2. He called out Jokic and other Nuggets players by name for being bad defenders. The Timberwolves proceeded to win the next two games at home, taking a commanding 3-1 series lead.

Finch said he didn’t anticipate the Nuggets attempting to take any retaliation against McDaniels in Game 5.

“We’ve gotta keep our heads no matter what’s coming at us, whether that’s a big response by Denver, or anything else. So we don’t expect that,” the veteran coach said before opening tip. “That’s not necessarily the type of team that they are. But we do expect it to be ultra-physical.”