Sources with the Denver Nuggets told The Athletic after Game 7 that the landscape of the NBA has changed around their core over the past few years. The Nuggets had been chasing top-heavy superteams, but now teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves have a mix of stars and also depth.
The Nuggets already had a thin rotation and that was accentuated by injuries to Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon during the playoffs.
“We definitely need to figure out a way to get more depth,” Nikola Jokic said. “It seems like the teams that have longer rotations, the longer benches, are the ones winning. You look at Indiana and OKC and Minnesota, and they have been great examples of that.”
The Nuggets do still have one of the NBA’s best big threes in Jokic, Jamal Murray and Gordon. Jokic has finished first or second in NBA MVP voting in five consecutive seasons and they will remain one of the best teams in the league for the duration of his prime.
“I 100 percent believe that we can win a second NBA championship,” Murray said. “I have confidence in everyone in that locker room. We just came up short tonight. We just have to get back into the gym and get back to it next year.”
“We didn’t win it,” Jokic said. “If we could have, we would have. I don’t believe in the if stuff. We had an opportunity to win a championship this year, and we didn’t win it.”