The Denver Nuggets confirmed they will offer Nikola Jokic a contract extension this offseason. Jokic is eligible to sign a three-year, $212 million extension with the Nuggets this offseason.
“We’re definitely going to offer it,” said Josh Kroenke. “I’m not sure if he’s going to accept it or not because we’re also going to explain every financial parameter around him signing now versus signing later-be completely transparent. That’s the way we always are, and then he makes the best decision for himself and his family, and we’ll support him in it.”
Kroenke also suggested that the second apron is a danger to the point where a certain injury to a key player could lead the team to being forced to contemplate trading away Jokic.
“From an ownership perspective around the second apron, there was a lot of conversations last summer about [Kentavious Caldwell-Pope] and us re-signing him and around the second apron, and we never really got any pointed questions about that-or at least I didn’t-and it was a fascinating one because we really did every exercise looking through retaining him and what that meant under the new rules.
“And I think that for us as an organization, going into that second apron is not necessarily something that we’re scared of. I think that there are rules around it that we needed to be very careful of with our injury history. The wrong person gets injured and very quickly you’re into a scenario where-that I never want to have to contemplate-and that’s trading number 15.
“And so, you know, we’re very conscious of that pushing forward and, you know, providing the resources that we can when the moment arrives. But that second apron-is it a hard cap? I’m not 100% sure, but it’s something that teams are obviously very aware of going forward.”