"The problem they have now, they're playing catch-up" - Charles Barkley criticizes Nuggets for wasting Nikola Jokic's prime

Charles Barkley found time to criticize the Denver Nuggets again.

Last season, Barkley talked about how the Nuggets were wasting Nikola Jokic‘s prime years by not giving him a team that could compete for another title. During his recent appearance on “The Bill Simmons Podcast,” he lambasted them again, saying they had let their guard down too long.

“The problem they have now is that they’re playing catch-up. And I always tell people this: You never catch up. It might be too late because they’re not head and shoulders, the best starting five. They got rid of their two best players off the bench when they won the championship,” explained Barkley.

The Nuggets downgraded instead of upgrading

The Nuggets let Bruce Brown and Jeff Green walk away in free agency right after they played key roles off the bench during their 2023 championship run. Aside from the two, Denver lost two-way starter Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, also in the open market, the next summer.

The Nuggets still won 57 games the following season, and Jokic was named MVP. However, they were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs by the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Nuggets won 50 games in the 2024-25 season. However, they were once again eliminated in the second round, this time to the eventual champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder, in a hard-fought seven-game series.

“Man, if you got a chance to win, you better go for it. And they really wasted the Joker over the last couple of years. The problem they got now is they’re not better than Oklahoma City. And I’m sure they’re not better than the Rockets,” Barkley said.

Learning from mistakes

Barkley added that if Denver had chosen to keep Brown and Green, it would have cost them an additional $30 to $40 million in payroll. However, he mentioned that a team’s value increases every year, and Denver probably would have made up for the cost of keeping the two just by making it deep into the playoffs.

But by choosing not to spend, the Nuggets are forced to play catch-up, despite having the best player in the world. That’s why Barkley urged them to learn from the lessons of the past.

“Perfect example. Go back and look. When those guys had [Larry] Bird, they brought in somebody every year. What about the Lakers? They brought in somebody every year. You can never stand pat when you win. The Celtics, they brought in [Bill] Walton one year, the Lakers bring in Mychal Thompson. They brought in Bob McAdoo and Sam Perkins. That’s what made the Celtics and Lakers the best franchises in NBA history,” the Hall of Famer concluded.

Based on this offseason, it looks like the Nuggets did learn from their mistakes.

After trading Michael Porter Jr. to the Brooklyn Nets for Cameron Johnson, they’ve brought back Brown and signed Tim Hardaway Jr. They also acquired Jonas Valanciunas by trading Dario Saric to the Sacramento Kings, further bolstering their frontcourt.

The Nuggets will enter the 2025-26 season as a much deeper, more well-rounded team. Barring any injuries, they should be a force in the West and a team that can ruin the Thunder’s plans of going back-to-back.

This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Sep 4, 2025, where it first appeared in the Latest News section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

“The problem they have now, they’re playing catch-up” – Charles Barkley criticizes Nuggets for wasting Nikola Jokic’s prime

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