DENVER — Josh Kroenke has a map to take the Denver Nuggets back to the mountaintop, but most won’t like the path it follows — and the plan doesn’t even guarantee reaching the summit.
On Thursday, the Nuggets president put a wrap on the 2024-25 season and made his first move in aiming for the future — hiring David Adelman as the team’s next head coach. That step is a hint at what’s to come, a lot of looking inward in hopes of recapturing the ring.
Some will tell you that two straight second-round exits mean it’s time for Denver to hit the dynamite around Nikola Jokic and try something new. It makes sense, too. It seems progress has stalled, but in mining, it can be hard to tell when you’re about to hit a seam. Hitting the explosives might blast you some gems and shortcut you to riches — just ask Boston. But that also risks your star — just ask Milwaukee.
To say the gold nuggets are caught between a rock and a hard place would be too apt. They’re damned to possibly follow in other’s mistakes if they do and damned to play the hypothetical game if they don’t. What Kroenke made clear on Thursday is that risking progress and greatness is not worth the unknown.
“A lot of our answers are internal right now,” he said. “We have guys locked into contracts. We’re going into a coaching transition. And to be frank, that’s a huge change… (Adelman’s) philosophy, how he might use these guys slightly differently, there’s gonna be a lot of big changes throughout our organization already.”
He’s right, a new person leading the journey might be enough of a change. Michael Malone’s leadership reached one peak, but while traversing to the next, the group lost faith in its leader and ended up arguing mid-season. In a short time, without much planning, Adelman got the unit back on the same page and picked a surprisingly good route. In getting to Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals, the Nuggets showed an ability to scale just when everyone thought an avalanche was coming to send them tumbling back down
During the playoff run, it became clear Adelman was the right leader, and he exposed why the team couldn’t summit. There weren’t enough young and healthy legs to make that push. A message echoed from Jokic and was understood by Kroenke.
“If you’re watching the games, you can see it yourself as well as watching our games,” the boss said. “You can see where we leaned on a lot of guys for a lot of minutes in big-time moments, and that has a cumulative effect that when you’re playing a seven-game series, that can wear you down.”
It’s no secret to anyone that the Nuggets need more depth. A bench that can contribute. The issue is that there isn’t a great answer as to how to build up those bodies. They don’t have many trade assets, they don’t have a pick in this year’s draft, and they’re limited by new rules around the luxury tax, which they’re already deep into.
While so many around Denver won’t like it, Kroenke’s message seemed to be — let’s send most of the same group up there for another try behind Adelman, equipped with time to actually prepare for the season.
Unlike Malone, he already seemed to be more willing to give younger players a chance and let them play through their issues in the playoffs. This won’t be shocking to anyone, but sources told Denver Sports that some of the younger players on the roster lost confidence with unexplained losses in playing time when Malone was the coach. Those folks felt like Malone was stunting the growth of young players and was unnecessarily too reliant on the starters throughout the season. The counter to this would be it’s Malone’s job to win games, and Denver barely escaped the Play-In with a bench that was not trustworthy.
“The development of young players, giving them minutes, letting them play through mistakes with winning, that’s a very difficult thing that every coach struggles with, and it’s something that DA, myself and our front office are really going to have to put our heads together about,” Kroenke said.
“Playing through mistakes is a big part of development, and that doesn’t necessarily match up with trying to contend every night, so how do we strike that balance to achieve our maximum ability come mid-April. That’s the main goal of the organization — to strike a balance between developing players and winning games. We need to get where we want to be by next April: firing on all cylinders with a rotation of eight or nine guys who can give us quality minutes, know their roles, and be held accountable.”
Kroenke did share that the team plans to be aggressive in pursuing trades, looking at veteran free agents and possibly finding a way to get into this year’s NBA Draft. But it’s obvious that players like Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, Jalen Pickett and DaRon Holmes will be a big part of the Nuggets’ hope and plan to improve depth — maybe those four names and the thought that they can get better are even bigger names than the few players that are certain to join the roster.
“What you see around the league is that a lot of successful teams have developed their benches. The new rules don’t allow for the same exceptions that used to make it easier to go get a plug-and-play veteran. But there are still opportunities if you’re smart and can find value where others don’t,” Kroenke said.
“Whether it’s Oklahoma City or Indiana, those teams have developed players over years. Their guys know their roles, understand their responsibilities, and are accountable — and those are the teams I see having success. There are a lot of ways to improve depth, and we’re going to be looking at all of them.”
It’s clear Kroenke believes the Nuggets are very close to having the pieces — they just need to be developed, trusted, and aligned. The summit still waits, like last time they got there, the Nuggets will try to reach it by building from within — remember, they don’t skip steps.
