Phil Jackson didn’t invent the 40-20 rule as a nonsensical hot take. The 11-time champion head coach popularized it because the data backed him up — convincingly. 

Since the NBA added the three-point line in 1979, only four champions have won a title after accumulating 20 losses before reaching 40 wins: the 1994-95 Houston Rockets, the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons, the 2005-06 Miami Heat, and the 2020-21 Milwaukee Bucks. 

With just four exceptions in 45 years, the rule remains historically validated. By the 60-game mark, a team’s identity has been revealed, with legit contenders winning two-thirds of their games while others don’t. 

The Denver Nuggets, sitting at 35-20 and currently occupying the No. 3 seed in a bloodbath Western Conference, officially missed it. Bummer. 

Nuggets are eliminated from 40-20 contention.

— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) February 10, 2026

But the problem with applying the 40-20 rule to this season’s Mile High crew is that it ignores everything actually happening in Denver this season. 

Is the 40-20 rule airtight?

Before we accept the 40-20 verdict at face value, I want to interrogate it a little, because fans are right to feel skeptical about where exactly the line gets drawn. Not 42 before 21, not 39 before 19. Exactly 40 and 20. And that specificity starts to feel a little like nice round-number numerology. 

Consider: the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons. Just 33-20 when they crossed the 20-loss threshold, the Pistons added Ben Wallace and won 16 of their final 19 games, finishing with a 54-28 record. And in upset fashion, they dismantled Shaq, Kobe, Karl Malone, Gary Payton, and the heavily favored Lakers in just five games. Were they not a “real” contender?

The 1994-95 Rockets had only 35 wins when they hit their 20th loss, then won the second of back-to-back titles behind Hakeem Olajuwon, putting on one of the most dominant postseason performances in history. 

To me, the rule’s four exceptions aren’t a bunch of lucky flukes. Each one rallied behind a singular, transcendent, Hall of Fame-level talent to take home a championship. And Denver possesses one of those in Nikola Jokic. 

Does the 40-20 rule simply identify good teams? The specific threshold might say more about Jackson’s affinity for round numbers and motivating his Bulls rosters than about some mystical predictive power. 

40-20 chase

LOCKED: OKC
Pistons need one more win
Spurs need to go 4-3 or better
Knicks and Celtics have to go 6-0
Rockets have to go 8-0

Everyone else is out.

90% of NBA champions in the 3-point era have crossed 40 wins before 20 losses

— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) February 10, 2026

It’s useful, but context still matters.

The Nuggets’ extraordinary injury context

The Nuggets didn’t miss the 40-20 mark because they’ve been playing sloppy basketball or because their roster has underperformed. Jokic and Co. missed it because they have been decimated by injuries. 

Jokic, the three-time MVP and the gravitational center of everything Denver does, missed 16 games this season, the most extended absence of his career. Aaron Gordon has been out for 31 games (and counting). Christian Braun sat for 36. Cam Johnson missed 24. Jonas Valanciunas lost 12. The recently ascendant Peyton Watson went down with a grade 2 hamstring strain, sidelining him for at least a month. 

Add it up. That is well over 100 games of key rotation production lost to injury. Not fringe rotation guys, but to the team’s MVP, its starting power forward, its starting two-guard, its key offseason free agent and trade acquisitions, and its most improved young talent.

Yet the Nuggets remain legitimately dangerous.

Denver’s performance without its regular rotation changes the conversation

The Nuggets went 10-6 without Jokic. Not just surviving, but winning at a 63% clip without the best player on the planet. They went 3-1 without both Jokic and Jamal Murray, and even stole a game without Jokic, Murray, and Gordon sharing the floor. When their core trio has been healthy and together, they’ve gone 10-3, a pace that projects to nearly 65 wins over a full season. 

When whole, Denver can play at an elite, potentially championship-caliber level. If there was ever a team positioned to be the fifth exception to the 40-20 rule, it could be this one. 

The 40-20 rule is real, but rules have exceptions, exceptions require context, and the context in the Mile High City this season is unlike almost anything the NBA has seen from a legitimate championship contender in years. The roster is slowly getting healthier. And a healthy Nuggets team that survived all of this might be one of the most dangerous in basketball.