DENVER — The Denver Nuggets have come up just short of the halfway point in each of the past two seasons after winning it all in 2023, but the organization remains confident they are close to another championship.
This much was evident once again on Wednesday in action and words.
The move was to introduce longtime assistant and recent interim coach David Adelman as the franchise’s 23rd full-time head coach. He’ll offer a new voice with a slightly adjusted philosophy to tackle the same issues the team has faced in chasing a second title. Keeping Adelman, rather than going in a different direction, suggests the organization sees internal promotion as sufficient change, rather than pushing the bigger button of major trades.
This was voiced from both the bench boss and the big boss, Josh Kroenke, who reiterated that they will look at external solutions to the issues, but the help is more likely to come from within.
“There’s a firm belief that they can achieve their ultimate goal. Can they achieve that as currently constructed? I think the answer, as Nikola Jokic said after the playoffs ended, was obviously no,” Kroenke said. “So we need to take a hard look at how we can raise our ceiling going forward, whether that’s internally or externally.”
“Losing a heartbreaker in game seven of the second round of the NBA Playoffs is a massive disappointment, but from where we were a longtime ago, it makes me proud,” he said. “I’m disappointed with where we are currently, because we have a real shot to compete. And I think if you look at the teams still playing, we feel, we’re still playing (too), with a little bit of health and maybe a little bit of luck. Maybe it could be us, but it’s not, and we’re very conscious of that and how we need to go about improving going forward.”
The Oklahoma City Thunder, who beat the Nuggets this year in Game 7 of Round 2, have rolled through the playoffs aside from the Denver series. They’re heavy favorites to win their first title and have only lost one game in the two series they played against Memphis and Minnesota. With a few more depth pieces, the Nuggets might have edged past the Thunder, given how poorly the bench performed in the second-round series and the toll it took on the starters.
“We have people in this building that are more than capable of creating the depth that we need,” Adelman said. “It’s also me creating a different kind of relationship with these players, being the head coach as opposed to the lead assistant, is a lot different. Those expectations have to be defined for them.”
Maybe that’s not the right way to frame it, because had the Nuggets beaten the Thunder, they would have faced the Timberwolves — a team that’s had Denver’s number since eliminating them in Game 7 of the 2024 second round. So it’s hard to know exactly how close the Nuggets are, but they’re in a stronger position than most teams around the NBA.
It’s that sense of being close that has players believing Adelman’s promotion to full-time head coach — and another chance with the same core — could lead to a second ring.
“As a team, we think that we have enough in the locker room to win a championship,” Julian Strawther said on Wednesday. “A couple of more balls roll our way, and guys are a little bit healthier. Things may change, but that’s all hindsight, and that’s behind us. Moving forward and understanding what we have and what we may bring in, or what may change. We are ready to compete for a championship, no matter what.”
If the Nuggets organization is true to its word, then their messaging suggests that they’re just a few tweaks away from raising another banner. After all, one could interpret Jokic’s words as a call for more help. After three MVP wins, maybe he deserves an All-Star teammate, but in the end, the three-time MVP was simply stating a fact: The Nuggets didn’t win in 2025 because they couldn’t.
“I can say very clearly that this organization does not need a cultural reset,” Kroenke said. “I think anyone who was in and around that dressing room for the last six weeks could probably say that there was a very unified group.”
