Logan’s Run once promised a world in 2274 where 30-year-olds get zapped into oblivion. The 2025 Denver Nuggets, fortunately, don’t live in that dystopia.
Nikola Jokic — 30 and already a three-time MVP, Finals MVP and the best player to ever wear the pickaxes — made it clear Monday he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
“I plan to be with the Nuggets forever,” he said.
So no, Denver isn’t purging its old guard. But after watching its title hopes fizzle out two springs in a row, everyone knew this team needed fresh layers around Jokic. Media Day made it obvious: this offseason wasn’t about ripping up blueprints that brought a championship and keeping them near the top of the Western Conference. It was about adding insulation and maybe a room or two.
There is real change. The front office begins a new chapter with Ben Tenzer and Jonathan Wallace. The coaching staff is remade with David Adelman now the head coach and a retooled bench of assistants, and the roster has fresh pieces meant to solve problems that surfaced in the spring.
“We felt like we had a great run in the playoffs,” Tenzer said. “The focus was on depth more than anything … the only tangible thing we really chose was to make sure we added depth.”
Depth shows up everywhere. On the sideline, Adelman hired Jared Dudley, J.J. Barea, Mike Moser, Chase Buford and Rodney Billups. On the court, the Nuggets brought back Bruce Brown, added Tim Hardaway Jr., Cameron Johnson and Jonas Valanciunas, and expect rookie DaRon Holmes II to be ready to help.
Depth is Denver’s new obsession. The Grand Rapids Gold, the Nuggets’ G League team, will also be more tightly integrated than ever — a pipeline Adelman and Wallace are treating like an extra tool, not a side project.
Don’t forget who asked for this either: Jokic. He left Oklahoma City in May with one ask: “It definitely seems like the teams that have longer rotations — longer benches — are the teams that are winning: Indiana, OKC, Minnesota.”
That’s the new.
The old? Well, let’s get back to Jokic, who is still the Joker. Equal parts deadpan comic and basketball savant. He hijacked a question about his new shoes and turned it into a mini commercial and then, more seriously, said, “I plan to be with the Nuggets forever.”
Jamal Murray is still the pulse, gathering teammates in Los Angeles this summer and freely admitting the team needs to evolve from playing “very randomly,” as he put it, to being more organized when the stakes rise. He even went as far as to say that his main focus needs to be on better communication between him and Jokic.
It’s that communication, from those two, that the front office hears as feedback straight to their faces.
We told them to be brutally honest with us, Wallace said. “Now we’ve got to work together.”
Adelman’s imprint starts with details and options. He bristled at the idea that training camp is a slow build or that this is when it begins for the Nuggets, pointing back at the offseason work everyone has just done.
“I hate when we call this training camp. It’s not. It’s just four days of practice,” he said. “We’ve got to get going from the start.”
He discussed changing defenses more frequently, similar to his approach in the playoffs, with a radical approach. The new thought is doing so regularly enough to be comfortable in big moments. Most important is the vibe — the one that completely eroded in Michael Malone’s final season and a joy he recaptured that the new boss believes helped the Nuggets stabilize when he was leading the bench late last season.
“It’s not just the Xs and Os,” Adelman said. “Are you happy to be here every day?”
The bench is his puzzle. The Nuggets added shooting and size and a talented big in Valanciunas. Which starter floats? Who pairs best? “We gotta figure that out,” Adelman said, citing combinations with Johnson and Hardaway Jr., and leaving the door open to a two-big look with Jokic and Valanciunas in spots.
The goal is to eliminate the nightly minus-12s that bury good starts and overload the starters’ minutes, the most frustrating thing in Denver, besides I-25 traffic, something Johnson has already been stuck in.
Valanciunas arrived after a summer of rumors with a clear mandate.
“The biggest thing that excites me is the opportunity to win,” he said. “I don’t need to impress somebody. I want to win and do everything to go all the way.”
On playing with another center, “We gotta all believe in the system … we have to sacrifice something to be successful.”
Murray called him “really underrated.” Adelman labeled him an “incredible offensive rebounder” and a proven hub when playing through the post.
Following summer reports out of Europe, Valanciunas said, “I’m here and I’m happy to be here… What’s behind us is history; now we have the future in front of us. We all have jobs to do to make the future even brighter.”
That’s a solid enough answer in my book to think about what’s ahead with Val. Or as Adelman cut me off about Johnson, “more than solid.”
Johnson fits the “connector” mold Denver has lacked since Brown departed. Johnson set a goal of playing 77-plus games, described his versatility in the pick-and-roll and handoff games, and said he’ll complement Jokic and Murray without forcing touches. Jokic raved about Johnson’s shooting mechanics.
“His release is really pretty. I want to shoot like that,” Jokic said, adding that Johnson’s passing and cutting are underrated.
Hardaway Jr., ever the vet, knows why he’s at a Mile High.
“Just making everybody’s life a lot easier,” he said.
The familiarity with Dudley and Barea from Dallas helps. The local familiarity matters too — Aaron Gordon, Christian Braun and Peyton Watson are all back and speaking the same defensive language.
Gordon’s tune is defense first, something he couldn’t really focus on last year as his role was shoehorned into being more offense-driven.
“I’m just gonna turn up on defense,” he said, noting the Nuggets have enough offense and arguing a top-10 defense would put them right back in the title picture.
Braun, who is eligible for an extension, brushed off that talk.
“It’ll work itself out,” he said. “I don’t want to be anywhere besides the Denver Nuggets.” He added that the team’s talent level is “at an all-time high” and challenged the group to “blow teams out a little bit more” rather than living in shootouts.
Watson talked about tightening his shooting mechanics, stepping into a larger leadership role and the professionalism he’s learned.
“Being early everywhere … representing an organization,” he said, while slicing through any anxiety about his own contract situation. “It’s my race,” Watson said. “I’m ready for whatever.”
Julian Strawther spent most of the summer in Denver to learn Adelman’s terminology and systems. He echoed the message that minutes at the back of the rotation are an “open competition” and set his own availability bar: “I want to be available for all 82.”
Brown’s return is as much sentimental as it is strategic. He called the late-season coaching change in Denver “super surprising” from afar but praised Adelman’s calm and clarity from his first stint. He was candid about choosing Denver over potentially richer offers.
“I don’t care how much (money),” he said. “I just think it’s a perfect fit for me … I want to win again.”
Jokic’s needle found him immediately: “Bruce is back, we have to save his career again,” Jokic quipped, as Gordon also noted the massive payday he got when he left the Nuggets.
Tenzer and Wallace won’t tip their hand on Braun and Watson extensions. But they emphasized flexibility and depth — the themes of the summer. They’ve even left a roster spot open going into camp while they assess needs. That restraint fits the summer’s wider theme of flexibility and depth. Heck, the team has so many new parts and systems, it’s hard for anyone to know what may be the final missing piece.
But it’s on the main pieces for Adelman.
“Your best players have to demand winning daily,” he said. “They can’t go into a shell and only worry about how they’re doing throughout the season.
Murray took the lead in bringing guys together — not just for runs, but for meals, for conversation, for connection. He set a personal bar, too: “I’m just focused on having a great November,” he said when asked the annual question about his All-Star Game ambitions.
Jokic might’ve said it best: “A lot of my friends left, so I need to find new friends,” he deadpanned, before nominating Valanciunas as a potential new pal.
It all circles back to that idiom. Yes, this was an offseason of change. The Nuggets have new voices in the front office, a new head coach, new assistants, new wings, a new big. They also kept most of the core intact, from Jokic and Murray to Gordon and Braun, and doubled down on the identity that led to a ring: detail on defense, flow on offense, accountability in the room.
“Everything we need is inside our locker room right now,” Braun said.
This roster makes more sense on paper — and looks far more locked in from the jump than the past two seasons. It’s far from out with the old. It’s old plus new, and it’s these reformed Nuggets that are talking June championships in September.
Denver Nuggets New Era, Same Dominance? @shapalicious breaks down what was learned at Nuggets Media Day pic.twitter.com/VSPhSeTnLA
— Denver Sports 104.3 (@DenSports1043) September 29, 2025
