{"id":279212,"date":"2025-09-12T00:55:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/279212\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T00:55:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:55:27","slug":"are-the-denver-nuggets-wasting-nikola-jokics-prime-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/279212\/","title":{"rendered":"Are the Denver Nuggets ‘wasting’ Nikola Jokic’s prime?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are the Denver Nuggets ‘wasting’ Nikola Jokic’s prime?<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a><\/p>\n

Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic is a bonafide Basketball Hall of Famer, arguably one of the greatest all-time at the five spot on the hardwood and leading the Nuggets to the Promised Land in 2023, clinching their first NBA championship.<\/p>\n

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But in the seasons that have followed, the Nuggets just haven’t been the same, struggling to find themselves atop the league since, while the Serbian center is still enjoying his prime years of play.<\/p>\n

And one NBA legend is not going to sit back and watch one of the game’s best wither away in the Mile High City.<\/p>\n

Charles Barkley Criticized Denver for Wasting Jokic’s Prime<\/p>\n

During his appearance<\/a> on The Bill Simmons Podcast, Phoenix Suns great Charles Barkley, “The Round Mound of Rebound” himself, made his feelings abundantly clear on how he felt about the Nuggets and the moves they made after hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy two years ago.<\/p>\n

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“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,” Barkley said. “The problem they got now is they’re not better than Oklahoma City. And I’m sure they’re not better than the Rockets. 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.”<\/p>\n

Barkley may have a point, as the championship winning teams will always try to make the next year’s team even better than the year before in hopes of a repeat.<\/p>\n

However, nobody has repeated as champions since the Golden State Warriors in the 2017 and 2018 seasons, and if changes aren’t made soon, “The Joker” could be putting his name on the list of big names looking for a trade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are the Denver Nuggets ‘wasting’ Nikola Jokic’s prime? originally appeared on The Sporting News Denver Nuggets center Nikola…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[7,2001,301,187,3943,164,6,253,302,475,472,211,6587,44737],"class_list":{"0":"post-279212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-charles-barkley","10":"tag-denver","11":"tag-denver-nuggets","12":"tag-denvernuggets","13":"tag-golden-state-warriors","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nikola-jokic","16":"tag-nuggets","17":"tag-oklahoma-city","18":"tag-phoenix-suns","19":"tag-rockets","20":"tag-the-bill-simmons-podcast","21":"tag-wasting-jokic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115188604850363497","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}