The Dallas Mavericks just added Kyrie Irving; the Brooklyn Nets may move Kevin Durant, and LeBron James surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the Association’s all time leading scorer. These headlines are signficant, but there’s a story and a team that’s not getting enough attention: the dominance of the 2022-23 Denver Nuggets.
It’s understandable why the NBA’s figurative spotlight doesn’t shine on the Nuggets as much as it does for other teams; historically, the franchise has not been relatively successful in the postseason— Denver ranks 21st among NBA franchises in playoff wins all-time (82). The Nuggets have never reached the NBA Finals. They never had an MVP, until June 26, 2014, when the franchise selected Nikola Jokić with the 41st overall pick. Denver as a basketball market is dwarfed on paper by Los Angeles, Golden State and Dallas, but in the Western Conference standings, it’s the big market teams who are looking like dwarves compared to the Nuggets.
The Nuggets extended their lead of the first seed in the West to 4.5 games, carried by their 10-1 start to the 2023 calendar year, a year that the Nuggets have high expectations for. As the Nuggets’ core of Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokić, led by head coach Michael Malone, wait to eclipse their playoff goals, they inch closer each game. “The Serbian sensation,” the back-to-back MVP Jokić is playing like he wants to win it a third straight year, as he’s averaging a triple double (24.8 PPG, 11.3 RPG, 10.1 APG) and Murray is finally playing explosively after a lengthy recovery from an ACL tear. But it isn’t just the iconic point guard-center duo that lifted the Nuggets to the top of the West, it’s the fringe All-Star year that acquisition Aaron Gordon put together, the offensive and defensive contributions of newcomers Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown, plus the emergence of young guys like Vlatko Čančar and Christian Braun as legitimate players. Pair this with untapped x-factor (and former Missouri Tiger) Michael Porter Jr. dropping 19 points in one quarter? Yikes. It’s difficult to find holes on this team. They have the best offensive rating in the NBAand the third best NET rating which factors in offense and defense.
The Nuggets scored 146 points against the Timberwolves. The game didn’t go to triple overtime. They scored 146 points in four quarters or 48 minutes of basketball…against an above .500 team. It’s difficult to lose any game if you score 146. The Nuggets have had good seasons, most recently in 2019-2020 when they went to the conference finals, but this year feels different. Playoff success for the Nuggets now, and lots of it, is an expectation, rather than a hope or a dream, and it’s an exciting feeling and time in the Mile High City.