There’s a degree of comfort that comes with being the champion. The rest of the league has to scramble to catch up to the Denver Nuggets. They’re going to spend the next few days and weeks frantically scraping for every last shred of talent they can find in a probably feeble attempt to reach the level where the Nuggets are already safely perched. They are going to enter next season as the championship favorite. It’s only a matter of how close the field gets.
That gap will probably be relatively wide. All five Nuggets starters from last season are under contract, and if Kentavious Caldwell-Pope picks up his player-option, they will be for the 2024-25 season as well. Key reserve Christian Braun is locked up as well, and the Nuggets are, thus far, the rare champion not to see any defections from their coaching staff. The bulk of the 2023 championship roster will remain in Denver for the foreseeable future.
But there is one key part whose future is still up in the air, and as comfortable as the Nuggets are right now, they are still going to try to add a bit to their roster if possible. So what are the stories to watch this Nuggets offseason? Here are the three biggest questions they’ll have to answer in the coming weeks.
1. What can you do for Brown?
You couldn’t design a better Nuggets role player in a lab than Bruce Brown. A stout defender who can punch above his weight class, Brown has improved significantly as a shooter, came into the league as a strong cutter and is the rare guard that can operate comfortably on either end of the pick-and-roll. Brown was put on this Earth to play with Nikola Jokic. How the Nuggets stole him for the taxpayer mid-level exception a year ago is one of last season’s great mysteries.
Of course, nothing lasts forever. Brown is set to become a non-Bird unrestricted free agent this offseason, meaning Denver can only offer him a 20% raise on his salary from last season in order to keep him. That would take him to around $7.8 million — more than Brown has ever made in a season, but far lower than what the…
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