There’s a pretty clear shape to the Denver Nuggets nine games into the season: they can look sharp enough to hang with anybody, and they can also drift into stretches that make them look ordinary.
That’s the tension with this team right now. On some nights, Denver moves like a contender - the offense hums, the defense shows real intent, and the whole group looks dangerous.
On others, the possessions get sloppy, the rebounding slips, and the Nuggets make life too easy for the opponent. The result is a team that feels stuck somewhere in the middle.
The record says as much. Denver is 5-4, and the split against different levels of competition is stark.
The Nuggets are 5-0 against teams with a worse record and 0-4 against teams with a better record. It’s a tiny sample, sure, and the standings will keep shifting, but for now it points to a team that has mostly played like average-to-good rather than truly elite.
Jamal Murray has been excellent for most of the season. Nikola Jokic, meanwhile, has every right to start a little slower than expected and is still putting up incredible numbers while giving Denver better-than-expected defense. Even so, the burden of sorting out the rest of the rotation has been a nightly puzzle.
Christian Braun has had some useful moments, but his three-point shooting has dropped back under 35%, and he hasn’t added much else to the offense. Cam Johnson is hitting 40% from deep, but on low volume, and he’s averaging just 10.0 points per game even though he’s supposed to be an important spacer for Denver.
Aaron Gordon’s start has been even more concerning for Nuggets fans. He’s averaging 11.2 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting 39.5% from the field and 27.8% from three. Beyond the numbers, his impact has not shown up consistently yet, which stands out because that presence was such a steady part of last season’s injury-riddled campaign.
The bench has been even harder to pin down. One night it can help, the next it disappears. In Denver’s loss to the Houston Rockets last night, the entire group combined for 22 points on 20 shots and didn’t make a single three-pointer.
DeMar DeRozan was expected to be the sixth man off the Nuggets’ bench, but that hasn’t clicked yet either. Denver is posting a -4.5 plus-minus in DeRozan’s minutes, and he still hasn’t found his place in the team’s overall ecosystem.
The broader numbers line up with the eye test. Through nine games, Denver has a 5-4 record and a 17th-ranked Net Rating at +0.1 points per 100 possessions. That’s the profile of a team that has been mostly average so far.
That doesn’t mean the Nuggets are capped there. They still could end up around 50 wins, and as the season goes on, they’ll probably improve as other teams slide. But the bigger question is whether there’s another level beyond that.
For years, Denver has carried championship expectations because it has the best player in the world on its roster. Even if Nikola Jokic ends up being only the fifth best player in the world when it’s all said and done, the standard around this team is still supposed to be much higher than merely solid.
Murray has done his part to keep things steady, and Jokic should be around his usual level the rest of the way after the slow start. But the Nuggets need more than that. The whole point of paying top dollar for the starting five was to have a top dollar starting five.
So far, the Jokic, Murray, Gordon, Johnson, and Braun group has logged 95 minutes and is plus-27 in raw plus-minus, which ranks 10th in the NBA. A similar lineup with Trevon Brazile replacing Johnson at small forward has been even better, ranking fifth in the league at plus-31 in 40 minutes, with strong production against the New Orleans Pelicans.
Outside of those two combinations, the picture gets rough fast. Remove them, and Denver is minus-51 in raw plus-minus in every other lineup this season. That’s a big warning sign, especially this early, because the Nuggets can only lean so hard on their starters nine games into the year.
Head coach David Adelman has tried to search for answers. He’s staggered starters, mixed and matched different groups, and moved away from lineups that don’t work right away. That kind of experimentation may be part of the issue, but the bigger reality is that Denver is still looking for stability and can’t afford to wait forever for pieces to settle in.
Right now, the Nuggets don’t have a reliable top-end answer against the strongest teams on their schedule. When those opponents are playing well, Denver has not yet shown it can both disrupt them and avoid getting disrupted itself.
It’s still early, and the Nuggets should sort out a lot of this. What the finished product looks like, though, will depend on the veteran core finding its footing and on enough consistent contributors emerging to ease the load on Murray and Jokic every night.
In Other News...
Nuggets Just Exposed An Early Road Problem Fans Will Notice
The Nuggets left Houston with a loss that felt more revealing than alarming, even with their full starting lineup on the floor. Nikola Jokic did his usual all-around work and Jamal Murray carried the scoring load, but Denver could not turn that into enough against the Rockets in a 110-100 defeat.
What stood out was how thin the margin for error looked away from home. Denver had trouble on the glass and did not get enough help beyond its two stars, a combination that can make even a talented roster look vulnerable early in the road schedule. It is the kind of issue that tends to show up quickly and linger if it is not cleaned up. [Read more 🡒]
DeMar DeRozan's Fit Next To Jokic Is Becoming A Real Concern
The Nuggets 110-100 loss to the Rockets was another reminder of how heavily they are leaning on Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray to carry the offense. Those two combined for 63 of Denvers 100 points, while the rest of the rotation never found a steady rhythm. DeMar DeRozan was part of that quiet group, and his night fit the larger problem of Denver not getting enough from the supporting cast when the stars are forced to do so much.
DeRozans presence was supposed to give the Nuggets another reliable half-court option, but the fit has been harder to pin down as the offense has bogged down in lineups with him and Jokic together. The numbers have pointed in an uncomfortable direction, with Denver performing worse when DeRozan is on the floor, especially in those shared minutes with Jokic. For a team trying to maximize a title window, that is the kind of trend that cant be brushed aside for long. [Read more 🡒]
Jokic Rumors Are Becoming A Bigger Nuggets Problem Than Fans Wanted
Nikola Jokics long-term future in Denver has become a real talking point around the league, and it is arriving at an awkward moment for the Nuggets. Insiders such as Tim Kawakami and Jake Fischer have both raised the possibility that Jokic may not be eager to lock in a long-term extension, which is the kind of noise a team would rather not hear when it is trying to settle into the season and find its footing after a slow start.
The concern for Denver is not just the rumor itself, but how quickly it can turn into a bigger organizational issue if the uncertainty lingers. Jokic remains the franchise centerpiece, and any hint that his timeline could be less secure naturally draws attention from other teams, including Golden State, while putting even more pressure on the Nuggets to steady things on the court and keep the conversation from drifting beyond basketball. [Read more 🡒]