When we first opened the Elevator Doors about a month ago, I started with almost 1,000 gleefully delirious words about the experience of watching Nikola Jokic play basketball.
The best player in the sport has somehow elevated his game to another unprecedented, unforeseen level. He is currently either first or second in every major counting statistic and he has the opportunity to win basketball’s Triple Crown, leading the NBA in points, rebounds, and assists. He is so good at basketball that it borders on the surreal.
What has changed in the month since posting that column? Well, the team around him is crumbling into ash, for starters.
The Denver Nuggets came into Saturday night’s game against the Washington Wizards hovering just over the .500 mark and reeling from a disappointing 126-114 loss at Cleveland. The Cavaliers are one of the best teams in the league and there is no shame in losing to them on their home court, but every Nugget aside from Jokic, Gordon, Russell Westbrook (credit where it’s due – a welcome bright spot during this stretch) and the biweekly decent shooting game from Michael Porter played like their feet were stuck in wet cement.
The problem with the 2024-2025 Nuggets has been how the vast majority of the roster surrounding Jokic treats their game-to-game effort like an ocean tide. Sometimes, it’s high tide (the Dec. 3 win over Golden State, the 25-point thumping of the Los Angeles Lakers, the five-game winning streak in early November). Other times, it’s low tide (the Nov. 25 disaster against the Knicks, the sleepy Nov. 15 game in New Orleans). Michael Malone seems to have no idea who is going to show up from game to game around Jokic, and neither do we.
After that lackluster outing in Cleveland, Denver needed a make-right game in Washington. The Wizards didn’t win a single game in November and were working on a winless December heading into that game against the Nuggets. Outside of some exciting young players still figuring things out, this team barely resembles an NBA roster. Dead last in offensive rating. Dead last in defensive rating. Dead last in wins. Dead last in general basketball activities. This team’s priority is to put themselves into a position to draft Cooper Flagg – failing that, Ace Bailey or Dylan Harper.
The Denver Nuggets couldn’t lose this game, could they?
Let’s hit pause for a second: The NBA is an incredible league. Everyone who plays serious minutes for an NBA team is a capable, talented, phenomenal basketball player. Any NBA team can, in theory, beat any other NBA team on any given night – especially in this high-variance 3-point era. A “bad” team beating a “good” one happens all the time. It’s circumstances that separate “surprising losses” from “gut-check disasters.”
The circumstances surrounding Denver’s trip to DC? The vibes sucked (how’s that for high-level basketball analysis).
It’s not just that the Nuggets can’t quite string together several consecutive high-effort games. It’s not just that this team is now on the play-in bubble in the extremely competitive Western Conference. It’s that the rest of the team doesn’t seem to care that they’re wasting one of the best seasons from one of the best players in the history of basketball.
We’ve seen the viral clip a million times by now: Jamal Murray spotting up on the wing, watching the ball bounce away from him and ignoring Aaron Gordon frantically calling for a team huddle. We’ve also seen the non-viral clips of Murray struggling to get separation and Jamal Murray struggling to stay in front of other top-end guards. We’ve seen Porter – allegedly a high-level 3-point assassin – miss one of every three free throws he (rarely) takes. We’ve seen Christian Braun, Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, Hunter Tyson – basically every young player drafted in this Calvin Booth era – get blown up at point-of-attack defense against anyone good. We’ve seen Zeke Nnaji’s 4-year, $32 million contract take up plenty of bench space. We’ve seen Dario Saric’s 2-year, $10.5 million contract in the seat right next to Nnaji. We’ve seen the tweets saying that the Nuggets will need to attach a first-round pick to offload Nnaji and another first-rounder to offload Saric in any trade.
We’ve seen enough.
Denver’s 122-113 loss in DC wasn’t just another loss. This was a forensic examination of everything that has gone wrong with this team since Booth took over for Tim Connelly. Jokic played the sport as well as it can possibly be played, but it wasn’t enough to beat the worst team in the league. It defies logic. Jokic scored 56. Every other Nugget scored 57. Jokic pulled down 16 rebounds. Every Nugget not named Westbrook (again, surprising bright spot!) pulled down 20. Jokic went 3-5 from 3-point range (No. 2 in 3pt% this season, in case you’re scoring at home). Every other Nugget went 2-19 – both from Strawther.
No Gordon, no Murray, sure – but since when does that matter when playing a team on a 16-game losing streak? Gordon’s injury-riddled 2024 has been a major factor in the fluctuating effort. He is this team’s second-most important player, most important defensive player, and best IQ/chemistry guy alongside Jokic. Gordon is a load-bearing beam in this roster. Without him, everything crumbles.
Murray…hmm. How do we discuss what is going on here? Let’s first acknowledge this team would not have a title without him. The Jokic-Murray two-man game was the NBA’s most enthralling, hypnotic, unstoppable offensive tap dance. All credit due. But the man simply has not been the same basketball player since landing the $208 million extension. A small market team that has the unfortunate habit of blowing draft picks and fringe free agent signings can’t also blow it on the $200M+ contracts. Unless Murray’s game/attitude/all-around vibe gets back to 2022 levels, this team is sunk – simple as that.
It’s not fair to Jokic. They must know that. They see what we see, only with a far better vantage point and all the behind-the-scenes work that makes Jokic’s game sing. Only Westbrook and Gordon seem to realize that.
Jokic is not screwing around this season. It would have been so easy for him to look around at this team and decide to pack it in, head back to Serbia, tend to his horses, enjoy his life. Instead, he hung 48/14/8 on the dangerous Atlanta Hawks (one of the only teams with wins over both Boston and Cleveland this season) on Sunday.
That’s a two-game stretch of 102/30/16 and the Nuggets went 1-1 with a disastrous loss to the worst team in the league and a blowout win over a potential playoff team. What’s going on here?
The rest of this roster is still not befitting a player of this historic magnitude. Something needs to happen – something big. Jokic is too important for this to continue.
And 1’s:
• Speaking of all-time greats hovering around .500, Giannis Antetokounmpo is having the best season of his career, too – which, by extension, is one of the best seasons in NBA history. He leads the league in scoring at 32.5 points per game (right ahead of Jokic), with 11.6 rebounds and 6.4 assists. He is the same court-swarming demon he’s always been, but just 5% better at every facet of the game. The Bucks around him still look a bit old/slow, but perhaps that has a bit more to do with Giannis’ intensity than anything else. Since a disappointing one-point loss in Charlotte on Nov. 16, Giannis and the Bucks have reeled off eight wins in their last 10 games – albeit against a softer stretch of the schedule. While the Bucks have righted the ship from that horrendous 2-8 start, the rest of the squad needs to rise to Giannis’ effort level if they hope to advance more than one round in the playoffs. Perhaps Giannis and Jokic should host their own support group.
• Time to panic in Lawrence? The Kansas Jayhawks came into the season as one of the favorites to cut down the nets in San Antonio in April, but after back-to-back losses against Creighton and Missouri, things look a bit shaky. All-American Hunter Dickson was straight-up outplayed by Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner and the Jayhawks’ point-of-attack defense had no shot against Missouri’s Tamar Bates. Let’s see how these Jayhawks react to seeing two different crowds storm the floor against them in the span of less than a week.
