Jokic says Nugget are prepared to defend their Championship trophy

Nikola Jokic couldn’t take his attention off the NBA championship trophy resting next to his arm.

The Denver Nuggets big man sat and stared at the names of teams inscribed on the dazzling gold trophy, when something suddenly struck him.

“They didn’t put our name on here,” he stated on Monday during the media parley.

Actually, it was on the very front, where Jokic couldn’t quite see.

What the two-time NBA MVP and the Nuggets can see fairly plainly is a road toward repeating, despite losing veteran leader/sixth-man Bruce Brown via free agency.

“No one cares what you did last season,” said Nuggets coach Michael Malone, whose club upset Miami in five games to win the NBA championship. “We had success in that moment. But that moment is gone, we have a fresh chance and task in front of us.”

The Nuggets surely enjoyed the summer after capturing the franchise’s first NBA title. There were parades and festivities before dispersing for the winter.

Meanwhile, the squad has entrusted Jokic to saddled the affairs of the club by getting multiple figures come next season.  During the playoffs, he averaged 30 points, 13.5 rebounds and 9.5 assists on his route to becoming the Finals MVP. It more than made up for the fact he missed out against Philly’s Joel Embiid in his effort to earn a third consecutive NBA MVP.

Just before camps started, the NBA saw the landscape radically shift with some huge stars being moved. Damian Lillard is currently with Milwaukee while Jrue Holiday ended up with Boston. Holiday’s elder brother, Justin, plays for the Nuggets and claimed their dad sent a message on the family’s text chain.

“Something like, ‘I’m excited for you. Congrats. You guys are going to win a championship,’” Justin Holiday recounted with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘Hold on.’ I mean, I’m delighted for him, but …”

The Nuggets have a vacuum to fill with the departure of Brown, who signed a two-year, $45-million contract with the Indiana Pacers. Christian Braun will expect a rise in minutes following his steady performance last season as a rookie. So, too, will veteran guard Reggie Jackson. The squad also lost the leadership of Jeff Green and Ish Smith.

“I think right now a lot of teams view the league, quite frankly, as wide open,” general manager Calvin Booth said. “We’re going to be hunted — can we still have a hunter’s mindset?”

Murray obviously believes so. So did Michael Porter Jr., who pointed out that Denver won despite with Murray (knee) and Porter (back) very much rehabilitating throughout last season.

“To have this summer to make some steps has been amazing,” Porter added.

Murray elevated his game in the playoffs, scoring 26.1 points and 7.1 assists.

Next step, take it through a complete season and achieve honors like as All-Star, which Malone absolutely thinks Murray can.

It would be wonderful and all, but earning All-Star status is low on his priorities list.

“I’d rather be a champion,” Murray remarked. “A lot of guys are All-Stars, but not champions.”

Josh Kroenke, the president/governor of the Nuggets, has lately witnessed how tough it is to win back-to-back championships. One of his other clubs, the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, won the Stanley Cup in 2022 but was ousted in the first-round last season.

His advice?

“Not to allow complacency to set in,” Kroenke warned. “When you achieve the ultimate goal, your natural reaction is to … relax a little bit. We don’t have the exact same rosters we had last year. We have the same starting five, which we believe is the best in the NBA.”

Kroenke said the organization is examining all ways to rectify the situation that many Nuggets and Avalanche supporters can’t see their teams on local television.

In 2019, the region’s major cable provider, Comcast, quit broadcasting Altitude owing to a dispute over costs the cable giant was charging to carry the network. The resulting legal dispute has kept the Nuggets off the local airways in millions of households for the past four seasons.

“I can assure you that we’re doing all we can,” Kroenke added. “We want the best for the fans to see their teams.”