Two seasons removed from winning the NBA Finals, the Denver Nuggets are still one of the elite teams in the NBA, and Nikola Jokic has earned MVP honors in three of the past five seasons. Surely, there’s no scenario where the Nuggets would trade Jokic … right?
Right?
Their team president may say otherwise:
“I think that for us, as an organization, going into that second apron is not necessarily something that we’re scared of. I think that there are rules around it that we need to be very careful of with our injury history. The wrong person gets injured, and very quickly you’re into a scenario that I never want to have to contemplate, and that’s trading No. 15 [Jokic],” Nuggets president Josh Kroenke said on Tuesday. “We’re very conscious of that, pushing forward and providing the resources that we can when the moment arrives.
“That second apron, is it a hard cap? I’m not 100% sure, but it’s something that teams are obviously very aware of going forward.”
Implemented in the 2023-24 season, the NBA has luxury tax aprons in place with severe penalties for teams who exceed them, specifically the second apron. Should a team’s payroll surpass the second apron, they’re barred from executing a sign-and-trade, using a mid-level exception or taxpayer mid-level exception to sign players and can’t use trade exceptions, among other negatives.
The 30-year-old Jokic has three seasons remaining on a five-year, $276.1 million contract, which includes a $62.8 million player option for the 2027-28 NBA season. As far as other burdensome contracts for Denver, Jamal Murray, is entering the first season of a four-year, $207.8 million deal; Michael Porter Jr. has two seasons remaining on a five-year, $179.3 million deal; Aaron Gordon is entering the first season of a four-year, $133 million deal.
The Nuggets are over the cap this offseason and don’t have a selection in the 2025 NBA Draft.
Last season, Jokic averaged a career-high 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds, a career-high 10.2 assists and 1.8 steals per game, while shooting 57.6/41.7/80.0 and was the runner-up for the 2024-25 NBA MVP Award, which eventual NBA Finals MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander claimed. Jokic, a seven-time All-NBA honoree, has spent his entire 10-year career with the Nuggets.
Denver is coming off a 50-32 season that saw it finish fourth in the Western Conference. It then defeated the L.A. Clippers in seven games in the first round of the playoffs before losing to the eventual-NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder in seven games in the Western Conference semifinal round.
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