This is not meant to be an anti nuggets post. More about how ridiculous Jokic is. If Jokic was out for the year due to injury how many wins would the Nuggets get? I feel like Jokic is worth like an additional 20 wins.
Let’s take the other 3 teams of Vegas top 4 title contenders
Boston: Take out Tatum and they are for sure making the playoffs
Milwaukee: Now that they have Dame I think they would for sure make the playoffs if Giannis was out for the year.
Phoenix: Whether it’s KD or Booker, if only one of them is out they should definitely still make the playoffs.
Good thing for Denver is Jokic is built like a horse
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They would be one of the worst teams in the league
Which speaks to just how otherworldly Nikola Jokic is
Without a replacement level player replacing him? 0 chance. They’ve got nice complimentary pieces but murray getting a year by himself with the rest of the core tops out as like a 10 or 11 seed. They’d have to also entirely reconstruct their offensive scheme
Not in the west this year. Maybe a few years ago.
No chance whatsoever
If you just delete jokic than no, but to be realistic, you’d have to consider his salary now being available and if you put a starting caliber center in replacement for jokic as well as all of that salary being used for said center or more pieces then they are making the playoffs but probably 1-2 round exit
I don’t think they would be. If the Nuggets is a spider, Jokic is the body the holds the legs together.
I think they would be a 35-40 win team. Probably not enough to make the play in
Probably not but I wouldn’t judge that based on their +/- with and without Jokic, who because of his greatness has an outsized impact on those numbers than your average player. They’d also learn to adjust and develop plays/etc. as a non-Jokic team and get the most out of what they do have.
Just not enough top end offensive talent without Jokic to be a playoff team in the West, IMO. Gordon would have to take a scorer role and he wasn’t amazing in Orlando in that role. KCP and MPJ likely become less efficient. I do think Jamal would continue to be very good.
If Jamal activates his playoff mode for 70+ games, yes