Denver Nuggets team president and governor Josh Kroenke met with the media on Thursday for his end of the season press conference.
Kroenke made big headlines by announcing David Adelman as the next full-time head coach of the team, as well as lament missed chances against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Round 2 of the NBA playoffs.
And while those are worthy storylines, what Kroenke said about superstar Nikola Jokic might be the most interesting.
The Nuggets won a championship with Jokic in 2023, but have lost in the second-round each of the last two seasons.
Considering he’s almost unanimously accepted as the best basketball player on Earth, fans are starved for more titles while Jokic is in his prime.
Kroenke was asked about that pressure, when only one team can hoist the trophy at the end of the season.
“Whether it’s fair or not, it doesn’t matter to me. Because if that guy is on your roster you have a chance to win it and you should be going for it,” Josh Kroenke said.
To be fair, Denver was just one of five teams left with a shot to win the championship when they woke up on Sunday morning. A Game 7 blowout by the Thunder ended their season. However, Kroenke has felt this bunch could hang multiple banners for quite awhile.
“We’ve been saying that for a long time, even before he won his first MVP. But I think now it’s unavoidable how good he is,” Kroenke said.
Jokic was snubbed of the NBA MVP on Wednesday, but does have three of them in the last five years. The top boss of the Nuggets in Josh Kroenke isn’t shying away from the pressure that puts on him and the organization.
I feel more weight than anybody. Because one, I want to do right by Nikola Jokic, the Hall of Fame basketball player. But Nikola the person is (also) spectacular,” Kroenke said. “On a personal level, as a group, there’s no one that we want to do right by more than that guy.”
And doing him right this offseason would be tweaking the roster to add more depth, or perhaps even making a big trade that involves Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Jr. leaving town.
We’ll see what Josh Kroenke, and a new GM, ultimately decide to do. But he knows that with Jokic on the team the Nuggets need to have a least one more parade.
