MINNEAPOLIS — In a surprisingly disappointing first-round playoff exit, denver nuggets star Nikola Jokic Made it clear that his long-term view of a single-franchise NBA career remains unchanged.
“I still want to be a Nugget forever,” Jokic said.
The 31-year-old Jokic has two years and $121.9 million remaining on his contract, but the second season is a player option, meaning Jokic is only under team control until next season, which typically creates a level of unease around NBA megastars.
But Jokic will be eligible for an extension this summer for up to four years and about $293 million, giving the franchise and its mid-prime cornerstone a chance to pledge a long-term commitment to each other. Jokic was asked about his plans to sign and reiterated, “I still want to be a Nugget forever.”
But that doesn’t mean Jokic enters the offseason in a good mood. His Nuggets won 54 games in the regular season, entered the playoffs considered realistic title contenders, and instead lost 4–2 in the first round. minnesota timberwolves The team that did not have a star Anthony Edwards For the last two matches of the series.
“We lost in the first round,” Jokic said. “I think we’re too far away [from title contention]”
Jokic led the Nuggets to a title in 2023 and he knows what it takes to remain at the championship level. Do they believe change is needed?
“Honestly, it’s not my decision to make,” Jok said. “Of course, if we were in Serbia, we would all be expelled.”
This was arguably the worst playoff series of Jokic’s career. He had 28 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds in Thursday night’s 110-98 Game 6 elimination, but even some inflated stats late in the series couldn’t completely hide the unseasonal start to the set, which buried the Nuggets in a 3-1 hole.
Jokic shot just 39% through the first four games, an astonishing conversion rate for a future Hall of Famer who has a career 56% field goal rate, once shot 63% for an entire season and, before the Minnesota matchup, had never made below 47% of his shots in a playoff series.
When Jocic was asked how much blame he shoulders, he said, “A lot.” “I needed to play better. I needed to play better. I think I was getting into a rhythm by the third game, but I needed to play better.”
Jokic got little help from his co-star. starting point guard jamal mare Had the best statistical regular season as a professional, averaging a career-best 25.4 points. He made his first All-Star team and is expected to be named to the All-NBA team for the first time.
But Murray had to run in the fight jaden mcdaniels In the first round, and Minnesota’s breakout two-way star blocked Murray while the Timberwolves were under center Rudy Gobert The paint is off.
Murray made only 46 of his 139 shots (33%) in the series and missed 13 of his 17 shots in Game 6, struggling to create separation against McDaniels, who made headlines after Minnesota’s Game 2 win when he personally called Jokic, Murray and several other Nuggets “bad defenders”.
“If you’ve seen the interviews, you know they were all excited to play with us,” Murray said. “They came up to play with us. They enjoyed playing with us. We’ve got to match that. We’ve got to feel the same way about them.”
Jokic and Murray said they still believe their two-man game can be the heart of an elite-level offense despite the first-round struggles. Denver had an NBA-best 121.2 offensive rating in the regular season.
Assuming Jokic and Murray remain, the spotlight will turn to other aspects of the franchise and the roster, starting with David Edelman, who just finished his first full season as head coach after replacing fired Mike Malone just before the 2025 playoffs.
“It’s not his fault we couldn’t come back,” Jokic said of Edelman. “It’s not his fault we didn’t catch the ball well. David Edelman has nothing to blame. It’s all of us.”
Last May, the Nuggets were ousted by the eventual champion oklahoma city thunderIn seven games, sending them into the summer on a slightly more optimistic note.
This April, they lost to a short-handed Timberwolves team that did not feature Edwards. donte divincenzo Or Ayo Dosunmu By the time the series ended.
But Denver had its share of injury excuses. rising wing peyton watson He missed the entire series with a hamstring strain on 1 April. He will be a restricted free agent in July.
starting wing Aaron Gordon Suffering a calf injury in Game 2, missing Games 3, 5, and 6, and missing a portion of the series, toiling for 23 minutes in Game 4, he didn’t look at all like his usual self.
This is the second consecutive playoff season that Gordon has been affected by a soft tissue injury. He suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain at the end of the Thunder series last season and was limited to only 36 games this campaign due to recurring hamstring injuries.
Gordon, a highly impact player for the Nuggets when healthy, has three years and $103.6 million remaining on his current contract.
“They made a lot of guys miss tonight and still won,” Jokic said. “Did we need them? Sure. But if they’re not here, we can’t think about what, what, if.”
The Nuggets didn’t consistently get a ton of supplemental help below Jokic, Murray and Gordon in the roster pecking order.
cam johnsonPrized offseason addition in a trade Michael Porter Jr.., excelled in Game 6, finishing with 27 points in 39 minutes, but was quiet in the other two road losses in the series, finishing with six and nine points, respectively. Christian Braunwhose five-year, $125 million extension begins next season, had just 50 points in six games.
“I know it just ended, but I feel like I can’t really give you a complete answer [on the bigger picture] Because it was an incomplete season,” Edelman said, referring to the injuries. “It felt like that the whole time. It felt like being alive.”
