Three-time MVP Nikola Jokic has no desire to leave the Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n
Jokic affirmed his commitment to the franchise at Denver\u2019s season-opening media day. The Serbian star center was asked if he\u2019d sign a max extension next offseason that could pay him close to $300 million over four years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think about that. I think those contracts, extensions come as a reward, as something that is natural to the sport, especially in today\u2019s NBA with where you see the salary cap is going,\u201d Jokic, 30, said Monday as he ruled out a seismic future move.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy plan is to be with the Nuggets forever, so that\u2019s my answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Denver drafted Jokic with the 41st overall pick in 2014. He\u2019s averaged more than 24 points and 10 rebounds for five consecutive seasons and was named Finals MVP when the Nuggets clinched the 2023 championship, a franchise first.<\/p>\n
The Nuggets are coming off a third straight 50-win campaign but were routed in Game 7 of the second round by the eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder. They retooled Jokic\u2019s supporting cast in the summer by trading Michael Porter Jr. \u2014 a cornerstone of the 2023 title team \u2014 to the Brooklyn Nets and parting with aging guard Russell Westbrook, who remains unsigned.<\/p>\n
Depth pieces DeAndre Jordan, Vlatko Cancar and Dario Saric no longer surround Jokic in the frontcourt.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a bunch of my friends that left \u2014 DJ, Russ, Vlatko, Dario \u2014 so I need to find some new friends,\u201d Jokic joked Monday.<\/p>\n
Denver\u2019s biggest addition, sweet-shooting power forward Cam Johnson, was the Nets\u2019 second-leading scorer with 18.8 points per game in 2024-25. A familiar face, versatile forward Bruce Brown, returned to the Nuggets after bouncing from Indiana to Toronto to New Orleans over the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll complement the returning core of Jokic, Jamal Murray, Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon, who helped Denver rank third in scoring last season while masking the squad\u2019s defensive deficiencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour best players have to demand what the vibe will be daily,\u201d said David Adelman, who enters his first full season as the Nuggets\u2019 head coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can\u2019t go into a shell and only worry about how they\u2019re doing \u2026 They have to maintenance the team as much as I do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three-time MVP Nikola Jokic has no desire to leave the Denver Nuggets. Jokic affirmed his commitment to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-179455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}