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A FUN POLL question for executives and coaches in this late July calm, with free agency about done and two major potential trade-slash-contract situations -- Lauri Markkanen and Brandon Ingram -- as yet unresolved: If you had to pick one West team to make the Finals, who would it be? Maybe three-quarters of respondents open their mouths right away as if to deliver a confident response -- only to clam up and furrow their brows. For these folks, there is no team that inspires the same confidence as the defending champion Denver Nuggets did one year ago -- even after losing Bruce Brown in free agency. The 25% who answer with immediate certainty mostly choose the Oklahoma City Thunder -- incumbent No. 1 seed and winners of the offseason after trading for Alex Caruso and signing Isaiah Hartenstein. For the other 75%, youth was the only worry about Oklahoma City. Some ended up there anyway. All of them went through a similar internal monologue. Why isn't it the Minnesota Timberwolves? Anthony Edwards is an ascendant superstar who averaged 27.6 points on 48% shooting over 16 rugged playoff games. They got over the first-round hump. Kyle Anderson was their only major loss. Can I trust Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert? Wasn't Towns kind of up-and-down in the postseason? Why not a repeat run for the Dallas Mavericks? No one has a great rebuttal -- only that Dallas making the Finals was a surprise, and so a sequel seems somehow unlikely too. Next comes the flailing. The LA Clippers are dead. The Golden State Warriors couldn't even make the playoffs. Maybe if they get Markkanen we can talk. The Phoenix Suns were a mess. The New Orleans Pelicans? Sacramento Kings? Dare I mention that the Los Angeles Lakers still have multiple first-round picks to trade? What about the Memphis Grizzlies! They're back! Do we trust Ja Morant? For some, the conversation then circles all the way back one calendar year: Why isn't it Denver again? As long as the world's best player is healthy, be wary of discounting the Nuggets. They have been labeled offseason losers after Kentavious Caldwell-Pope bolted for a three-year, $66 million deal with the Orlando Magic. Denver made Caldwell-Pope an offer, but there was a sizable gap in annual salary, sources said. Denver could have tried compensating with a longer deal averaging a little north of Caldwell-Pope's $15 million player option number -- say a 5-year, $90 million contract -- but the Magic's offer might have rendered the conversation moot. In consecutive offseasons, the Nuggets lost three of their eight playoff rotation players from that 2022-23 title run in Brown, Jeff Green, and Caldwell-Pope. Young players drafted specifically because of their readiness for immediate minutes have been scattershot, injured, or out of the rotation. Those players face enormous pressure -- as does the front office that drafted them, headed by general manager Calvin Booth. Nikola Jokic is 29. The time to win big is now.
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