Nuggets Notes: Jokic, Kroenke, Newcomers, Akinjo

Nuggets vice chairman and president Josh Kroenke was sitting courtside on Wednesday for Serbia’s first game of EuroBasket 2025 against Estonia, per Edvinas Jablonskis of BasketNews.com. Kroenke is the latest Nuggets executive to visit Nikola Jokic in Riga, Latvia this week, joining vice president of basketball operations Ben Tenzer and executive VP of player personnel Jon Wallace (story via BasketNews.com).

The three-time MVP treated the Nuggets’ contingent to a show, leading the way as Serbia rolled to a 98-64 blowout victory over the Estonians.

Jokic scored just 11 points, but was a +39 in 23 minutes of action and also contributed 10 rebounds and seven assists. He and the Serbians will be back in action on Friday when they face Portugal in the second matchup of the group-play stage of EuroBasket.

Here’s more on the Nuggets:

• John Schuhmann of NBA.com expects Cameron Johnson and Bruce Brown to be defensive upgrades on Michael Porter Jr. and Russell Westbrook for the Nuggets and takes a closer look at some film to explore what sort of impact the newcomers could have. As Schuhmann notes, Denver ranked just 21st in defensive rating last season after placing eighth in 2023/24.
• The Nuggets’ G League affiliate, the Grand Rapids Gold, completed a trade with the Wisconsin Herd, acquiring James Akinjo‘s returning rights in exchange for the rights to Will Richardson and a 2026 first-round pick (Twitter link). The deal suggests that Akinjo, a former Baylor point guard who has played in the G League since going undrafted in 2022, is a good candidate to sign an Exhibit 10 contract with Denver at some point before the season begins.
• In case you missed it, we published our list of 2026 free agents by team on Tuesday. The Nuggets have nine players – six on the standard roster and three two-ways – who could reach free agency next summer.