Nuggets Rumors

Nuggets Face Important General Manager Decision

May 23rd, 2025 at 5:14pm CST by Eli Cohen

After firing Calvin Booth a week before the end of the 2024/25 season, the Nuggets are heading into an important offseason without a general manager. Whoever steps in to fill that role will be tasked with building out a roster around star Nikola Jokic, despite not currently owning a pick in the 2025 draft and facing a financial situation that could force changes to the starting lineup.

Based on vice chairman Josh Kroenke‘s track record, interim GM Ben Tenzer should be considered to hold pole position in the search, writes Bennett Durando of The Denver Post. Tenzer has served as the GM of the Grand Rapids Gold, Denver’s G League affiliate squad, for the past two years and has been with the organization since 2005.

Durando writes that current assistant GM Tommy Balcetis could also be a candidate if the team hires from within, though Kroenke has publicly stated there’s no guarantee that’s the direction he will take.

“I would be naive if I didn’t think about soliciting opinions outside these walls, whether that’s from some of my own basketball contacts, or hiring a firm that perhaps might be able to give me a list of some of the brightest upcoming minds in the league,” Kroenke said, per Durando.

Minnesota’s GM Matt Lloyd has been one name circulated in recent weeks, Durando reports. The Timberwolves have seen success while being aggressive on the trade market, including trading into the lottery last summer to select point guard Rob Dillingham. With the Nuggets experiencing a talent drain over the past few seasons, a willingness to take big swings could be viewed as a positive attribute by the team’s top decision-makers.

In addition to candidates currently employed by other teams, such as the Heat’s Andy Elisburg and Trent Redden of the Clippers, Durando notes that there are several high-profile names who might be available.

Bob Myers has been working as an ESPN analyst since leaving his position with the Warriors two years ago, and it’s worth wondering if he would be open to returning to basketball operations. It has been previously reported that league-wide belief is that it would take a “significant” offer and the perfect fit to lure him out of retirement.

David Griffin, Landry Fields, and Monte McNair were let go by the Pelicans, Hawks, and Kings, respectively, last month. Griffin struggled to put together a winning team against the backdrop of New Orleans’ constant stream of injuries, but showed himself to be a high-level drafter. Fields wasn’t able to get the Hawks out of the rut of roughly .500 ball they’ve been in for the past five seasons, but he did manage to put a coherent team vision around Trae Young, with a legion of lengthy, defensive-minded wings who can shoot threes and switch on defense.

Perhaps the most intriguing name floated by Durando is a familiar one to Denver: Tim Connelly. The former Nuggets president of basketball operations left Denver to build the back-to-back conference finalist Wolves, but he has an opt-out in his contract this summer. The expectation is that he will work out a deal with new ownership.

Even if Connelly is available, a reunion seems unlikely, Durando notes, given the Nuggets’ hesitancy to come close to Minnesota’s contract offer last time around. It would presumably take an even more lucrative bid this time to bring him back to Denver.

International Notes: Bogdanovic, EuroLeague, Asia, Sarr

May 23rd, 2025 at 3:32pm CST by Luke Adams

The No. 27 pick in the 2014 NBA draft, Bogdan Bogdanovic spent three more seasons playing in Europe before making the move stateside in 2017. The veteran swingman has been in the NBA since then, but told reporters at the EuroLeague Final Four this week that he could see himself playing overseas again before his career is over.

“I had that goal when I was leaving (for the NBA), but I’ll see how my health is later in my career,” Bogdanovic said, per Edvinas Jablonskis of BasketNews. “I want to come back, of course, but I have to stay healthy. … I miss it because I’m closer to my friends and family (in Europe). That’s what I miss most. Competition as well, but friends and family first, honestly.”

Bogdanovic, who finished the 2024/25 season with the Clippers following a midseason trade from Atlanta to Los Angeles, added that he’s looking forward to representing Serbia in EuroBasket 2025 and is “optimistic” that Nuggets star Nikola Jokic will participate in the tournament.

“I feel like we have a good opportunity (to win the gold). We can’t hide,” Bogdanovic said, according to Antonis Stroggylakis of Eurohoops. “That’s it. We’re going for gold. All those years we’re building something. It’s progress. A process. Hopefully, we’ll stay healthy and we show up healthy and ready to go.”

Here are a few more items of interest from around the international basketball world:

The EuroLeague is expected to expand from 18 to 20 teams beginning next season, according to reports from Donatas Urbonas of BasketNews and Alessandro Maggi of Sportando (Twitter link). Hapoel Tel Aviv, Dubai BC, and Valencia are the favorites to join the league next season, with ALBA Berlin exiting, according to Urbonas. In addition to working on expansion, EuroLeague officials are expected to meet with the NBA and FIBA next week about the NBA’s own European league.
What exactly is the Asian University Basketball League? Myron Medcalf of ESPN.com takes a closer look at the college basketball organization launching this summer in Asia and speaks to AUBL CEO Jay Li about his goal of finding and developing the next NBA star from the continent. “We are not just an Asian basketball league,” Li said. “We could be the centerpiece of youth talent development for the entire world when it comes to developing Asia’s next Yao Ming, Asia’s next Jeremy Lin.”
Dame Sarr, a 6’8″ wing from Italy, has committed to Duke for the 2025/26 season, he tells Jonathan Givony of ESPN. Sarr, who has spent the past two seasons playing for Barcelona in Spain, had a big game at last month’s Nike Hoop Summit, establishing himself as a potential 2026 first-round pick to watch. “My ultimate goal is to play in the NBA,” Sarr told ESPN. “There’s no better place to prepare you for that than Duke. For me to be as NBA-ready as possible, and become the best version of myself, I needed to have both experiences — playing for a pro team like Barcelona, and playing in a different type of professional environment like Duke against other players my age. Opportunity, minutes, repetition — this route is the best next step for me at this time.”

Details On NBA’s Playoff Bonus Money For 2024/25

May 23rd, 2025 at 9:14am CST by Luke Adams

The pool of bonus money for NBA playoff teams this season is worth approximately $34.7MM, according to Kurt Badenhausen and Lev Akabas of Sportico.

The top six teams in each conference earn bonuses based on their regular season records, while the 16 playoff teams also receive a chunk of money from the playoff pool, increasing the value of their payout with each series win. That bonus money is divvied up among the players on each club’s 15-man roster.

Teams eliminated in the play-in tournament aren’t entitled to any of the playoff bonus money, even if they had the seventh- or eighth-best regular season record in their conference.

The breakdown for 2025’s playoff pool money is as follows (rounded to the nearest thousand), per Sportico:

Regular season achievements:

Best record in NBA (Thunder): $869K
No. 1 seeds in each conference (Cavaliers, Thunder): $761K per team
No. 2 seeds (Celtics, Rockets): $609K per team
No. 3 seeds (Knicks, Lakers): $456K per team
No. 4 seeds (Pacers, Nuggets): $372K per team
No. 5 seeds (Bucks, Clippers): $288K per team
No. 6 seeds (Pistons, Timberwolves): $204K per team

Postseason achievements:

Teams participating in first round (all 16 playoff teams — the 12 listed above, plus the Magic, Heat, Warriors, and Grizzlies): $466K per team
Teams participating in conference semifinals (eight teams): $568K per team
Teams participating in conference finals (four teams): $951K per team
Losing team in NBA Finals: $3,803,000
Winning team in NBA Finals: $8,805,000

A team that makes a deep playoff run will cash in on more than one of the bonuses listed above.

For example, if the Thunder win the championship, their payout from the playoff pool would be worth more than $12.4MM in total — that amount would include their bonuses for posting the NBA’s best record, claiming the West’s No. 1 seed, making the first round, making the conference semifinals, making the conference finals, and winning the NBA Finals.

Nuggets’ Josh Kroenke Talks Depth, Adelman, Front Office, More

May 23rd, 2025 at 7:54am CST by Luke Adams

Following Denver’s elimination from the playoffs on Sunday, star center Nikola Jokic told reporters that the Nuggets “definitely need to figure out a way to get more depth” this offseason. Jokic pointed to Indiana, Oklahoma City, and Minnesota as examples of teams who have benefited in the playoffs from strong benches, whereas the Nuggets leaned more heavily on their top six players for most of the postseason.

In an end-of-season media session on Thursday, Nuggets vice chairman Josh Kroenke said he agreed with his superstar’s assessment, per Bennett Durando of The Denver Post (Twitter link).

“There’s an urgency to improve the team and the organization everywhere, whether that’s via trade, via draft,” Kroenke said. Right now, I think that having a cohesive organization from coaching staff to front office is our main goal.

“… I heard Jokic’s comments loud and clear. I mean, I think that I was thinking that before those words came out of his mouth. Just in how the playoffs, if you’re watching the games, you can see yourself, as well as watching our games, you can see where we leaned on a lot of guys for a lot of minutes in big-time moments. And that has a cumulative effect that when you play in a seven-game series,that can wear you down.”

Although Kroenke referred to the draft and the trade market as two ways the Nuggets might look to supplement their core, Denver is currently the only team without any picks in the 2025 draft and isn’t exactly loaded with trade assets. The team’s proximity to the tax aprons also means it will be difficult to make upgrades via free agency.

As Kroenke pointed out, that means the front office will have to get creative in terms of adding talent, while the coaching staff will have to do all it can to develop the Nuggets’ young players who are still on team-friendly contracts.

“The rules don’t allow certain (cap) exceptions to exist anymore the same way they did previously, for you to go out and get a veteran player, kind of a plug-and-play bench-type player,” Kroenke said. “I think those opportunities do exist if you’re smart and can find value where others might not see it. But I also think that whether it’s Oklahoma City, you look at some of the guys on the Pacers’ roster, these guys have been developed over a period of years. They understand their roles, they understand their responsibilities, and they’re accountable to that. Those are the teams that I see having a lot of success. So there’s a lot of ways to improve it, and we’re gonna be looking at all of them.”

Here’s more from the Nuggets’ vice chairman:

As we detailed on Thursday, Kronenke confirmed that Denver will retain interim head coach David Adelman, giving him the job on a permanent basis. Management is hopeful that Adelman will be able to get more out of some of the younger players on the roster than former head coach Michael Malone did, which might reduce the need for the team to find answers on the trade market. “I think a lot of our answers are internal right now,” Kroenke said, according to Durando. “With where we are from a roster standpoint, we have guys locked into contracts. We’re going into a coaching transition. And to be frank, that’s a huge change. Huge change. … DA’s philosophy, how he might use these guys slightly differently, there’s gonna be a lot of big changes throughout our organization already.”
Interim general manager Ben Tenzer has “done an unbelievable job” since taking over for Calvin Booth last month, according to Kroenke, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Tenzer is a lock to be named the club’s full-time GM. “I’ve promoted (general managers) from within for several cycles now,” Kroenke said, per Durando. “Am I going to do that again? I’m not 100% sure. But I know we have some very capable people in this organization, and they’ve made me rethink a few things that I’ve already been thinking myself, which is great. I don’t want an organization where everyone agrees. I want everyone to challenge people, and then when the door opens and we move out, we’re all moving in unison.”
While the Nuggets’ decision to fire their head coach and general manager with less than a week left in the regular season created the perception of instability, Kroenke pushed back against that notion, as Durando tweets. “I think the real instability would be if I just hid behind the curtain and allowed the plane to continue to go where it was heading, and probably, I think that plane would have landed in the play-in (tournament) and probably gone right out then,” Kroenke said. When Adelman coached his first game on April 9, Denver was in a four-way tie for fourth in the Western Conference. The Nuggets won their last three regular season games to secure that No. 4 seed.

Latest On Ty Jerome, Sam Merrill

May 22nd, 2025 at 4:22pm CST by Luke Adams

Speaking to reporters on Monday at his end-of-season media session, Cavaliers head of basketball operations Koby Altman expressed a desire to re-sign free agents Ty Jerome and Sam Merrill this offseason. While Cleveland projects to operate above the second tax apron next season, the team will have the ability to sign both players using Jerome’s Early Bird rights and Merrill’s Bird rights.

However, the cost of retaining the two key reserves would be significant due to the accompanying luxury tax penalties. Although neither Jerome nor Merrill projects to get a massive payday, both players are due significant raises after earning just $2.6MM and $2.2MM, respectively, in 2024/25.

One Eastern Conference executive who spoke to Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com (subscription required) predicted that Jerome’s market in free agency will be in the neighborhood of $12-14MM annually, which would make him a target for teams with the non-taxpayer mid-level exception available this summer. The full MLE is projected to be worth $14.1MM next season.

As Fedor writes, despite his breakout season this past year, Jerome is still viewed as a backup rather than a starter, especially since he was exploited on defense during the Cavaliers’ second-round series vs. Indiana. That perception figures to limit the 27-year-old’s earning potential to some extent in free agency, reducing the odds that he gets a deal exceeding the mid-level.

Fedor identifies the Spurs, Mavericks, and Warriors as a few of the teams to watch as possible suitors for Jerome and hears from sources that the Nuggets have interest too, though their cap situation could prevent them from getting involved. That may also be the case for the Mavs, barring cost-cutting moves in Dallas.

The Pistons could use backcourt help with Dennis Schröder and Malik Beasley entering free agency, but one source close to Jerome tells Cleveland.com that Detroit is probably a “long shot.” As Fedor writes, the Pistons are expected to focus on re-signing Beasley, while Jerome may not be an ideal fit for J.B. Bickerstaff‘s defense-first approach.

If Cavs owner Dan Gilbert is willing to pay a massive tax bill and Jerome doesn’t get offers that far exceed what the Cavs put on the table, Fedor wouldn’t be surprised to see a reunion, noting that the veteran guard recognizes he’s in a great situation in Cleveland.

As for Merrill, one source tells Fedor that his price point could be in the range of $6-8MM per year. The 29-year-old has never earned more than the veteran’s minimum, but he’s a 38.6% career three-point shooter and has improved as a defender.

Nuggets To Retain David Adelman As Head Coach

May 22nd, 2025 at 2:04pm CST by Luke Adams

The Nuggets have reached an agreement with David Adelman on a deal that will remove the interim tag from his title and make him the team’s permanent head coach, sources tell ESPN’s Shams Charania (Twitter link). Nuggets vice chairman Josh Kroenke confirmed the news at his end-of-season press conference on Thursday afternoon, per Bennett Durando of The Denver Post (Twitter link).

Adelman, who had been an assistant under Michael Malone, was promoted to the top job late in the season following Denver’s dismissal of Malone. The team was impressed with his work during the final week of the regular season and in the first two rounds of the playoffs and has opted to retain him rather than launching a full-fledged search for Malone’s replacement, Charania notes (via Twitter).

After spending nearly a decade as a high school coach from 2002-11, Adelman was hired by the Timberwolves in 2011 as a player development coach under his father Rick Adelman. The younger Adelman remained in Minnesota for five seasons, beyond his father’s retirement in 2014, then was hired by the Magic as an assistant for the 2016/17 season. He moved on to Denver a year later and had been an assistant on Malone’s staff for nearly eight full seasons before his promotion in April.

Adelman led the Nuggets to a 3-0 record to close the regular season, clinching a guaranteed playoff spot, then won his first postseason series as a head coach in a grueling seven-game matchup with the Clippers. Denver subsequently battled the 68-win Thunder to a Game 7 in the second round of the playoffs before being eliminated on Sunday.

Nuggets star Nikola Jokic became more vocal about instructing his teammates on the court after Malone was fired, leading to a perception that he was the one actually coaching the team. However, as Durando recently detailed in a Denver Post story, Adelman has, by all accounts, earned the respect of his players, who advocated for him to return next season. Adelman has said he encourages his players to communicate with each other and doesn’t care how it’s viewed by the public.

“More of it, please,” he said. “Not a bunch of guys going and sitting on the bench, waiting for me to tell them something. Talk to each other. We can figure it out as a group.”

Kroenke told reporters today that he was initially open to looking outside the organization for a new head coach, but really liked the way that Adelman connected to the Nuggets’ core players. Adelman will be given the opportunity to hire his own coaching staff, with many of Denver’s current assistants on expiring contracts, Kroenke added (Twitter links via Vinny Benedetto of The Denver Gazette).

The next step for Denver this offseason will be to sort out the front office situation, since general manager Calvin Booth was let go at the same time Malone was fired. While there have been rumblings that interim GM Ben Tenzer could hang onto the job, Kroenke said on Thursday that the team will take more time to make a final decision on that front.

Adelman is the third NBA head coach so far this offseason to have his interim tag removed and get the full-time job, joining Doug Christie of the Kings and Tuomas Iisalo of the Grizzlies. Mitch Johnson of the Spurs could also be included in that group, though his situation was a little different since Gregg Popovich was on a health-related leave of absence before deciding to call it a career after the season ended.

Arthur Hill contributed to this story.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Named 2024/25 MVP

May 21st, 2025 at 6:13pm CST by Arthur Hill

Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for the 2024/25 season, the league announced on Wednesday (Twitter link). Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link) first reported the news.

Gilgeous-Alexander and Nuggets center Nikola Jokic were the frontrunners for the award virtually all season, with Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo as the other finalist. While Jokic has three MVP awards and Antetokounmpo has won twice, this is a first for SGA, who was the runner-up to Jokic last year.

Gilgeous-Alexander led the NBA in scoring at 32.7 points per game as part of an overall excellent year. In 76 contests, he also averaged 6.4 assists, 5.0 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.0 block while shooting 51.9% from the field. Tim MacMahon of ESPN notes that the only other player to post similar numbers in a season was Michael Jordan, who did it while capturing MVP honors in 1987/88 and 1990/91.

On top of his individual brilliance, Gilgeous-Alexander likely won over some voters by leading Oklahoma City to the best record in the league at 68-14. MacMahon states that it’s the 10th time that a player has led the league in scoring for a team with at least 60 wins.

Gilgeous-Alexander won the award by a comfortable margin by earning 71 of 100 possible first-place votes and placing second on the other 29 ballots. However, Jokic made it a competitive race by claiming the remaining 29 first-place votes and earning the No. 2 spot from the other 71 voters. The Nuggets star turned in one of the most prolific seasons of his career, averaging a triple-double with 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists in 70 games.

Jokic helped the Nuggets secure the fourth seed in the West, but they won 18 fewer games than the Thunder and were eliminated by OKC in a seven-game second-round series.

Antetokounmpo was outstanding again for a 48-win Bucks team, posting 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists in 67 games, but he was considered a long shot to win the award. He claimed 88 third-place votes and showed up on all 100 ballots.

Celtics forward Jayson Tatum and Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell rounded out the top five, with Tatum earning 84 fourth-place votes and Mitchell coming in fifth on 60 ballots. Seven other players earned at least one fourth- or fifth-place vote: LeBron James, Cade Cunningham, Anthony Edwards, Stephen Curry, Jalen Brunson, James Harden, and Evan Mobley. The full voting results can be found here.

Gilgeous-Alexander is the third player in Thunder history to capture MVP honors, joining Kevin Durant in 2014 and Russell Westbrook in 2017.

As MacMahon notes, Gilgeous-Alexander has been an All-NBA selection the past two seasons, so he already met the qualifications for a historic four-year, $294MM extension this summer. The $73.3MM annual value would be the largest in NBA history.

The MVP award will make him eligible for a five-year, $380MM extension if he waits until 2026, according to Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link).

Thunder Notes: Holmgren, Caruso, K. Williams, SGA

May 21st, 2025 at 1:02pm CST by Arthur Hill

Chet Holmgren was expected to be a star for the rebuilding Thunder when he was selected with the No. 2 pick in the 2022 draft, but it hasn’t fully worked out that way, writes Anthony Slater of The Athletic. Instead, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander developed into an MVP candidate and Jalen Williams became an All-Star in his third NBA season.

Holmgren has accepted a complementary role in the offense as a floor-spacing big who can also score at the rim. His development has been hampered by injuries that caused him to miss his entire rookie year and another 50 games this season.

“It’s gone under the radar a little bit how hard it is to be a guy, then sit out for a couple months and have to integrate yourself into a team that has the best record in the NBA and not step on nobody’s toes, but also sticking to yourself,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of Holmgren. “That’s a hard position to be in. The way he’s handled it has been special. I don’t know if he gets enough credit.”

Slater points out that Holmgren was the only prominent center who was on the court for the most important stretch of Tuesday’s Western Conference Finals opener, as both Isaiah Hartenstein and Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert sat out the entire fourth quarter. Oklahoma City was able to leverage the smaller lineups to pull away for a 114-88 victory.

Holmgren finished with 15 points and seven rebounds in 26 minutes, but he wasn’t happy with how he started the game.

“I was out there stinking it up in the first half,” he said. “The game’s not gonna reward you for that. I feel like I turned up the intensity, played harder, was able to find a little more gas in the tank and really exert that.”

There’s more on the Thunder:

After matching up with Nikola Jokic in the second round, it looks like Alex Caruso will be spending a lot of time guarding Julius Randle, Slater adds. The 6’5″, 186-pound Caruso said the idea of facing bigger, stronger opponents doesn’t intimidate him. “Like or dislike, it’s my job,” he said. “Get stops. Either the game tells me to battle 300-pound guys or get over screens on the perimeter.”
Slater notes that OKC got a boost in Game 1 from Kenrich Williams, who had eight points and three rebounds in 10 minutes and made both of this three-point attempts. It marked the first rotation minutes in the playoffs for Williams, who was used ahead of third-string center Jaylin Williams, and coach Mark Daigneault said the move “breathed life” into his team.
Serving as a guest commentator for ESPN, Michael Malone said Gilgeous-Alexander “showed why he’s the MVP” (YouTube link). It’s a surprising comment from the former Nuggets coach, who spent years with Jokic, SGA’s chief rival for this year’s Most Valuable Player honors.

NBA To Reveal MVP Winner This Evening

May 21st, 2025 at 8:20am CST by Dana Gauruder

The NBA has kept the Most Valuable Player award announcement a secret for weeks. The speculation is over — this season’s MVP will be revealed tonight at 7 p.m. ET during the TNT broadcast, the league’s PR department tweets. The announcement will come prior to Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 26, is considered the strong favorite to win the award for the first time. He averaged a career-best 32.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, 6.4 assists, 1.7 steals and 1.0 blocks in 34.2 minutes per game while appearing in 76 games. This is SGA’s seventh NBA season.

Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo are the other finalists.

Jokic averaged a triple-double — 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists per night — in his 10th season while appearing in 70 games. The Nuggets center has won the award in three of the last four seasons.

Antetokounmpo was named MVP in 2019 and 2020. In his 12th season, the Bucks forward posted averages of 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists in 67 games.

No guard has won the award since 2018, when James Harden claimed the honor while playing for Houston.

Northwest Notes: Nuggets, Finch, Thunder, Wolves

May 20th, 2025 at 10:02am CST by Eli Cohen

There’s a chance that Game 7’s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder will be the last game together for the Nuggets‘ core four of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, and Michael Porter Jr., writes Bennett Durando of the Denver Post. The quartet, which has played together since the Gordon was acquired via trade in 2022, is looking at a financial reality that might prove too onerous for ownership to bear, especially with the team unable to get past the second round since winning the title in 2023.

Asked after Game 7 whether the Nuggets could win a championship as currently constructed, Jokic said, “If we could, we will win it. So I don’t believe in the ‘if, if’ stuff. We had opportunity. We didn’t win it. So I think we can’t.”

The loss comes after the abrupt termination of general manager Calvin Booth and longtime head coach Michael Malone, both of whom were crucial architects of the championship identity, just weeks before the playoffs began. Interim head coach David Adelman ended up coaching nearly as many Game 7s as he did regular season games.

Murray and Gordon both have extensions about to kick in. Murray’s four-year deal is worth nearly $208MM, while Gordon’s is a three-year $109MM extension after he exercised his $22.84MM player option in the 2025/26 season.

While both are trade-eligible, they have been crucial pieces of the Nuggets’ success, with Murray providing scoring and play-making while Gordon has consistently been a big-shot maker and elite defender who has displayed a seamless connection with Jokic as a cutter and screener. That may leave Porter as the best chance the team has to address some of its roster holes while it still can, especially with Christian Braun‘s extension eligibility looming.

We have more from around the Northwest:

Whatever decisions the Nuggets are forced to make due to finances and a lack of repeated Finals runs will be made more difficult by the bonds that have developed over the years. One such relationship is between Porter and Gordon, who have become close friends and support pillars for each other, Marc J. Spears writes for Andscape. Gordon played this season after losing his older brother, Drew, and Porter was someone he could lean on in times of hardship. Gordon and Porter both fought through injuries that limited them in their series against the Thunder, to the point that Porter wondered if he made things worse by being out there. “I probably should’ve just let it heal for a few games and then try to come back,” he said. “That is just not the person I am.”
Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch‘s journey to back-to-back conference finals appearances began with a rejection from a Pennsylvania high school coaching gig, writes Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. At the time, he was coaching basketball in England and desperate for a way home. That journey led him to the Rockets’ G League team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, which eventually led him to Minnesota, where, for the second time in three seasons, Finch had to figure out how to construct an identity around a team with a new All-Star. The results were tumultuous to start the season, with the team booed for a lackluster start amid discourse about whether newly-acquired star Julius Randle should be benched for Sixth Man of the Year Naz Reid, but Finch eventually found the right buttons to push for to his new-look team. “The validation I feel is for what we’re doing overall as a program,” he said.
Randle and Gobert struggled to find their footing early on together, but in the second round of the 2025 playoffs, the Timberwolves veterans showcased why they are such dangerous players and silenced criticism about their playoff histories, writes Mark Medina of Athlon Sports. “You’ve gotten a lot of disrespect your whole career,” Gobert said to Randle. “And so have I.” Finch, who was an assistant coach in New Orleans for Randle’s breakout year, says that finding the balance of Randle’s responsibilities was key to unlocking the team: “We, at different times of the season, gave him the message, ‘Hey we need you to score more. Hey, we need you to pass more.’ And sometimes it was the wrong message… So that was a lot of our early season growth with him.“
The Thunder have some fascinating lineup choices to consider as they enter Tuesday’s Game 1 against the Wolves, says SI’s Rylan Stiles. After having gotten past Jokic, the team is likely to be less reliant on the two-big lineups featuring Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein against the athletic Randle and a more traditional center in Rudy Gobert. That, in turn, would allow the Thunder to bring more of their defensive-minded guards or wings into the lineup to try their hand at slowing down Anthony Edwards.

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