Insights Into The Nuggets' Cultural And Basketball Remodel From Media Day

Plus, Jokic is Nugget forever and some hints at scheme changes...

Photo by benjamin lehman on Unsplash

“This conference is unreal. And we’re part of it. We’re a problem.” - Nuggets coach David Adelman

My daughter asked me why I had to go to Denver on Monday after so many months off. I told her it was the start of the NBA season, and the team I cover, the Nuggets, has a day where everyone comes back in and gets ready for the season.

“Like the first day of school?”

“I mean, yes, actually, it feels a lot like that.”

Media days can be rote and boring, exciting and fun, tense and uncomfortable. There’s always a lot more you can learn than it seems like if you pay attention.

And we learned a lot. Here are the most interesting things I took away from Nuggets Media Day 2025.

THE REMODEL

The Nuggets are trying something unique this year.

You have a winning formula. Even in a down year, the Nuggets won 50 games and finished with the 4-seed. They were the third best offense in the NBA, again, and Nikola Jokic had one of the greatest offensive seasons in NBA history, again.

They didn’t need to tear this team down to the studs, and they didn’t. They revamped the roster with better veteran depth and versatility. They reshaped the coaching bench while keeping the head coach who has been in Denver as an assistant for eight years.

The cracks don’t matter when the bones are good.

So while Adelman provided some good (and important) updates on the basketball side of things, his stress was about rebuilding the culture.

“I think the best way to buck trends is not to think about what happened before and that what happened already happened and this is a completely new thing. … Sometimes part of learning stuff is forgetting about it and moving on.” - Adelman

This quote is the synthesis of what Adelman’s trying to get to. This is a new thing. It’s the Nuggets, but a new Nuggets. Last year was last year, last year’s roster was last year’s roster.

But with a fresh start comes new expectations, new challenges, and new accountability.

“It’s so easy to say as a player or a coach that you’ll be unselfish this year because we’re deep, but then to actually actively do it.”- Adelman

Ben Tenzer and Jon Wallace set the tone for the day by talking about their expectations, but also about how they see their role. The Nuggets are establishing a circle of accountability (shoutout to the KGB).

Tenzer and Wallace defined their job as putting the team in the best position and doing whatever is necessary to help Jokic, Murray, and the core players. They said they had told Jokic and Murray to be brutally honest with their feedback.

Then there’s Adelman, holding Jokic and Murray accountable for their leadership.

“It’s not just the coaching staff that changed here, leadership in that locker room is changing. And guys aren’t here anymore that were veteran leaders. Our veteran leaders are now the fun guys you used to watch play. It’s Jokic, it’s Murray, it’s Gordon, it’s Christian. Those guys have to step up and they have to demand that for the locker room as well. … Your best players have to demand what the vibe will be daily. They can’t go into a shell and only worry about how they’re doing throughout the season. They have to maintain their team as much as I do.”- Adelman

“Your best players have to demand what the vibe will be daily.”

This is a small line in a big press conference that will get lost, but it’s crucial to understanding last season’s failures. Sources close to the Nuggets told me that both Murray and Jokic were miserable to be around for much of the season.

The grind of the 82-game schedule on top of frustrations with the roster and the ongoing toxicity between Booth and Malone meant that the most important people in the building, Jokic and Murray, were compromised in the vibe they set.

So now there’s a quid pro quo. The front office “fixed” the roster or at least put together a blueprint with a much higher chance of success. There’s a new coach and no more squabbling.¹

Now the star duo has to do their part by a. being the awesome players they are and b. bringing the right attitude to lead the team.

Murray seems to have embraced that part. Murray led workouts in LA this summer for the Nuggets roster, sans Jokic. There’s only so much productivity you can get out of sessions without Joker, and Joker sure as hell is not coming to America in the offseason unless he has to.

But the value was more than anything on-court.

“I give him so much credit — in Los Angeles, the guys got together … a voluntary action to come play in LA and just kind of get a feel for one another. But it’s not just about the court together, it’s about going and hanging out, grabbing something to eat, possibly a drink. So it was good to see Jamal take the lead on that. And it’s always cool to see when the veteran guys involve the two-way players … That’s key.”-Adelman

Jokic later lamented the loss of veterans because they were often the guys who talked a lot in the locker room, and now he understands that will be his role, and that’s clearly not what he prefers. Jokic wants to do the job and go home, to borrow a phrase.

But if the Nuggets are going to form a fresh culture they can believe in, it’s going to start with these intangible things. Those are so much more important than the basketball side. That’s how you build the structure that lets the basketball shine.

You build relationships to make the basketball better which helps you win. It’s a circular engine and for the first time, the front office, coaching staff, and star players all have equal share of keeping the machine operational.

For more on Nuggets media day, including defensive scheme changes, Jokic’s big quote, and some key details, become a subscriber!