Summer Of '25: Five Predictions For The Nuggets Offseason

Will you take insightful over bold?

Photo by Cat Guffin on Unsplash

The draft is less than a week away, but you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about it because Denver is almost definitely not going to be involved.

However, we are also 11 days from the start of NBA free agency and the process of teams shaping their rosters for next season, and the Nuggets still have not officially hired a general manager. They’re actually going backward in the “having people in charge” category.

With that in mind, here are five predictions — sort of— for the Nuggets’ summer of ‘25.

The New President Of Basketball Operations — If There Is One — Won’t Have Any Impact On The Draft

After informing Nuggets Assistant GM Tommy Balcetis— a class act and good dude who deserved better than how the last year went down— that his contract would not be renewed, it’s clear the team is not just running it back entirely. There are too many positions to fill.

That does not, however, mean that Ben Tenzer will not be retained. I’ve said here several times that the most likely outcome would be a new President of Basketball Operations with Tenzer taking over as GM.

This is a common setup in the NBA these days, with the POBO handling top-level direction under the guidance of ownership and the general manager handling the day-to-day management of the organization and details like the use of the G-League and 10-day contracts.

Everyone wants the Nuggets to get on with the hire.

It’s possible they could wait until after the draft. The thing about missed opportunities is that most people will never find out about them. So if there are three-way deals or cheap picks available that the Nuggets could miss out on without the new POBO, no one will know. It will just go down that there were no deals to make.

To be honest, we’re too late for the POBO to do much. If he’s hired, even by the end of this week, he won’t have time to install his staff or to really dig into the team’s available moves on draft night. Tenzer, on the other hand, has positioned himself to handle all that.

The remaining staff have been working on the draft anyway. Josh Kroenke will be in the room on draft night. There’s a structure to capitalize.

All this to say that if the Nuggets elect to hire someone above Tenzer… and why would they be waiting if they weren’t… they won’t have much input at the draft. They’re just out of time.

Denver Won’t Acquire Any 2025 Picks

This is an easy, obvious one. There’s zero reason for Denver to add another young player. None. They have too many young guys as it is, and actively understand that they need playable veterans. If a team offered a first-rounder for Zeke Nnaji¹, they’d do it just to move off of Nnaji, but then would try to swap the pick immediately.

So, all the Nuggets fans who love the draft process will have to wait for next year, when Denver has a pick, because they are legally unable to trade it under NBA bylaws.

If there’s one thing this experience with two timelines should have taught everyone, it’s that you have to balance the roster in terms of upside and experience. For every drafted player on a rookie contract, you need a veteran to balance that out.

Denver has no reason to get younger.

I Won’t Be Surprised By The Westbrook Decision

This is a placeholder because I honestly don’t know how to make an informed prediction on Westbrook’s free agency.