“When you’re going against the best in the world, whether it’s in the NBA playoffs or in the Olympics, you’re gonna get (opponents’) best shot And if you’re not 100% and you know you want to be out there still, you’re gonna try to fight through it like Jamal is,” Kroenke said after participating in the Gardner Hendrick Pro-Am, part of the BMW Championship at Castle Pines Golf Club.

“But I know he wasn’t 100%. I know getting him back there is a big step toward seeing the Jamal who was throwing up triple-doubles in the NBA Finals.”

As Durando writes, the Canadian guard was visibly slowed by a left calf strain during Denver’s second-round playoff loss to Minnesota. Kroenke said Murray has also been battling an ankle issue in addition to other ailments, though he didn’t specify when that particular injury occurred.

A report in late June indicated that the Nuggets and Murray were nearing an agreement on a four-year, $208.45MM maximum extension, but a deal has yet to be finalized. While Kroenke declined to go into specifics on when a contract might come to fruition, he remains confident in Murray’s abilities, Durando adds.

“Jamal’s a great player, one of the best in the NBA,” Kroenke said, “and however he felt personally that the Olympics were for him, just reading some of his quotes, I know he was frustrated a little bit. So I have no doubt that he’ll use that the right way for motivation going into the season.”

Here’s more on the Nuggets, courtesy of Durando (Twitter links):

• According to Kroenke, Denver’s roster is “pretty set” for the 2024/25 season, though he acknowledged things can change quickly in the NBA. “Our eyes and ears are always open,” he said. “The new (CBA) rules are interesting, and how some of those trades work once you’re over the tax.” The Nuggets’ roster, which is currently at the offseason limit of 21 players, includes 15 players on guaranteed standard contracts, with all three of the team’s two-way slots filled.
• The Nuggets’ president also touched on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope‘s free agency, Durando notes. A key three-and-D player for Denver the past two seasons, Caldwell-Pope signed a three-year, $66MM deal with Orlando after declining his ’24/25 player option. Kroenke said that while the Nuggets made the veteran wing some offers, they were also leery of the second apron restrictions in the new CBA, emphasizing that maintaining the “flexibility to retain the guys we want to keep” in the future was a key factor in contract talks. Kroenke also expressed confidence in the team’s young players and their ability to take on expanded roles.
• In case you missed it, the Nuggets are rumored to be interested in Hornets guard Vasilije Micic, one of Nikola Jokic‘s teammates on the Serbian national team. Serbia won the bronze medal at the Olympics.

“Ultimately when you go to a stratosphere that some clubs, you say some desperate clubs, are willing to go to, there’s a tier out there that just kind of doesn’t make sense,” Kroenke said of the Nuggets’ decision not to match Connelly’s offer from the Wolves, per Mike Singer of the Denver Post.

Rand notes that Denver has now decided to let its lead decision-maker walk twice in the last decade, first with Masai Ujiri, who left for the Raptors in 2013 and won a title with the team in 2019, and now with Connelly.

There’s more out of Minnesota:

• Incoming Timberwolves owners Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore seem intent on using their money to improve the Minnesota front office, a ploy that Jim Souhan of the Star Tribune applauds. In addition to luring Connelly away from Denver, Minnesota has added Matt Lloyd and retained Sachin Gupta to the team’s decision-making brain trust.
• The widely-respected Lloyd learned under a variety of scouting styles while with the Bulls and Magic, write Jon Krawczynski and Josh Robbins of The Athletic. He worked with Chicago from 1999-2012, and started with the Magic as an assistant GM in 2012 before becoming the team’s VP of basketball operations for the 2021/22 season.
• 18-year-old NBA prospect Nikola Jovic, currently playing for Mega Mozzart of the ABA League, recently worked out for the Timberwolves, according to Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News (Twitter link). Wolfson is skeptical that the 6’10” wing will still be on the board in time for Minnesota to draft him with the No. 19 pick in the 2022 draft. He is currently listed as the No. 24 top prospect on the latest ESPN big board.

“We’re entering a new phase of the organization, and with this squad in particular, which is: It’s championship or bust. And this is the first time those words have been uttered around these halls, I think,” Kroenke said.

“We have a two-time MVP, we have two more All-Star-caliber players coming off injuries,” Kroenke said, referring to Nikola Jokic, Michael Porter Jr. and Jamal Murray. “And I think that we are poised in a way that perhaps this organization hasn’t been in the past.

“And that excites me. But that brings a lot of pressure. We’re no longer the underdog that’s kind of the lovable guys that are bouncing along from Denver, Colorado. I think that when we get healthy and show what we’re capable of, we will have a target on our back.”

Kroenke said he doesn’t regret signing Porter to a five-year, $172MM contract extension last summer, despite him only playing nine games in 2021/22.

“I’d say we’re concerned about his injuries, not concerned about the contract,” Kroenke said, per ESPN.

He also said the team was prepared to pay the luxury tax, as Mike Singer of The Denver Post relays.

“Yeah, I mean, I think that you know, first of all, my dad (Stan Kroenke) is the owner. I’m just making sure I don’t screw everything up on a day-to-day basis. … If you’ve drafted well, you better be ready to pay that tax, and we’re ready to pay that tax,” Kroenke said.

Here’s more from Kroenke’s press conference:

• Kroenke endorsed GM Calvin Booth to replace Connelly as the top basketball decision-maker going forward. “I’ve always thought very highly of Calvin, I think he’s going to do a wonderful job for us,” Kroenke said, per Singer. “… He’s got a great mind and I think he’s open to suggestions but he showed me that he can make ruthless decisions when he needs to.”
• The team sent out a tweet to leave no doubt about who will be in charge of the front office. “At the top of the org chart, it’s going to be Calvin Booth,” Kroenke said.
• Multiple sources told Singer that Booth doesn’t have much “contractual security” as he transitions to the lead basketball executive, so Kroenke was asked if he was committed to Booth long-term. Kroenke suggested an extension could be coming soon. “Calvin and I are going to be sitting down, our whole front office and I will be sitting down in the very near future,” he said. “… We’re all talking and I think those guys know where they sit, and we’ll have some more announcements and some more information coming in the very near future.”
• Kroenke said he regretted giving Connelly an opt-out clause after three years when the Nuggets gave him a contract extension in 2019, according to Singer. “I put that in his contract never anticipating that he would opt out and go to another NBA team and that’s what happened,” he said. “There was an option in his contract, he chose to exercise that option. And there was a major offer out there for him.”
• Kroenke reiterated that the Nuggets made Connelly a competitive offer to stay in Denver, and said Minnesota’s offer was definitely unwelcome from his perspective. “Tim was under contract, the offer kind of came in through the side door, as they always seem to do in the NBA,” he said, per ESPN. “And so once those type of numbers start getting thrown around and get into someone’s head, it becomes very difficult to contain. I felt that we made a very competitive offer that would have allowed him to feel good about staying in Denver, and ultimately he felt that some of the upside there on the back end through some of the bonus schemes were probably too good to pass up for his family.” As Singer writes, Kroenke also twice characterized a team willing to pay significant money to poach a rival executive as “desperate.”
• A new practice facility could be in store for Denver, says Kroenke, but Singer notes that the team’s governor made a similar statement five years ago and there’s been essentially no progress since.

Julian Champagnie (St. John’s), Darius Days (LSU), Mouhamed Gueye (Washington State), Fatts Russell (Maryland), and Dallas Walton (Colorado), all of whom are viewed as probable second-round or UDFA prospects, were the other players to work out for the Trail Blazers on Tuesday. In addition to controlling the No. 7 overall pick, Portland also holds the 36th and 57th selections in this month’s draft.

• The media availability for Nuggets governor Josh Kroenke, who is expected to address Tim Connelly‘s departure, was postponed again, according to Mike Singer of The Denver Post (Twitter link). Kroenke was originally scheduled to speak last Thursday, then had that session tentatively pushed back to Tuesday after he tested positive for COVID-19. It will likely happen later this week once he clears the health and safety protocols, says Singer.
• The Jazz held a free agent mini-camp on Tuesday, according to our JD Shaw, who notes (via Twitter) that G League standouts Justin Tillman and Craig Randall II were among the attendees.
• Loyola guard Lucas Williamson has a pre-draft workout on tap with the Jazz on Thursday, tweets Tony Jones of The Athletic. Williamson has already worked out for several teams, including the Bucks, Celtics, and Grizzlies, Jones adds.
• Eric Walden of The Salt Lake Tribune proposes 29 hypothetical offseason trades involving the Jazz — one with each of the NBA’s teams.

We have more from the Northwest Division:

• The press conference involving Nuggets president/governor Josh Kroenke has been postponed after he recently tested positive for COVID-19. He is one of several members of the organization to test positive this week, according to the team. The press conference, scheduled for today, has been tentatively moved to Tuesday, according to the Denver Post’s Mike Singer (Twitter links).
• What are the Jazz seeking to upgrade their roster? A long, rangy wing player who is solid offensively and can defend on the perimeter and switch 1-to-5, Tony Jones of The Athletic writes. However, those players are in high demand throughout the league, which makes the Jazz’s task of finding such a player quite difficult.
• The Jazz’s draft workout on Thursday included R.J. Cole (UConn), Tyson Etienne (Wichita State), Johnny Juzang (UCLA), Jared Rhoden (Seton Hall), Akoldah Gak (Australia) and Trevion Williams (Purdue), Eric Walden of the Salt Lake Tribune tweets. Williams (No. 50 on ESPN’s Best Available list) is the highest-rated among that group of second-round prospects.

During the two days between Connelly’s meeting with Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor on Saturday and his decision to accept Minnesota’s offer on Monday, there was some hope within the Nuggets’ organization that the Kroenkes might find a way to keep Connelly, according to Singer. The team did make a counter-offer, but there was a “significant gap” between Denver’s offer and Minnesota’s, a source told The Denver Post.

Interestingly, one source with knowledge of the situation told Singer that if the decision on Connelly’s future had been entirely up to Josh Kroenke, Connelly probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere. In other words, it sounds like Josh may have been more willing to step up financially than his father Stan Kroenke, who also let Masai Ujiri walk in a similar situation nine years ago.

Here’s more on the Nuggets:

• Nuggets ownership didn’t learn anything from having nearly lost Connelly to the Wizards in 2019, according to Harrison Wind of TheDNVR.com, who argues that Stan Kroenke still doesn’t value his top basketball executives and “skimps on line items that rival organizations would deem as necessities.”
• The Nuggets are on the precipice of championship contention, but they’re not there yet, Singer writes for The Denver Post. The team could badly use at least one more wing defender, Singer notes, adding that it will be interesting to see if general manager Calvin Booth – who is expected to become Denver’s head of basketball operations – will value pieces like Bones Hyland, Zeke Nnaji, and this year’s No. 21 pick any differently than Connelly would have.
• Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer takes his own look at the Nuggets’ offseason to-do list, writing that the club needs to surround Jokic with better shooters and perimeter defenders. O’Connor also suggests that Jokic should wait to see what moves Denver makes before locking in his five-year, super-max extension, but acknowledges that he’d be surprised if the two-time MVP doesn’t sign his new deal early in the offseason.

According to Goodwill, the Bulls requested permission during their search process to speak to Thunder VP of basketball operations Troy Weaver, who is black, but were denied. Chicago also tried to interview Raptors GM Bobby Webster, a Japanese-American, but didn’t receive permission from Toronto.

As K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago tweets, the Bulls did hold an informal interview with former Chicago center Nazr Mohammed, who has worked in Oklahoma City’s front office. That interview wasn’t for the team’s top front office job though.

Bulls COO Michael Reinsdorf has made a series of diverse hires in the Bulls’ business operations department in recent years, per Goodwill, who hears that the younger Reinsdorf has spoken both publicly and privately about the importance of having a diverse staff.

Here’s more on the Bulls’ hiring of Karnisovas and on the Nuggets, who will lose their general manager:

• A source tells Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times that longtime executive VP of basketball operations John Paxson will continue to be a “sounding board” for the Reinsdorfs going forward, but will only weigh in on basketball decisions if asked by Karnisovas.
• The Bulls’ front office search had its flaws, but the team ultimately landed on a very promising candidate in Karnisovas, opines Jon Greenberg of The Athletic.
• Rockets GM Daryl Morey, who previously worked with Karnisovas in Houston, praised the Bulls’ choice and told Tom Haberstroh of NBC Sports (Twitter link via K.C. Johnson) that he’s happy to see the veteran exec get a shot to run a team. “Arturas is one of the best executives in the NBA,” Morey said. “I’m so happy he is getting this opportunity. He was instrumental in our success. I’m also thrilled he’s in the East now!”
• Nuggets president of basketball operations Tim Connelly and team owner Josh Kroenke were “instrumental” in helping Karnisovas land the Chicago job, a source tells Mike Singer of The Denver Post. In a separate story for The Post, Singer spoke to former NBA player Jared Jeffries, who worked with Karnisovas for four years in Denver’s front office and called the Bulls’ decision to hire him a “no-brainer.”
• Karnisovas’ departure leaves the Nuggets with a hole in their basketball operations department, and Nick Kosmider of The Athletic suggests that assistant GM Calvin Booth may be a candidate for a promotion.

It already has more than $90MM in guaranteed salary commitments for next season. A more likely scenario would be to decline the option and sign Millsap to a multi-year deal in free agency at a lower annual salary. “We both want the same thing,” Connelly said. “We’ll figure out the best way for the organization and Paul to make sure that’s achieved. I fully expect Paul to be back in a Nuggets uniform.”

We have more on the Nuggets:

• Connelly downplayed his interview with the Wizards for their top front office job, Mike Singer of the Denver Post tweets. “We just had a conversation. It was not much more than that,” Connelly said. There are conflicting reports on whether the Wizards formally made Connelly a four-year contract offer but he ultimately decided to stay put.
• Head coach Michael Malone said the organization “wouldn’t have skipped a beat” if Connelly had taken the Wizards job and the Nuggets replaced him with GM Arturas Karnisovas, Nick Kosmider of The Athletic tweets. However, Malone is happy Connelly decided to stay since they and owner Josh Kroenke have a strong working relationship.
• The Nuggets can’t continue to rely on developing their young players alone to bridge the gap between them and the other championship contenders, Kosmider writes. The moves that Connelly makes this offseason will be crucial and viewed with intense scrutiny, Kosmider adds.

Connelly’s contract could have expired at the end of this season, but he has been in negotiations for several weeks with Nuggets president Josh Kroenke on a new deal, Wojnarowski adds in another tweet.

The team has confirmed the extension in a press release. General manager Arturas Karnisovas and the entire basketball operations staff in Denver have also received extensions, according to the release.

“It gives me immense pride to announce contract extensions for our entire front office, as our journey to this point has been one of hard work, patience and trust in one another,” Kroenke said in a statement. “When Tim joined us in 2013, he understood the vision that we had for the future of the Nuggets, and through his dedication our program is incredibly well positioned to compete at the highest level for years to come. Building a true championship contender in the NBA is a unique process for each franchise, and our path in Denver hasn’t always been clear. But Tim, Arturas and the rest of our staff continued to work through every challenge we faced along the way, and I hope Nuggets fans are as excited as we are about our future. We firmly believe we can bring an NBA championship to Denver, and are thrilled to continue our pursuit together.”

The Nuggets have emerged as one of the Western Conference’s top teams, mainly due to smart selections in the draft. Denver has drafted All-Star center Nikola Jokic and guards Jamal Murray, Gary Harris and Malik Beasley during Connelly’s regime.

This isn’t the first time Connelly received an extension. He got one from the Nuggets in 2016 when he held the title of GM. Karnisovas held the title of assistant GM at the time.

“[Kroenke] discussed [coming to the Nuggets] a couple times to me,” James said during shootaround before the Lakers/Nuggets tilt. “Also he sent those throwback jerseys, I think they’re wearing them tonight. The white ones? With the mountains, I believe, that’s on it. Said, ‘You’d look good in one of these.’”

James and Kroenke have been friends for years, though it wasn’t enough to make James consider moving to Denver.

“We’ve been on vacation, things of that nature — we have a great friendship,” James said. “But I didn’t give it much thought.”

“I feel very confident with the guys we have leading us on a daily basis,” Kroenke said. “I feel confident in the players in the locker room. I feel confident in the front office. I like the direction of the train. I like the speed and direction of the train. We needed to reinvent who we were last year, culturally, in our locker room as well as establish a new identity on the court. I think that historically we’ve always played fast here, and I think that that’s something we want to continue to do, but you can’t do it at the expense of your defense.”

Despite the team finishing fourth in the Northwest Division in 2015/16, Kroenke praised the job the Malone did in guiding what was one of the league’s youngest teams, Dempsey notes. “[GM] Tim Connelly and I, we have a bigger picture that we’re looking at, and I thought [Malone] did an outstanding job last year, with our young players, especially,” Kroenke told the scribe. “I thought Tim and the guys, over the last few years they’ve knocked it out of the park at the draft. I think if you’re drafting well, you’re always giving yourself a chance to compete, whether that’s improvement through trades or simply internal improvement.”

Kroenke displayed his faith in Connelly last season by extending his contract despite the team’s struggles since the GM took the helm, Dempsey writes. “I knew when I hired Tim in the summer of 2013 that we were going to have a good shot at nailing a few drafts. That ultimately takes years to come to fruition,” Kroenke said. “Being able to weigh the present while weighing the future is, I think, the toughest job general managers face based on the roster. And I think Tim and our staff has made very smart trades.”

While Kroenke didn’t guarantee that the Nuggets would reach the postseason in 2016/17, he did note that he expects to see improvement on the court, Dempsey relays. “I think this year is going to be a growth year,” Kroenke said. “Depending on where that growth heads at the end of the year, where we ultimately define success, I guess, is open to interpretation almost. But I’m glad to see that our players are focused on playoffs. I want those guys focused on building toward April. We want to be playing our best basketball on April 1, those last two weeks of the season leading into the playoffs. Then we’ll see where our record shakes out. I like our chances to hopefully leapfrog a team or two this year simply through our continuity and our internal improvement.”

“Pete and I have always respected each other, have always gotten along,” Malone said. “It was just that sometimes, the environment that we were working in was not conducive to a healthy relationship.”

That apparent jab at the Kings aside, there’s more on the Nuggets amid the latest from around the Northwest Division:

• Ohio State playmaker D’Angelo Russell is working out for the Timberwolves today, a visit that the team pushed for as its maintained that he’s a consideration for them with the No. 1 overall pick, reports Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Twitter link).
• Wolves draft-and-stash prospect Nemanja Bjelica has told the manager of his Turkish team that he wants to head to the NBA, and the Fenerbahce Ulker team official assumes that Bjelica, the Euroleague MVP, won’t be back with the club (video link; translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia).
• Joel Freeland doesn’t expect the Blazers to tender him the nearly $3.767MM qualifying offer it would take for the club to make him a restricted free agent this summer, as Chris Haynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group hears (Twitter link). If that’s the case, he’d become an unrestricted free agent, but while the native of England is reportedly drawing interest from overseas, he’s said he’d prefer to stay in the NBA.
• Nuggets team president Josh Kroenke, with duties that entail the work of ownership as well as those usually assigned to a GM, is clearly the man who calls the shots in Denver, as Mark Kiszla of The Denver Post observes.

“Every player on our roster is a movable asset,” Connelly said. “Certainly you don’t want to view players as assets, but there’s a part of you in the front office that has to be brutally honest with how these guys are viewed leaguewide. We don’t have a guy on the roster we’d have to heavily incentivize to move.”

Arnovitz paints a bleak picture surrounding the 2-7 Nuggets in his piece, and it’s worth a full read, particularly for Denver fans. We’ll pass along the highlights here:

• Multiple sources tell Arnovitz that Denver still isn’t sold on Kenneth Faried but signed him to his four-year, $50MM extension last month in part as a PR move, given the power forward’s popularity among fans and his Team USA performance. Some within the Nuggets “take exception” to the deal, Arnovitz hears.
• The Nuggets leaked the initial terms of the deal, which were five years at $60MM, because they weren’t aware that the Designated Player rule, which any five-year rookie scale extension would trigger, required that the first-year salary be for the maximum amount, according to Arnovitz. The team’s lack of collective bargaining agreement knowledge wasn’t isolated to Faried’s contract, as the Nuggets called another team to propose a trade that wouldn’t have worked under the league’s rules, as a rival executive tells Arnovitz.
• The ESPN scribe hears from a source who suggests that when owner and team president Josh Kroenke was looking for a new GM in 2013, what appealed most about Connelly was his relative inexperience and willingness to defer to Kroenke.

Nonetheless, Kroenke made it clear that the Nuggets and Shaw are mutually committed to each other. “Brian has said publicly – and privately to us – that his desire is to be here, and we feel strongly about him as our coach…I don’t foresee a scenario or circumstance where he’s going to be anywhere but with the Nuggets next season.” 

With Shaw now out of the fold, Derek Fisher stands as the frontrunner to land the Knicks’ head coaching vacancy. The 39-year-old guard is also considered a candidate for the Lakers’ opening, although sources tell Wojnarowski that L.A. is leaning toward hiring a candidate with head coaching experience. Fisher has a strong interest in becoming a head coach next season, Wojnarowski hears, adding that Jackson wants to hire a coach whom he can mold and who’s willing to run the triangle. So, it appears that New York will be Fisher’s likeliest landing spot next season if he wants the job.

• Nuggets president Josh Kroenke isn’t satisfied with the mild success his team has enjoyed in recent years, but Benjamin Hochman of the Denver Post argues the team needn’t strip down the roster to build a true contender, instead advocating the team pool its assets and trade for a star.
• The Nuggets came close to trading for a high draft pick this past June, Hochman reveals in the same piece.
• The departures of Masai Ujiri, Pete D’Alessandro and others from the Nuggets front office this summer is an affirmation rather than an indictment of Kroenke and the Denver organization, which is already drawing raves for its new hires, as fellow Post scribe Christopher Dempsey observes.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.