Are The Nuggets Done?
Nah.
Coming into this NBA season, one question has been reverberating in my mind: will the Denver Nuggets become a dynasty?
The Nuggets have been strangely under the radar for a defending champion. They romped through the playoffs less than six months ago - losing just 4 games and never having a series even in doubt. Their best player, Nikola Jokic, had arguably the best postseason of the last 30 years - throwing up 30 points, 14 rebounds, and 10 assists per game while dominating Hall of Famers in four straight rounds. They are young, healthy, and intact, having not lost a major piece from last year’s team.
Betting markets look at this and yawn. Depending where you look, the Nuggets are either the third- or fourth-most likely team to win the title, behind the Bucks, Celtics, and Suns.
After digging more into the history of teams like the Nuggets, I think this significantly undersells their chances. Teams with their profile are rarely one-shot wonders. As the youngest first-time champion in 30 years, the Nuggets have a lot of room to keep improving and should be odds-on title favorites.
To study this, I did some research on how other first-time NBA champions fared the season after scaling the mountaintop. Since the Jordan Era of the ‘90s1, I found 15 similar teams who’d won the title. Teams qualified if they hadn’t won a title with these stars before - I included 1 iteration of the Curry Warriors, Duncan Spurs, and Jordan Bulls, but each of the LeBron Heat, Lakers, and Cavs.
The research initially came out quite bleak. Looking at regular-season performance, the Nuggets … do not compare so well. Denver has the worst scoring differential of all 15; only 2 teams - the uninspiring 2006 Heat and 2021 Bucks - had fewer wins.
These teams ran into hard regression the year after winning the title. Winning an NBA title requires a bit of positive variance: good injury luck for you, poor injury luck for your opponents, and the occasional clutch bounce. Naturally, that’s hard to replicate the following year: 67% of teams had fewer wins the following year, and 73% had a worse point differential. Each made the playoffs, but nearly as many lost in round 1 (four) as won it all (five).
Here’s where aggregate data can be misleading, and context is key. In the table below, I’ve added a couple key variables to help understand the path of different dynasties:
Injuries
Age (weighed by minutes played)
I’ve also grouped teams into three categories. The first - in green - improved in Year 2. They all won more games, with a better point differential. Two of four won the title, and a third fell just 2 minutes short. The second, in yellow, made / won the Finals despite a drop off in the regular season. The last, in red, were significantly worse during the regular season and all lost before round three of the postseason.
The first thing that jumps off the page is how much injury regression decides who wins the title. Only one team with a major injury made the Finals - the ‘95 Rockets. However, on the other hand, every defending champion which kept its core together and stayed healthy during the year made the Finals. I’ll say that again: every team that didn’t lose a key player to injury or free agency made the Finals. Not a single one. Denver got through free agency unscathed, making this a pretty good sign.
The second key insight is the role age played. The “red” class is almost exclusively older teams. Of 29-and-over teams, only the 2000 Lakers avoided a flameout. Of the below-28 teams, only the Celtics suffered a major injury. And only the Celtics didn’t make the Finals. Another point for the Nuggets, who not only kept the team together but - as the youngest team in the database - stand a good chance of staying healthy.
Another good sign for the Nuggets? A one-year injury wasn’t a doomsday sign for aspiring dynasties and their title hopes. Only 5 of the 15 teams didn’t make the Finals in their first two post-title season. That group includes three teams who won the title while knocking on the door of GeezerTown (‘06 Heat, ‘11 Mavericks, ‘20 Lakers) and one whose best player immediately bounced post-title (‘19 Raptors).
Weighing these data, I like the Nuggets’ chances to fall closer to the ‘16 Curry Warriors than the ‘07 Wade Heat. Their regular season performance is explainable - they were 46-19 (a 58-win pace) before taking their foot off the pedal - and they’ve got meaningful other indicators in their favor. Also, the injuries cloud how likely it is for teams to come out and dominate after they’ve been imbued with the confidence of a champion:
The 2009 Celtics were 44-12 (65-win pace) before Kevin Garnett got injured
The 2017 Cavs went 12-1 in the Eastern Conference playoffs before running into the best team of all time in the Finals
The 2021 Lakers were 28-13 (56-win pace) before LeBron’s ankle injury
All these Nuggets are locked up for a long time too. Their entire starting 5 has contracts through the next 2 seasons, and Jokic is around for three more after this one. The ‘21/’22 MVP is unquestionably the league’s best player and has half a decade left in his prime. His ground-bound style has helped him stay injury-free for years. There’s a lot left in that tank.
Bottom line: the Nuggets are set up to be really good, and be really good for a very long time.
My preferred mark for the beginning of the “modern” NBA.