The Nuggets' lasting question mark

Good morning. We're talking about the Nuggets. Let's basketball.

Serbia's defeat at the hands of Finland in the EuroBasket tournament put into stark relief Nikola Jokic's basketball life: he is among the most awestriking beings you will ever see on a court, and he is but one player on the court. He requires assistance to win at the highest levels, which is normal even among the greatest of all time. No basketball superstar has ever won alone. In Riga, Jokic performed significantly better than Lauri Markkanen, who is playing at the highest level of his basketball life right now. But after Bogdan Bogdanovic's injury, Serbia became undermatched against several European foes, including – against all odds for those of us of the Petteri Koponen generation – Finland. And so Jokic and Serbia lost their place quite early in the tournament, after having already dropped a game to Alperen Sengun and a fairly deep Turkiye squad.

Nikola Jokic will blow your freaking mind and have his team within arm's length of victory at basically all times. But this is basketball, and you really need to have some help to win anything of value. Jordan didn't win until Pippen. Russell had a veritable All-Star team behind him. Magic had Kareem and Worthy. Bird had McHale and Parish. LeBron is 4-6 in the NBA Finals. Et cetera, et cetera.

Which brings us to the Nuggets, who appear poised to renew their siege on the Western Conference after a year in which they finished in a three-way tie for third in the West (instead of tied for first) and damn near lost in the first round before losing in seven in the second. Denver performed quite well under last-minute head coach David Adelman once Michael Malone was fired toward the end of the regular season, and then swapped Michael Porter Jr. with Cam Johnson, brought back Bruce Brown and added Jonas Valanciunas and Tim Hardaway Jr. The MPJ-Cam swap was both a money move and a vibe boost: put aside MPJ's noxious beliefs (if that's possible), and it's clear that he was far more prone to half-assing assignments than the average NBA starter, and that must suck to deal with as a teammate. Brown hasn't done anything of note since leaving the Nuggets, but remember how valuable he was to the Nuggets?! And both Valanciunas and THJ provide real basketball talent in low required doses. It was a good, good offseason for the Nuggets.

And yet: they are still standing at the mercy of the question of whether Jamal Murray is good enough to be the second best offensive player on a Jokic-led team at the highest levels of competition.