Inside the Nuggets' plan to build around the NBA's best player

How do the Nuggets plan on building a champion around the best player in basketball? It starts with their new front office.

Since the start of the 2020-21 NBA season, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić has finished either first or second in the MVP voting five straight years, winning the award three times.

Over those five seasons, however, the Nuggets made it to the conference finals or beyond only once — in 2023, when Denver won its first championship in franchise history (and Jokić was named Finals MVP).

In every other year during that period, Denver lost in either the first or the second round of the playoffs. That makes Jokić — whom NBA general managers voted most likely to win MVP this season — somewhat of an outlier. Since 1984, every player who has won at least three MVPs has also won multiple championships.

So how do the Nuggets plan to build a champion around the best player in basketball? It starts with their new front office.

“We all understand the magnitude of what a player like [Jokić] brings to an organization, a community, a city and a fan base,” Denver’s vice president of basketball operations, Ben Tenzer, told NBC News this month. “In terms of expectations, we welcome the responsibility that comes with that. We’re a very lucky situation to be in our jobs and having a player like Nikola that’s obviously so special.”