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Nikola Jokic #15 and Jamal Murray #27 of the Denver Nuggets

The writing appears to be clearly on the wall for the current version of the Denver Nuggets after their massive flame-out against a battered Timberwolves team, and the team has some choices to make from here. Denver can continue to let things play out, let star center Nikola Jokic continue to move into his early and mid-30s surrounded by much the same cast he has now, or the franchise could do something bold and drastic, even if it causes some short-term pain.

The Nuggets should trade star point guard Jamal Murray, and they should do so this offseason as he is coming off his best overall season, a healthy year in which he made an All-Star team, averaged a career-high 25.4 points and shot 48.1% from the field and 43.5% from the 3-point line.

Murray’s outstanding season did not get the Nuggets anywhere in the playoffs, though, and that’s worth noting. He’s likely pushed his value to its peak. With Denver dealing with luxury-tax pressure and clearly in need of a roster shake-up around Jokic, trading away Murray–who has three years and $160 million on the books still–might be the best way to reset the team around Jokic.

Nuggets Can Make Trades, But Jamal Murray Is the Big Move

That’s the view of one Western Conference executive who isn’t quite sure how the Nuggets can avoid catastrophe in the near future. But, he said, talk of trading Cam Johnson or the oft-injured Aaron Gordon won’t get Denver very far.

“You’re not going to change the roster, make a big improvement, by trading Cam Johnson,” the exec said. “The guy who has value right now is Murray, and if they move him, they can start making real changes with how that team operates. You can get better role players around Jokic. You can reset, get draft picks. It’s a difficult thing, but that is where your value is, so you have to explore what you can get back.

“The Nuggets are in a no-man’s land and they need a seismic kind of move to get them out.”

Time to Keep Nikola Jokic Happy

The problem for the Nuggets is that their future is beginning to take the shape of other teams that were built around aging stars whose supporting cast fell apart after a Finals run. It happened with Jimmy Butler in Miami and with Giannis Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee, the exec said. The franchises were not proactive enough in changing the roster around the stars.

And Butler eventually forced his way out of Miami. Antetokounmpo appears poised to do the same with the Bucks. There’s no indication that Jokic will do the same in Denver, but if the Nuggets fail to retool aggressively this offseason–and that means selling high on pieces like Murray–they could find themselves in the same situation with Jokic.

After all, it was not long ago that Antetokounmpo and the Bucks appeared unlikely to ever part.

Said the executive: “They need to clear out everything they can, fast.

“When a team gets to this point, it usually gets worse before it gets better, and that includes the star. Think of Miami with Jimmy Butler, think of the Bucks and Giannis, Ja Morant in Memphis. They don’t need to trade Joker but they need to get aggressive and change things around him now before it gets to that.”