The Denver Nuggets are supposed to be in win-now mode with lots of urgency to compete for another championship during the prime of Nikola Jokic. Because of that, Wednesday’s trade sending Peyton Watson to the Cleveland Cavaliers raised a lot of eyebrows and questions in the Mile High.
Trading your fourth-leading scorer from last season, who is on the rise, for draft picks doesn’t necessarily signal being all-in. As a result, the rest of the league will be closely watching what the Nuggets do next and how the 2026-27 campaign goes.
One of those teams, according to insider Anthony Irwin, is the Los Angeles Lakers, who he seemed to hint at being dead-set on the possibility of landing Jokic to team up with fellow superstar Luka Doncic.
“All I’ll say is if/when the Lakers get their ownership situation figured out, a lot of the organization’s eyes are going to be dead-set on Denver,”
The 31-year-old Jokic has two years remaining on the five-year, $276,122,630 contract extension he signed with the Nuggets back in 2022, which includes a player option following the 2026-27 campaign. He averaged 27.7 PPG, 10.7 APG, and 12.9 RPG in 65 games played this past season.
Jokic and Doncic are known to be very close friends, and the idea of pairing the two up on the same team in Los Angeles is tantalizing.
There is still time for Denver to make a move and bolster its roster heading into next season, and even if it doesn’t, the Nuggets very well could still contend in the Western Conference led by Jokic and Jamal Murray.
That said, if the opposite happens and things begin to crumble, there’s no doubt teams around the NBA will be calling to see what the plan is with Jokic, and the Lakers will absolutely be at the forefront of that.
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