NBA Fantasy Basketball | Denver Nuggets Season Preview 2025-26 | Jokic Still Reigns Supreme
The Denver Nuggets are on the clock. Nicola Joic has perhaps the best supporting cast around him that he’s ever had. How will this impact the fantasy year for the Denver Nuggets? Let’s check it out. [Music] Hello and welcome back to the Ball Logic podcast. I’m the horse and joining me today is our man behind all of our great articles within our Patreon, Flanders. How you doing, mate? I’m good, mate. Good here and happy to be here, mate. How are you doing? Yeah, fantastic. And you know what? It’s great because we get to talk about the Denver Nuggets and they possess undisputedly, I’d say, for the past 3 to four years, the number one fantasy basketball player in Nicola Joic. You think he still sticks with that rating or can you see the likes of SGA and Wemby taking the crown this year? They will rival him and if you’re punting a lot of punting a few things, I can see Webby being a good pick. SGA probably not as much. He’s definitely two or three, but Jus just does everything and he just he fills a stat sheet and that’s what we want to see 100%. He’s a master of all trades almost. You can go along the lines of a fade blocks even build with your minus ones. If you’re looking at Jokic at one or wherever you get him, I doubt he last he passed two or three. But when we are talking the Denver Nuggets, he is the undisputed leader of that crew. And let’s kick off with how did they go last year? So 50 and 32 last year, fourth place in the West and they were knocked out, weren’t they? Yes. Yeah, knocked out there. They didn’t didn’t seem to last as deep as they probably should have and they they had the capacity to go all the way. You know, Jamal Murray, Jokic and and out there they had MPJ. So, they have the right pieces. They’re just going to piece it together. Yeah, definitely. And they were probably outside of Indiana. You know, it was unfortunate the way that Tyrese went down in game seven, but this series also went to seven games with the Denver Nuggets eventually falling by over 30 points in game seven. So, it wasn’t really that close when we’re talking game sevens and scores and proceeding through to the next round. But what how do you think the signings this season are going to impact the Denver Nuggets? So, we see the likes of Big Jonas from Sacramento coming across who’s proven his worth in points and rebounds in the past. We’ve got Tim Hardaway who’s an absolute flamethrower from three. So you replace almost an MPJ who does the same thing with Tim Hardaway. You get Cam Johnson in, you get Brucey Brown in who we’ve seen has had top 120 upside with the Denver Nuggets in the past. Is that going to happen again? Probably not. But this supporting cast that Jokic and Murray have around them now, they’re as deep as they’ve ever been. Oh, exactly. They didn’t have to build anything. And that’s the that’s the good part about the side there. They had all the key positions they needed to. They just needed to fill in the role players and they they worked that out over their off seasonason. They need to bring people in to support Yic. They have have Murray out there running the point as well. They had everything there, but they brought back in those role players that can help draw the attention away from you for sure. So Bruce Brown can give you points, rebounds, assists, and some steals at times. They’ve got rid of MPJ who was just a flatout flamethrower from outside. And the ball almost stopped when the ball got into his hands. He’s good for points and rebounds, but not much else. but they replace him with Cam Johnson. And there’s been a bit of debate about Cam Johnson. We’ll get into him later as to where he’s ADP and where he’s actually going to stack up. But I’m pretty excited by the addition of Cam Johnson into the Nugget squad. Tim Hardway as well. He’s your three streamer. It’s going to be interesting to see how that rotation goes at the two spot between your Browns and your Bronze and your Hardaways and the likes. So, with that being said, mate, predicted wins. Do you think they better their 50 and 32 record of last year? Yeah. Yeah, I think they they better it not by by a great deal. I still reckon they’re probably going to sit somewhere in that sort of three or four seed next year. Um like they’re just like Lakers Lakers have got Luca. The Rockets are elite with KD and the Thunder are just going to be a mile ahead of everybody else. Um the Clippers are not going to be what they used to be. The T- Wolves were only a game off them last year as well. So, it’s going to be real tight in that mid mid area. Between eight and three, there was one two games. So, it’s a incredibly tight area. So, I reckon they might define themselves as more of a a 34, but that’s Yeah, for me, I think they better it not by much, but I see them being a 52 to 54 win side just given that there’s a little bit more depth there and like even your superstars have off games occasionally. Not that we’ve seen many off games by Jokic, but Murray can go cold from time to time from outside with the ads that they’ve got now with Hardway and Brown and Cam Johnson. There’s more of a load to spread amongst more plays instead of it just being having to be Murray shot creation and Nicola Joic doing everything. They’ve got everyone that can move the ball now. Everyone can score. So, I think they best that. But this is going to lead into our next segment which we call Top Guns. So Top Guns is basically who we think is going to be best for fantasy in the Denver Nuggets in this episode. And Nichol’s still going to be number one just given that it’s points, it’s rebounds, it’s assists, he does everything. 57% from the field, 800 from the line or 80% from the line. He makes two threes a game, almost 30 points, almost 13 rebounds, and almost or just a tick over 10 assists with 1.8 steals. I’ll tell you what, Flanders, is there a more complete basketballer in the NBA for fantasy than Nicola Joic? No. No, there there isn’t. And if I had 101 and was taking somebody, Joic is going to be the guy because I can build whatever is left. The only thing you could punt really is punt turnovers from him at 3.3. But other than that, I’m still pretty happy to a punt turnovers build is a pretty common build anyway, but you can build anything else around him because he’s going to fill every other stat you need. He’s does like for a big man, you’d expect him to be crap at the line, but he’s not. He’s not. No, no, he’s actually pretty good from the line for a big. So when we’re talking fantasy basketball, he’s one of those players that you don’t have to cons you don’t have to consider punting any sort of category. If you select someone like him, he’s pretty good at everything. So for me, he’s number one. But let’s talk about Jamal Murray. So he could be at the pointy end. You know, we’ve got the likes of Lillard and Hallebertton and Tatum who are out for the year. Kyrie Irving as well. Do we now see a shift with Jamal Murray potentially being a top 24 even player in NBA fantasy? I can see him opening up a lot now with his like the ability he obviously had Jokic in the center but you know Michael plus Rock Porter Jr. hanging out on the wing there was not not good for him for his points ability there again he was 21.4 last year you’d happily take that but you know being able to bring his assists up and you know his 1.4 four steals, six assists. I’m I’m pretty high on him being able to do something there. And he’s going to be put around a lot of scoring players. So, to bring those assists up from six, he could bring that into seven, eight, you know, bring the assists up, bring the rebounds up by half a board, you know, a point more a game. I think that’ll scrape him into, you know, 25 20 somewhere there. Yeah, for sure. We talk about Jamal Murray. He has been known to miss a few games from time to time, but 67 games last year. He was 88% from the line and ranked 30th in your minus ones, which means punting one category with fantasy basketball. So with those players out, it probably gives him a prime opportunity now to jump up into the elite in fantasy basketball and be very relevant with who we’re talking about top guns wise. Next, we’re going to talk about our midpriced or mid draft favorites to target. your opportunity. And for me, mate, I think it’s Cam Johnson. So, there’s a lot of talk here with Cam Johnson that he’s not going to get the usage. He’s not going to get the amount of ball which he did at Brooklyn. And I understand what Brooklyn did by feeding him the rock to make him look as good as he possibly could to maximize his trade value. But in a situation like this where Jokic demands so much respect on the defensive end, Murray demands respect, could it be a case of less means more and we get, yeah, it might be less usage, but percentages are better, points might be better, more open looks, more one-on-one opportunities. How do you see this playing out? Yeah, I see there’s a massive upside to Cam Johnson. He was obviously banged up last year and he had 57 games last year. But in those games, he went 18 points, 4.3 boards, 3.4 assists, just under a steal and just under half a block a game. But those percentages at 47 and a half from the line from the field. He went not went nearly 900 from the line from the free throw. So take that and 2.8 threes. I think he has the ability to bring that bring that field goal percentage up. the points will probably stay about where they are, but with the other players that he’s going to have around him, I could see him bringing the assists up, too, which I I like the upside off. There’s no ball stoppers now on that offensive side for Denver. MPJ is gone, replaced by Cam Johnson. And yeah, for sure he could sit out on that wing and hit his corner threes or if they close out, he’s got the ability to dribble drive and create inside or move the ball back around and feed and use or get some more uh points or some more um stats in his assist category. So for that, I like his fantasy upside still. Is he going to be that top 40, top 50 player again with the usage that he had at Brooklyn? Probably not. But I think if you could get him at 60, between 60 and 70, I think you’re getting real value there for Landers. Yeah, if he’s if he slides down there, cuz everybody thinks this is going to be a stack lineup. I think the top end talent’s pretty clear. We’ve gone through that. But this mid-range area, if you can get the right one of them, that’s going to be that guy. You can see massive upside here. You could get these guys 20 spots under ADP, like where they where they should be come final interview rankings. There’s wonderful upside to some of these guys 100%. Someone else I’d like to talk about here and it’s not to try and pump up his value but more to try and deter you at home and that’s Aaron Gordon. So at the back end of last year he was shooting the three ball at over 40%. Before that he was only shooting it at 27%. He played 51 games. So that’s 23 games 33 games that he missed. Sorry. When we’re talking about a player that was ranked 126 on the season and that historically he’s been a bad shooter from outside, this over 40% shooting from three is not going to keep up. So you look at his stats at the back end of last year and go, “Wow, he was shooting at awesome from outside, averaging 1.5 threes at an incredible clip in the last 30 games.” But Aaron Gordon historically, he’s not a very good shooter from outside. So please don’t get sucked into that. Now, his usage isn’t going to be the same either. Look at the guys they’ve brought in. They’ve brought in shooters around Jokic to draw attention to those guys so that they can’t double Joic and they can’t focus more on him. So, Aaron Gordon’s going to be the guy that suffers because there’s going to be usage being dished out to other people. His usage will drop. I’m confident for sure. To the point where I believe that he’s going to be a Streams target and in your top 160 he may be a last one to two round pick. So yeah, be careful not to go too early on him cuz I feel like he might get burnt. Even on minus one, he was only 126 last year and that’s ignoring the games played. That’s just a 126 last year and that’s that’s not the guy. That’s with his hot shooting towards the back end of the year as well. So just be careful there ladies and gentlemen. Let’s get into our sleepers. [Music] Now I want to bring up Christian Brown. Played 79 games last year, 58% from the field, 82 nearly 83% from the line. But you see the inclusions of Brucey and Tim Hardaway Jr. and I can see a three-way share at that two spot going on this season. And what I mean by that is Christian Brown may start, but I don’t think you’re going to see the 30 32minut cheats game. I think it’s going to be more your 25 to 27 minutes. There’ll be a dip in minutes, but then he might be hot one night. Hardway might be hot one night. Brown might get on a run as well. So, I think there’s going to be a three-way share at the two guard there. And for me, there’s no consistency there. And if you look at last year, his minus one rank was 78 69th overall. If you don’t minus one category, I think that’s going to blow out again this year. Yeah. Easy, easy. He’s not he’s not the guy that we all are wanting. Like Cam Johnson gets boards as well. A lot of people don’t factor that in as well. The one of the two there’s three stats here that hashtag basketball say that he is elite in and that is going to be field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and turnovers. By the time you’re getting late in this draft, chances are you’re probably committed to a punt turnover. It’s a pretty common strategy a lot of people are going to go with. So, I’d be happy to let him slide out of if you’re doing, you know, 13 14 rounds, 12 teams, I’d happ, you know, unless I’m trying to actually favor turnovers and go against everybody punting them. That’d be the only thing he really ticks the box for. Again, those minutes, huge problem. But the percentages are nice. If you’ve got guys that are ignoring him and disrespecting him to a degree in the leagues, I don’t mind as a, you know, as a 150 pick maybe, you know, if you can get get him there. But yeah, probably in the hundreds is probably fair value. Yeah, I’m I’m liking him to probably around nine, round 10 sort of pick when we’re talking what was he 68th last year. That’s too early for me this year. There are much better options, especially with the ins that the Denver Nuggets have this year. So just be wary not to go too early on him. But other sleepers, Tim Hardaway, you’re looking at a three streamer there. I wouldn’t pick him up in any sort of draft format unless you’re in a 20man league that goes 200 deep or whatever it might be. Uh you’re looking at Brucey Brucey Brown as well who’s back in his first stint with Denver. There were times where he was inside the top 100 with his points, his rebounds, his assists, his percentages, his defensive work as well. How do you think he’s going to go? Yeah, I I think he could be he could be elite again. He’s he’s back, you know, big Brucey Brown big big fan of what he can do, but it’s just not going to be the same. They’ve got a lot of lot of other names in there. He’s Christian Brown probably took over his role when he departed anyway. So unless he feels that he can kick that kick that role, it’s not really it’s not really a spot for him now. He is a bench rotation. I think you’re on I think you’re on with that one. So with that being said, let’s talk about the starting five and how do you believe the Denver Nuggets are going to roll out game one season 202526. I think if anything this is going to be one of the easiest teams to predict here. Murray Brown, Cam Johnson, Aaron Gordon, Joic. I think given everything there um I think the only thing that probably again more of a long-term thing is going to be the risk of Jokic getting less minutes with Valuna making his way into this team. That’s how I reckon they’ll start the five. What is your thoughts there? Because there is some guys here could break in. Yeah, I I think you’re right. I think it goes Jokic at the one, Murray at the point, Gordon at the power forward, Cam Johnson at the three, and then Christian Brawn at the two, uh Valencia Ununas backup center minutes, Brucey Brown, that backup shooting guard, small forward, can even play a little bit of point. Doesn’t really fill me with a lot of confidence at the point though. Tim Hardaway as your three streamer, but then you’ve also got the likes of Payton Watson who showed a bit on the defensive end last year. So depthwise at the Denver Nuggets, this is as good as they’ve ever been. So with wins-wise, and do I think they’ll be relevant this year? Yes. I think they’re going to be very relevant. And when you look at the Celtics who are injury ravaged and now almost punting wins, you’ve got Indiana with the Achilles injury to Hallebertton and Miles Turner being on the move in and around the league. Yeah, they’re in the East, but overall there’s only really three or four teams that are really sticking out in the East and the West combined, and Jokic can make anything happen. We’ve seen that in the past. Yep. Yep. I would yeah having I think having 101 is a great pick this year. Um because I I think I’m going to be taking the go kit. I’m prefer the all round build. I’ll leave Melly and Matrix to keep their punting to themselves. I’ll uh take the all round build and then I’ll build the team from there. I much rather start punting towards the back end. At least I know Yokic not committed to the punt. I think it’s pretty important that you go into your fantasy seasons with an open mind and not have a rock solid set plan because we know when you’re drafting in and amongst 10, 12, 14, 16, 20 people that your plans can go out the window at the drop of a hat. So, in order for you to be best prepared here at the Ball Logic podcast, we are going to be running mockdrafts every week here. DM us below. The link is down below in the description. and let us know if you’d like to be a part of those mock drafts. We’re all about getting the community involved so you can test your theories and your plans as to how you want to attack your NBA fantasy season. But for now, this is the Denver Nuggets on the horse. This is Flanders. It’s been 20 minutes of quality content about the Denver Nuggets. And we’ll catch you soon where we get into the Detroit Pistons. We’ll see you then.
Join Horse and Flanders as the boys talk through the Denver Nuggets ahead of the 2025-26 season. Can Nikola Jokic remain the Number 1 Player in NBA Fantasy Basketball? Will Jamal Murray become a top 25 player overall?
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