Keeler: Nuggets matched Rockets for ‘best summer’ of any NBA team, Charles Barkley says

Charles Barkley knows what you did this summer, Jon Wallace and Ben Tenzer. And he loves it.

“I think (the Nuggets) and the Houston Rockets have probably had the best summers (in the NBA),” Barkley, the longtime hoops analyst/icon, told me last Saturday night at Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center.

“And (the Nuggets), they’ve got the best player in the world (in Nikola Jokic). They just needed some more depth. They kind of broke the team up after they won the first championship (2023), and that’s really unfortunate. (They’ve) still got the best player. You want to give them as many opportunities as possible. But I thought they had a great summer.”

Barkley, the hoops Hall of Famer and unfiltered co-host of the best studio show this century, “Inside The NBA,” which moves to ESPN this fall, flew into town to serve as keynote speaker at Saturday’s Porter-Billups Leadership Academy (PBLA) Gala.

A weekend getaway to Denver ticked off a bunch of boxes for The Chuckster: An excuse to visit an old friend in Chauncey Billups, a window to play some golf at altitude, and a chance to support a great cause in the PBLA — a summer academy at Regis University that provides academic and leadership training to students in underserved communities in Denver.

Billups, aka Mr. Big Shot, is co-executive director of the PBLA along with his old coach at CU, Ricardo Patton. It was established in 1996 by Regis men’s basketball coach Lonnie Porter and his daughter, Staci Porter-Bentley, as a launch pad for Front Range hopes and dreams.

And speaking of Denver dreams, Chuck, did the Nuggets land enough lightning for Nikola Jokic to run with the Thunder in 2026?

“They probably had the best chance of beating OKC (in the playoffs),” Barkley replied. “So it’s not like they were that far off. But like I say, them and the Rockets have both had great summers. So that’s all you can say until they start playing.

“I thought, in no particular order, the Nuggets, the Rockets (and) the Hawks, those three teams had the best summers.”

What a difference a new front office makes. Former Nuggets GM Calvin Booth gambled two years ago that a handful of young players would turn the same corner Christian Braun did. That they’d morph into a cost-effective second unit to balance pricey contract extensions for franchise mainstays Jamal Murray ($46.4 million cap hit in ’25-26), Aaron Gordon ($22.8 million) and the Joker ($55.2 million).

Yeah, that didn’t happen. Booth and coach Michael Malone clashed, sewing the seeds of contention that got both fired this past April and forcing Nuggets ownership to re-assess. Out of the ashes came a new coach (David Adelman), new co-GMs/vice presidents (Wallace and Tenzer), and, most importantly, a roster-shifting trade that got Michael Porter Jr.’s $38.3 million cap hit for ’25-26 and $40.8-million hit for ’26-27 off the books.

MPJ and a draft pick were shipped to the Nets earlier this month, bringing back a similarly-skilled but less expensive wing forward in Cam Johnson ($21.06 million in ’25-26). That, in turn, opened up cap space for the Nuggets to trade for center Jonas Valanciunas, sign 3-point specialist Tim Hardaway Jr., and re-up with Bruce Brown, a vital, popular cog of the ’23 NBA champs.