AaronGordon

Preseason question: How much foam can one man roll? This will be Gordon’s sixth full season with the Nuggets, matching the length of his tenure with the Magic. His evolution over that time should be a model for so many talented young players: After reaching for stardom in Orlando, Gordon let go of his leading-man ambitions to fulfill his basketball destiny as Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray’s lob-catching, star-hounding, miracle-working sidekick. In 2026-27, the only thing Gordon has left to prove is that he can stay healthy. He played just 36 games last season and 51 in the season before that, largely due to a string of calf and hamstring strains; he hasn’t suited up for more than nine consecutive regular-season games since the start of 2024-25. Now, after yet another offseason in which a key rotation player departed the Nuggets—this time it was Peyton Watson, depleting the team’s already thin depth at the 4—the integrity of the tendons in Gordon’s legs is essentially a matter of life and death for Denver’s title aspirations.