The NBA offseason is coming to a rapid close and the Denver Nuggets still have a lot of unanswered questions. 

The Nuggets didn't promise to have a particularly active offseason, with the front office even declaring their intentions to run it back" with as much of the roster from this past season as possible, but even that hasn't come to fruition quite yet and the Nuggets need to step up their pursuit of free agents lest they miss out on the very players they planned on bringing back for next season.

There are three vacant spots on the Nuggets roster for next season and true to the spirit of the Nuggets "running it back," their three major targets could likely be players that all wore Denver colors in 2025-26. 

Bruce Brown Jr. was a newcomer to the Nuggets this past season, signing a one-year, $3 million deal after a season with the New Orleans Pelicans. Brown wasn't an impact starter by any means, but he had the benefit of a quality that escaped the majority of the Nuggets roster: health.

Brown Jr. played all 82 games in the 2025-26 season, starting four, proving a steady presence off the bench to supplement the Nuggets' back court needs. With Christian Braun out for most of the season and Jamal Murray out for periodic stints, Brown became a crucial player to address the deficits that the Nuggets were dealing with.

He was on an affordable contract for Denver this past season and a slight dip in his production with Denver compared to previous seasons of his career could mean that the Nuggets could bring him back for a very similar price and leave them with a lot more flexibility in their cap space while keeping a major role player on board. 

The many injuries that the Nuggets faced forced a lot of different players to step up to a starting role when they otherwise may have expected to simply be role players coming off the bench and Spencer Jones was one of those elevated cases. 

Jones started 37 of the 64 games he played in his sophomore season with the Nuggets, averaging 5.5 points, 0.8 assists and 3.3 rebounds in 22.1 minutes per game, often being the go-to guy when Aaron Gordon was sidelined with injuries.

While he didn't take a breathtaking leap in production in his elevated role, he did show the kind of promise that the Nuggets would be smart to invest in going forward. 

Jones is a restricted free agent, so even though he's publicly stated that he's been speaking with other teams, the Nuggets should still have strong negotiating power to bring him back for another run, if on a more expensive contract that the $623,000 that he was making with his rookie contract this past season.

Undoubtedly the biggest free agent target for the Nuggets, one that they publicly declared would be their priority, is Peyton Watson. 

Like Jones, Watson was given big spotlight after taking on a starting role to fill in for the often-injured Cameron Johnson and the impression he gave during that opportunity is clearly a lasting one. 

Before his season was cut short by an injury of his own, Watson was averaging 14.6 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.1 blocks per game, all career-highs, to seriously put himself on the map and make him one of the most valuable free agents left on the market, especially to the Nuggets.