DENVER — Nuggets President and Governor Josh Kroenke announced today that Denver has extended the contracts of President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly and General Manager Arturas Karnisovas as well and also provided multi-year extensions for the entire basketball operations staff.
“It gives me immense pride to announce contract extensions for our entire front office, as our journey to this point has been one of hard work, patience and trust in one another,” stated Kroenke. “When Tim joined us in 2013, he understood the vision that we had for the future of the Nuggets, and through his dedication our program is incredibly well positioned to compete at the highest level for years to come. Building a true championship contender in the NBA is a unique process for each franchise, and our path in Denver hasn’t always been clear. But Tim, Arturas and the rest of our staff continued to work through every challenge we faced along the way, and I hope Nuggets fans are as excited as we are about our future. We firmly believe we can bring an NBA championship to Denver, and are thrilled to continue our pursuit together.”
Connelly joined the Nuggets in the summer of 2013 as General Manager after spending the previous 17 years in various front office roles with the Washington Wizards and New Orleans Hornets. Karnisovas also joined Denver as Assistant General Manager in 2013 after spending five years with the Houston Rockets front office and the previous four years with the NBA league office after his illustrious overseas playing career.
Under Connelly and Karnisovas’s watch, Denver drafted franchise centerpiece Nikola Jokić in the second round with the 41st overall pick, and the Sombor, Serbian native was recently named to his first All-Star game as a reserve this season. They also drafted point guard Monte Morris with the 51st overall pick in 2017, turning his two-way contract into a guaranteed contract prior to this season which has seen the second-year guard lead the NBA in assist-to-turnover ratio. Connelly and Karnisovas selected starting shooting guard Gary Harris at 19th overall in 2014 as well as starting point guard Jamal Murray (7th overall) and Malik Beasley (19th overall) in the 2016 NBA draft. They also signed four-time All-Star Paul Millsap to a free agent contract in the summer of 2017 and converted undrafted free-agent Torrey Craig’s two-way contract to a guaranteed deal after bringing him over from the Australian Basketball League prior to the 2017-18 season.
Additionally, Denver has improved on their win total by 16 wins since the 2014-15 season, one of just three teams in the NBA to increase their win total in each of the last three seasons (Minnesota and Boston). This season Denver is off to their best record in franchise history through 57 games (39-18) and is on pace to improve their record for a fourth consecutive year.
Connelly and Karnisovas are joined in the front office by Assistant General Manager Calvin Booth, Director of Basketball Operations Ben Tenzer, Director of Basketball Strategy & Analytics Tommy Balcetis, Director of Scouting Jim Clibanoff and Manager of Player Personnel Scott Howard.
