If there’s one thing Josh Kroenke likes to think he understands, it’s championship culture.

The Nuggets’ president proudly boasted his family’s championship capital at an end-of-season press conference Friday that came too soon for many in Denver. The trophy case includes the Nuggets’ 2023 Larry O’Brien Trophy, the Avalanche’s 2022 Stanley Cup and the Los Angeles Rams’ 2021 Super Bowl since the 46-year-old got more involved in the family business. The Avalanche are favorites to add another Cup to the collection, and English soccer club Arsenal is on the verge of winning the Premier League for the first time since 2004.

“If there’s a title or a responsibility that I guess I would give myself that I take very seriously, it would be our chief culture officer. I want to understand the humans behind what’s going on with our teams. I think that’s where you get a real read of how competitive that we’re going to be,” Kroenke said.

“There’s times where the culture of a group of people is a very living, breathing thing.”

While Nuggets fans hyperventilated after a first-round exit against Minnesota, the first time that’s happened with Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray healthy for the playoffs, Kroenke thinks his basketball team’s culture survived a stiff stress test

“The Denver Nuggets absolutely still have that,” Kroenke said.

“Winning is a lifestyle, and I think that group has it. Has it been questioned at times? Absolutely, but their collective resolve of what that group is has been built over a very long period of time. We have the absolute belief that those guys have that drive to go do that. Does it need to be challenged and questioned? Absolutely, but it’s there.”

There are a lot of questions to ponder this offseason. Only a couple have obvious answers. Jokic isn’t going anywhere. At the same press conference a year earlier, Kroenke tossed out the idea of trading Jokic as a possible worst-case scenario if the Nuggets ended up in the second apron salary cap and suffered an untimely injury. He didn’t make the same mistake Friday.

“Everything is going to be on the table – outside of trading Nikola,” Kroenke said. “I should be clear, because my words got twisted in an interesting way last summer.”

David Adelman is also going to be the coach next season, though that decision wasn’t as obvious for many outside of the Ball Arena brain trust. Josh and his father, Stan, made the bold decision to fire the championship-winning coach, Michael Malone, three games shy of the playoffs last season, thrusting Adelman into the coaching spotlight. He earned the job with a pressure-packed 3-0 finish to last regular season, a first-round win over the Clippers in seven games and a seven-game fight against the eventual champion Thunder.

“This isn’t an organization that makes changes like we made last year lightly. We don’t take those decisions lightly,” Kroenke said.

“I have full faith in coach Adelman. I think he coached a hell of a season all things considered.”

There’s not much safety beyond the three-time Most Valuable Player and a young coach heading into his second full season. Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon are the biggest names – and salaries – to monitor once the trade market heats up. Moving on from either won’t be easy. Murray’s coming off his best regular season and arguably worst postseason. Gordon’s become a beloved figure in Denver, but his availability has become an issue for a team that doesn’t have much margin for error.

“My job in this organization is to help make decisions without emotion,” Kroenke said.

There’s help in the form of executive vice president of basketball operations Ben Tenzer and executive vice president of player personnel Jonathan Wallace. It makes for a unique, three-man committee as far as NBA front office’s go.

“We all have a really good relationship, and we work really well together, so it will be a collective group decision on all of those things. We have a great front office group and strategic group,” Tenzer said.

“We’ll look at everything, and we’ll meet, and we’ll talk about it.”

Adelman appreciated the work the group did last offseason. After the Oklahoma City series, the Nuggets thought they needed more shooting. Then came the big trade that sent Michael Porter Jr. and a future first round pick to Brooklyn for Cam Johnson, a move that also allowed Denver some financial flexibility. Free agent signing Tim Hardaway Jr. made an instant impact off the bench and finished third in the Sixth Man of the Year vote after making the second-most 3-pointers in a season in franchise history with 224.

The needs this offseason are different. Adelman pointed out ball-handling and athleticism as skills that need to be addressed to keep the championship window ajar.

“You lose to Minnesota, and it’s a process of honesty,” Adelman said. “You have to look at how you can get better as a team. I think we’ll do that throughout the summer.”

Keeping the core together is another option. Depending on the extent the Nuggets decide to run it back would almost certainly leave the Nuggets in one of the punitive aprons. Denver could also reset its status as a “repeater” team by sitting below the apron for a second consecutive season.

“Everything is on the table. … if we deem running it back the most competitive thing that we can do for the roster, that’s probably what we’re going to be doing,” Kroenke said.

“The smartest teams can figure out how to stay competitive while having to make some of those cutthroat moves at different points in time.”

The penalties of the luxury tax are only worth paying if it’s also purchasing championship contention. That’s something the team president thinks he’s able to identify.

“Sustaining something is very difficult. I think that anybody that hasn’t gone through it may not understand how difficult that might be. I understand it from multiple angles,” Kroenke said before rattling off the championship teams he’s help craft.

“I know what it takes to get there, and I know how difficult it is to sustain that. Going back-to-back and repeating things is very difficult. That’s why so few teams at the professional level are able to do that. We’re constantly trying to take input from different areas and understand how to apply that to maintain the level of excellence that we strive to achieve.”