That comes straight from their championship coach, Michael Malone.

“(GM Calvin Booth) and his staff, I’m sure, are fielding phone calls. But I can’t imagine we’re actively calling many teams right now,” Malone said, via Bennett Durando of the Denver Post. “Are we satisfied? No. I think you always have to be responsible enough to look within and say, ‘Hey, can we do anything that makes us better?’ That’s always a question you have to ask. But knowing Calvin and the brief conversations we’ve had, there is nothing where Calvin’s on the phone, burning up the phone lines to 29 other teams.”

The Nuggets are still a major threat to emerge from the Western Conference. In fact, five rival GMs contacted by Hoops Wire all predicted the Nuggets to repeat as champs behind the likes of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and the rest.

The Nuggets (25-16) are just a half-game behind the Oklahoma City Thunder in the super-tight Western Conference race for the No. 1 seed.

So yes, there is always a possibility for a deal. There is always a way to get a little bit better. But when you’re the defending champs, you often just stay the course.

“You never know what kind of phone call you’ll get,” Malone said. “That’s the crazy thing as next Thursday approaches. This is a weird business. Strange things happen. But I love the group in that locker room. I love where we’re at. And more importantly, I think we really have another level we can get to.”

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Nuggets could reportedly bring back 1 unlikely player at trade deadline

With the trade deadline looming, the defending NBA champions might be keen on reuniting with [checks notes] a five-point-per-game scorer.

Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer wrote this week in his latest column that the Denver Nuggets are considering bringing back veteran guard Monte Morris, currently with the Detroit Pistons, in a trade. O’Connor notes that Denver is need of a backup off the bench.

The 28-year-old Morris obviously isn’t a flashy name. But he is still pretty well-loved in Denver, having been a homegrown Nugget who spent the first five seasons of his career with them. Granted, Morris was not on Denver’s championship team last season since he was traded as part of the package for fellow guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in 2022. But he averaged 10.5 points and 3.7 assists a game in his Nuggets career (including as a starter when Jamal Murray was out with a torn ACL in 2021-22) and is very familiar with the way that head coach Michael Malone runs things.

Morris, who is down to 4.5 points per game in an extremely limited role for the bottom-feeding Pistons this year, has some juice as a playmaker and can direct a second unit better than score-first guard Reggie Jackson (Murray’s current backup). He will be a free agent after the season and may be worth the reunion call from the Nuggets, especially with his knack for clutch play.