By locking up Nikola Jokic and Will Barton, the Nuggets continue to trust their own process

The Western Conference became even more stacked this offseason. The Los Angeles Lakers signed LeBron James and the Golden State Warriors added four-time All-Star DeMarcus Cousins to their championship roster.

Instead of looking outside their organization to improve via a trade, the Nuggets’ brass looked inward — dropping around $200 million in combined salary to lock up Nikola Jokic and Will Barton for the next five and four years, respectively.

“Building a winner is a process, to use the term of the moment,” Nuggets president Josh Kroenke said Monday afternoon as Jokic and Barton officially signed their contracts. “And our process is unique to us.”

In one sense, the Nuggets did, in fact, take a unique path this offseason by standing pat. In doing so, they believe they took a step forward.

In response to being asked about James joining the Lakers and the West getting tougher, Kroenke said he “absolutely” thinks the Nuggets can compete in the West because of a relatively unique quality Denver possesses that other star-studded teams don’t.

“The West got tougher. It seems like the West gets tougher every year, so I guess it’s becoming a repetitive theme at this point,” Kroenke said. “We’re not too worried about what anybody else is doing. We’re worried about what we’re doing and our process of winning.

“We started to hit on a few of those things the last couple of years, but one of those things that (president of basketball operations) Tim (Connelly), (general manager) Arturas (Karnisovas), Nuggets coach (Michael) Malone and myself talk about — it’s a very underrated aspect of sports in my opinion — is continuity. These guys have played together for several years now, that’s only going to benefit us.”

As the Lakers, Rockets and other teams around the league try to sign the biggest stars in the league, the Nuggets are relying on chemistry and continuity — along with talent, of course — to compete in the West.

“It’s a relatively young bunch on the whole,” Kroenke said. “Will is now hitting the stage of his career where he is going to be looked at for advice from some of our young players. He’s ready to step up. As Nikola continues to grow, he’s only going to continue to mature as a player, as a person.”

There’s plenty of reason for optimism, too. As Connelly noted on Monday, the Nuggets have been on the up-and-up the last four years — improving their win total from 30 in 2014-15 to 33 the following year, 40 two seasons ago and 46 last year.

“I think we showed ourselves in the last 10 games of last season,” Jokic said, referring to how the Nuggets closed the season by winning seven of their last 10 to miss out on the playoffs by one game. “When the time came for us to win games, we won like seven, eight games in a row. We can win. We can do our stuff. We just need to believe. We just need to believe in the group. I think we showed ourself that we can do our stuff.”

Barton picked up where his teammate left off.

“I feel like with our core group it won’t be that hard to make (the playoffs),” Barton said. “I think we showed the team that we can be. If we just come into training camp and preseason with that mindset that we did at the end of the year and just have it from the beginning to the end, I feel like it won’t be that hard for us.”

This continuity and belief in the core group that the Nuggets currently possess helped both Barton and Jokic’s contract negotiations go relatively smooth.

“Once we started figuring out that we all kind of really wanted to buckle down and keep this thing going forward, keep this train moving, I think it became a very easy discussion and fluid process to bring these guys back,” Kroenke said.

Now that the deals are locked up, the team’s eyes are now set on their goal for next year: Making the playoffs.

Last season, as the Colorado Avalanche, made the playoffs, Jokic saw their playoff sweaters at Pepsi Center.

“Our jersey is supposed to be there,” he thought. “We’re supposed to go there. That’s our goal. We are going to try to win more games.”

The selling point on this Nuggets team is easy — a young, talented core that the organization just invested $200 million into.

They believe their path to success is from within.