Jokic, whose indifference to the media and brand-building have earned him the “anti-superstar” tag from teammates, pondered his budding future aloud. “I’d love to be like Tim Duncan in San Antonio,” he told team president Tim Connelly, eyeing the low-profile legend’s single-city staying power.

That Jokic would dare to dream like this is a sign of immense progress — both for himself and the Nuggets. After its past two seasons each ended one win short of the playoffs, Denver has elevated above the West’s bubble and commenced what should be a long era of winning. But the bar for success always moves upward, with playoff success trumping all. Instead of again being cast as the team that couldn’t make the playoffs, the Nuggets have seamlessly morphed into the playoff team many seem to think will get bounced early. Fittingly, their first test will come against the team Jokic revered: the Spurs.

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Although the Nuggets claimed the West’s second seed and are one of just eight teams to reach 50 wins, their youth, inexperience and lack of perimeter star power make them ripe for skeptics. There are some obvious red flags, including a 2-6 combined record against the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets, with all six losses by double digits. They went 20-21 on the road — a cut below many top contenders — and have struggled with late-season offensive inconsistency, going 5-6 over their final 11 games. In a high-profile matchup with the Warriors last week, Jokic was neutralized and his supporting cast floundered.

“The cynicism is fair,” Connelly said during a recent telephone interview. “We haven’t been to the playoffs in five years. We don’t know how we’re going to respond when the lights are brighter. Internally, we’re very confident. We’ve set ourselves up to make some real noise. We’re respectful of the playoffs being a different game, but we feel like we can beat anybody.”

The Nuggets will be the youngest team in this year’s postseason field, but their first-round series, above all else, will be a referendum on the NBA’s least visible superstar. San Antonio stars DeMar DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge are older and possess more postseason experience, but Jokic should be the best player in the series.

An all-NBA lock, Jokic averaged a career-high 20.1 points, 10.8 rebounds and 7.3 assists while ranking in the top five for player efficiency rating and real plus-minus. The Serb averaged more assists than any center since Wilt Chamberlain in 1968, and his quality is as impressive as the quantity. He threads the needle through heavy traffic, drops dimes into empty space and tosses perfectly timed outlets, sometimes without looking. He can whip the ball cross-court like LeBron James and uncover obscured angles like Rajon Rondo, and his unselfishness is the driving force behind Denver’s top-10 offense.

There are many other enticing layers to Jokic’s game. He has improved as a scoring threat, becoming a more efficient finisher and honing a soft, confident touch from inside 15 feet. On the other end, he is one of the NBA’s most productive defensive rebounders and has progressed as a back-line defender despite a massive frame that limits his lateral quickness and mobility. With Jokic stepping into a more active role, Denver has jumped from 29th to 11th in defensive efficiency over the past two years.

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Yet those developments are often overshadowed by knee-jerk concerns over his sheer size. Jokic is bigger and slower than most NBA centers, and the West’s elite teams have picked apart other 7-footers. Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert, for one, fell victim to the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets in successive postseasons. What chance does Jokic stand if the reigning defensive player of the year can’t hold up against the smaller and more versatile lineups that dominate playoff basketball?

The Nuggets, understandably, bristle at this suggestion.

“It’s a lazy narrative to denigrate what [Jokic] has done and not see how it translates,” Connelly said. “I question how many of these critics have watched a whole game. He’s a prime example of being judged aesthetically. He doesn’t look like a superstar and doesn’t play above the rim, but his game is playoff-ready. He can post up, hit threes, play from the elbow, handle the ball in pick and rolls, finish off pick and rolls. He is the best passer in our league, regardless of position. He has always rebounded. Those things are important in playoff basketball.”

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While Jokic is only beginning to view himself as a foundational piece, the Nuggets began reorienting their roster-building around him during the 2016-17 season after it became clear the former second-round pick was their centerpiece. Front-office meetings about possible personnel moves opened with the same question: How would this help or hurt Nikola?

The Nuggets identified shooting guard Gary Harris as a keeper, given his comfort moving off the ball. They pursued veteran forward Paul Millsap in free agency, believing that his defensive versatility would make Jokic’s life easier. They paid to keep forward Will Barton, viewing his shot-creation as a roster blind spot. And they gave the keys to point guard Jamal Murray, a smooth shooter with star potential who should be a lethal long-term partner for their big man.

The result is a balanced group that has been good offensively and defensively but hasn’t quite sustained greatness. Despite disruptive injuries to Harris, Barton and Millsap, the Nuggets have shown impressive and jubilant flashes: a 9-1 start, a seven-game winning streak near Thanksgiving and six-game winning streaks beginning in late January and mid-March.

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Even though their potential shortcomings are plain to see, the Nuggets’ case to advance in the playoffs is straightforward. They boast the NBA’s best home record, and they share the ball better than everyone but the Warriors. In a surprising twist given their youth, they also rank among the NBA’s five best clutch teams and have posted a sparkling 30-15 record in games that were within five points in the last five minutes.

“When we play for each other, we’re a really, really good team,” Coach Michael Malone said. “When we play with each other, we’re just an average team. When everybody is touching [the ball] and everybody is involved, therein lies the joy.”

The good vibes were on full display when the Nuggets clinched their playoff berth with a March win in Boston. In the locker room afterward, they doused Malone with water and gleefully jumped around.

Connelly, meanwhile, reacted to the milestone like a spent cowboy at the end of an all-night shootout in a Western movie. The hurt from the previous season’s near miss still hadn’t faded, and he was at home with his wife and children recovering from an eight-day scouting trip. After rounds of congratulatory calls and text messages, though, the feeling of accomplishment kicked in. The executive, who got his start as a Washington Bullets intern in the mid-1990s, could look back on the long road to the milestone.

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When he was hired away from the then-New Orleans Hornets at 36 to run the Nuggets, Connelly wrongly assumed he was inheriting a surefire playoff team. Instead, he spent his first few seasons coping with the departures of executive Masai Ujiri, coach George Karl and forward Andre Iguodala. The Nuggets never took to Brian Shaw, who was fired after less than two years as coach, and fell to last in home attendance.

“My first couple games here four years ago, we didn’t have that [many] fans,” Jokic dryly noted after a home win last week. “Right now, we have a lot of fans. It’s kind of cool.”

Denver’s boss was left battling feelings of what he called “self-doubt” and “insecurity” as he sought a clearer direction. Malone’s arrival helped establish a more accountable culture, setting the stage for Jokic’s franchise-altering breakthrough.

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“We were approaching rock bottom,” said Connelly, a Baltimore native whose name has surfaced as a possible candidate in the Washington Wizards’ ongoing front-office search. “We got caught in between, trying to keep one foot in the playoff picture and one foot out while we were trying to develop. That was misplaced optimism on my part. We were brutally honest with our missteps, and it was liberating to acknowledge we weren’t hitting the mark. The greatest thing I’ve learned is that patience is rewarded much more than trying to skip steps.”

Framed this way, the gloomy playoff prognostications seem off-base or overstated. In the long view, Jokic’s growth and the collective rise of his young supporting cast are far more meaningful developments than the possible fallout from a first-round loss.

The Nuggets might have blitzed their way into inflated expectations, but they are still playing with house money.