Goodbye, chaos. Hello, championship?

With heads no longer stuck in their … feelings, the Nuggets again have their eyes on the prize.

“Trying to win another championship,” guard Jamal Murray said.

That’s a refreshing change from a Denver team that wasted too much of last season just trying to get to tomorrow, while hating how one frustrating day melted into the next.

“I hate saying it like I’m a cheerleader, but it’s also the vibe,” said Nuggets coach David Adelman, describing the intangibles that define a champion. “It’s not just the X’s and O’s. Are you happy to be here?”

Change is hard, especially when it requires scrubbing the locker room walls from a culture that had grown stale and moldy.

But don’t take my word for it. Ask three-time MVP Nikola Jokic, whose chest had no choice except to grow enormous to house his caring heart.

After being eliminated from the postseason by Oklahoma City, Joker was  forced to say farewell to a band of dear basketball brothers. Michael Porter Jr., DeAndre Jordan, Russell Westbrook, Dario Saric and Vlatko Cancar. All gone.

“There’s a bunch of my friends who left: DJ, Russ, Vlatko, Dario,” Jokic joked. “So I need to find some new friends.”

Don’t you fret, Big Honey.

After an extreme makeover of Denver’s roster with the additions of Cam Johnson, Jonas Valanciunas, Bruce Brown and Tim Hardaway Jr., Jokic is now hanging out with a much higher grade of people to help win him another championship ring.

“Your best players have to demand what the vibe will be daily,” Adelman said. “They can’t go into their shell and only worry about how they’re doing throughout the season. They have to manage the team as much as I do.”

Within moping distance of quick and merciful elimination from the NBA playoffs last spring, the Nuggets abruptly fired Michael Malone, the best coach in franchise history.

Truth be known, what that group needed was a shrink, not a coach.

When Westbrook was good, he conjured misty-colored memories of his former MVP self. But when Captain Chaos was bad, he was horrid. And grumpy.

Aaron Gordon bravely muddled through after the tragic death of his brother, while the family strife in Michael Porter Jr.’s life wrapped his feathery jump shot in a wet blanket.

From November through May, the mostly cloudy weather with a chance of meatballs that swirled around Murray’s up-and-often-down performance never really changed.

Maybe worse of all, the rocky relationship between general manager Calvin Booth and Malone was as cringy as binging back-to-back-to-back episodes of Dr. Phil.

The lesson to be learned from a team that spent too much of last season feeling sorry for itself?

“We can’t let little stuff derail us,” Murray said.

Adelman was more blunt: “The second that things become cliquey in life, things suck. We have to make sure we’re not that group.”

When Hardaway and Brown sat side-by-side in front of microphones at the dais during media day, it was a stark reminder of why the poor work of Booth made Malone mad enough to call a rage timeout while watching the Denver bench blow yet another lead.

Between them, Brown and Hardaway have amassed nearly two full decades of NBA wisdom, not to mention more airline miles than some United Airlines pilots. They will make Adelman’s first full season as a head coach infinitely easier, from the court to the team bus and all points in between.

Brown chased the bag out of Denver after winning a championship in 2023. Two years later, he discovered that the money is nice, but the grass isn’t always green. So he happily took the veteran minimum salary and returned to a city where he feels at home wearing a cowboy hat and has Jokic on his side.

“Perfect fit for me,” Brown said.

A Denver bench that was living on a prayer is now stocked with pros’ pros.

Maybe the biggest addition of all?

A big, burly and furry Lithuanian bear named Valanciunas.

This bear doesn’t dance.

“I never back down from the contact. I never back down from the physical play. … Toughness is probably the most developed skill of me,” said Valanciunas, who has scored more than 12,000 points and inflicted almost as many bruises since entering the league back in 2012.

Yes, Jokic is one of the 10 greatest NBA players of all time.

And Gordon is the team’s ever-lovin’ soul man.

But this Jonas dude, quick with a joke and quicker to smote a defender in the post, has a real shot to be your newest favorite Denver player.

At age 33, Valancuinas still possesses the rebounding and scoring skills that will allow Joker to rest in peace on the bench.

Go ahead and buy his replica Nuggets jersey, provided it’s available in anything less than size XXXXL. Need somebody to vouch to Valancuinas before you fork over the money?

“He’s qualified to be my friend,” Jokic said.

The wise guys from Las Vegas have proclaimed Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his young Thunder mates as nearly prohibitive favorites to repeat as NBA champs.

I play the stock market rather than flushing money on sports wagers, because the Vegas Strip was built on fools who don’t know better.

So take this as nothing more than my two cents:

The current odds on the Nuggets winning the championship stand at +850.

There are no guarantees in life or basketball.

But I wouldn’t bet against Denver and OKC squaring off in another steel-cage match next spring.

This time, Joker will be bringing along his new friend Jonas as his tag-team partner.

The Thunder doesn’t want that smoke.