2026-27 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

feel like i saw this a while back, but the report that the nuggets offer to watson has been 4/70 with a team option on the last year seems almost constructed to drive him off.

 

He’s as good as gone.

I assume they couldn’t dump Braun onto someone and aren’t fully convinced that Cam Johnson isn’t as good as Watson and can be had on a cheaper deal moving forward.

I mean if they wanted to dump Cam Johnson, you have to believe we’d be trying to bring a third team in to take Jake, Hardy and Knecht.

Watson most probably gets traded, but a team has to absorb him into cap space to help Denver with their luxury tax. While sending adequate draft capital - not sure who could do that right now.

He may be forced to take the QO this season as a result.

 

if he takes his QO, it puts them 8m over the 2nd apron for basically last year's team with bagley and tyus jones instead of valanciunas and thj. they have until the deadline to shed salary, but it's not like there will be greater opportunities, and if they are in that mode, they'll be pretty desperate sellers.

as of now, the path for cleveland is even more difficult than ours in some ways (they have better players on short deals and more picks, but the contracts are bigger and thus harder to absorb). the bucks have a TE big enough to take in a S&T for watson (or kuminga) BUT only 12m in first apron space, so they'd have to shed money in a separate deal to make it work. boston is in a similar boat (big TE, but apron).

charlotte and memphis both have big TEs AND the requisite apron space, but their rosters are super full.

i'm guessing those are the teams to watch in the watson and kuminga moves. they could get cash to cut some of their less desirable players and picks for the space rental. alternatively, i suppose they could step in and take the player for themselves. like, if you're denver, do you take gg jackson for peyton watson? i think i would.

 

yep now that’s an insult of an offer. Look what Kessler went for. That offer was insulting in 1996. s*** Juwan Howard signed for 5 yrs. 80 million back then. And that was considered big money. 4 yrs. 70 million is chumps change in todays NBA.

 

Russell Westbrook was Luzinger high. I remember the documentary before he came to the Lakers. This was coming home. He played on Lebrons all star team with him. The first game it just looked off.

it was the fit Lebron and Westbrook wanted the ball. And Westbrook wasn’t a stand in the corner shooter.

on OKC he was a top 3 point guard. He was extremely athletic and could do things no one saw.

Him Durant and Harden ran into luxury tax. And Clay Bennett wasn’t going to pay all of them like he does today.

so Harden wanted his max and the rest as they say is history. Hello Houston.

Russ balled out but OKC probably should’ve beat Miami that year. He was special.

he played his a** off on OKC against Golden State in 2016 before KD left. just came up short. The man was a beast. And played with passion. Worked so hard. It was great seeing him at the pop out with Kendrick. C walking. He is special 20 20 20 for Nip. A true L.A. icon. UCLA Hall of famer 1st ballot. Thanks Russ for making L.A. proud.

 

Yeah..Brodie had a HOF career, made a lot of bread, on and off the court, a south central hood kid, that made it big; great story.

 

Welp..the Nuggets could pivot to bringing MPJ back. Watson, Braun and the 28FRP should do the trick. That's 63M in expiring contracts with Porter jr and Johnson. I guess the next move, would be trying to move Gordon by the trade deadline.

 

Rich people will always find a way to squeeze the man at the bottom to increase profits. The NBA and owners came up with a plan to limit players earnings. While they say its to help small maket teams it not. Small market teams benefit from the bigger market teams, especially with profit sharing. Owners dont mind not having you its the GM the will get fired if they cant manage the books staying under the tiers. Owners problem switching stars around to avoid supermax contracts. Luka is an example of that. And while Nico took the hit the Owners were right in the mix. Nico only got fired because of the media pressure. Players like Watson, Kuminga dont notice teams wont pay them to be in the upper tiers. They are forcing them to take less. Lebron contract is another example of how players are getting squeezed.

IMO a player taking any form of pay cuts to help a team avoid hits or trying to be loyal without any incentives nuts. If a people with billions are not satisfied why should a man with millions be?