Before the season started, the Denver Nuggets signed Christian Braun to an extension, but not Peyton Watson. The team didn’t want to enter the second luxury tax, so Watson would have to become a restricted free agent this summer. Denver can match any offer the 23-year-old receives from other teams, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be on his way out.
This is yet another unfortunate aspect of the collective agreement: teams that enter the second apron face several severe sanctions, such as the inability to consolidate salaries across trades and the inability to trade first-round picks seven years later.
The Nuggets currently sit $2.9 million below the first fiscal apron and $14.7 million below the second apron. However, next season they are only expected to amount to $1.2 million. below the second apron, so extending Watson would put them above that.
As a fan, you should want to see Watson stick around beyond this season, considering how he stepped up and played through a few injury-plagued months. He’s scored 20-plus points in his last three games, finishing with 23 on 8-of-14 shooting Sunday.
CBA could push Nuggets to let Peyton Watson go
Watson is averaging a career-high 11.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.0 steals and 0.9 blocks in 27.9 minutes per game, shooting 50.3 percent from the field and 35.6 percent from three. He started 23 of the 33 games he played.
Restricted free agency this past offseason was painfully slow, but this summer there will be more teams with available cap space. Denver could sit back and wait to see what offers Watson receives, or the front office could opt to not let him get to that point and trade him before the February deadline. At the very least, teams should inquire about Watson before the deadline, knowing his situation.
The Nuggets are stuck between a rock and a hard place with Watson, not wanting to let him go. As Ben Tenzer said during media day, he hoped Watson and Braun would stay in Denver for a long time.
However, you can’t outrun the ABC. This makes life more difficult for NBA front offices, with one of the biggest drawbacks being that teams can’t always keep their draft picks due to financial restrictions. You’d think the league would make it easier, but here we are.
This is by no means to say that the Nuggets are actively trying to trade Watson in the next month, but this outcome wouldn’t be that surprising, given the reality of the situation. Either way, this could very well be his last few months in Denver, but you already knew that.
