And sure enough, one summer later, we are seeing that same crunch come for other teams. The Thunder haven\u2019t even had their big star extensions kick in yet, and they\u2019ve already had to salary dump Lu Dort, Isaiah Joe, and Aaron Wiggins this summer, but we\u2019re really seeing the aprons and the tax come for the Nuggets.<\/p>\n
Nuggets in major trouble thanks to financial crunch<\/p>\n
The Nuggets have kept their big three of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon together as long as anyone, but they\u2019re starting to pay the price. The team is right up against the second apron with just nine rostered players. They\u2019ve already lost multiple key bench players in free agency, and they have Peyton Watson and Spencer Jones unsigned in restricted free agency.<\/p>\n
And while they could just pay everyone and go way over the apron, that would leave them in a spot to make no moves, with a roster that may not even be good enough to contend, and with a tax bill that would be well into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Not happening.<\/p>\n
So you\u2019re seeing teams poach away their talent piece by piece, with OKC signing Jones to an offer sheet on Saturday that will be tough for Denver to match<\/a>. They still need to figure out a plan for Watson and will likely have to dump a starter like Cam Johnson <\/a>just to make the money work.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a dire situation and one that could spell doom for the rest of the Jokic era. They don\u2019t have a lot of options now, and while in many ways they\u2019ve mismanaged assets and should have planned better, it\u2019s largely a result of the current CBA, which is something the Celtics know all too well. People got mad at Brad Stevens for getting out in front of it, but as the years go by and teams get torn apart with no rebuilding plan, Stevens and the Celtics are only going to look smarter.<\/a><\/p>\n
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