{"id":864978,"date":"2026-08-23T01:14:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T01:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864978\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T01:14:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T01:14:27","slug":"nuggets-notes-watson-trade-jokic-offseason-derozan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864978\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets Notes: Watson Trade, Jokic, Offseason, DeRozan"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Serbia defeated France in an exhibition contest on Thursday, Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic<\/a> was asked for his reaction to the Peyton Watson<\/a> sign-and-trade and for his expectations for the upcoming season, per Miroslav Cuk of DNVR Nuggets and ONE (Twitter video link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy for Peyton, he deserved it,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cWe will miss his energy and skill. I\u2019m not thinking about season yet, we have to play this (two August qualifying games for the 2027 World Cup), but it\u2019s gonna be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Zach Kram of ESPN<\/a> acknowledges the Nuggets\u2019 luxury tax payment would have exorbitant if they had signed Watson to the four-year, $88MM deal he received from Cleveland, and says the draft assets Denver received prevented the deal from being an \u201cunmitigated disaster,\u201d Kram gave the Nuggets a \u201cD\u201d grade for their part in the five-team trade.<\/p>\n

As Kram writes, Denver will sorely miss Watson\u2019s youth, athleticism, defense and upside \u2014 all attributes the team already doesn\u2019t have enough of. While it\u2019s possible the Nuggets could turn the 2031 first-rounder they received from the Cavs into a player down the line, Kram is skeptical that player would be more impactful than Watson and believes Denver would have been better off retaining him.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more on the Nuggets:<\/p>\n

The Watson deal showed ownership\u2019s unwillingness to pay a hefty tax bill, according to Vinny Benedetto of The Denver Gazette<\/a>, who argues the trade will look even worse if the Kroenkes force the front office to shed additional salary using the few draft assets the team has available. As Benedetto observes, Denver\u2019s front office was lauded for the moves it made last summer, which looked good on paper, but ultimately resulted in a first-round playoff exit. A year later, the Nuggets have more or less swapped out Michael Porter Jr.<\/a>, Watson and Dario Saric<\/a> for Cameron Johnson<\/a>, one season of Jonas Valanciunas<\/a>, and a second-round pick. Not exactly an inspiring return, Benedetto writes.
\nMark Kiszla and Paul Klee of The Denver Gazette<\/a> debate whether or not the Nuggets are \u201cwasting\u201d Jokic\u2019s prime years by trading Watson. If the goal was to shed salary, Kiszla believes they would have been better off moving Johnson, who\u2019s six-and-a-half years older than Watson and a worse player (in Kiszla\u2019s view). Klee is less bullish on Watson, but agrees with Kiszla that the team has mismanaged the Jokic era, writing that ownership\u2019s original mistake was letting former head of basketball operations Tim Connelly leave for Minnesota in the 2022 offseason. Both Kiszla and Klee think the Nuggets should be making moves to bolster their roster but instead have gotten worse.
\nOn the Hoops Collective Podcast (YouTube short link<\/a>), Tim MacMahon of ESPN referred to DeMar DeRozan<\/a>\u2018s fit with Denver as \u201cclunky.\u201d MacMahon pointed out that the Nuggets\u2019 options in free agency were limited and said the veteran scorer should help \u201cprop up\u201d what appears to be a lackluster second-unit offense. However, he\u2019s skeptical about DeRozan\u2019s fit with Jokic. \u201cI don\u2019t think you can play DeRozan with Joker because DeRozan needs the ball,\u201d MacMahon said. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t space (the floor). He\u2019s not a cutter. \u2026 And then that duo defensively stinks worse than morning breath after a 12-pack of Coors Light.\u201d
\nKram<\/a> is more optimistic about the signing of DeRozan, especially given the modest cost. While he\u2019s a much different player than Watson and the defensive concerns are certainly valid, Kram writes that DeRozan remains an efficient scorer and underrated play-maker and passer who should help \u201cstabilize the offense\u201d when Jokic or Jamal Murray<\/a> are on the bench.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Serbia defeated France in an exhibition contest on Thursday, Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic was asked for his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,45197,7900,3906,3909,85,75224],"class_list":["post-864978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-cameron-johnson","tag-demar-derozan","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-peyton-watson","tag-sports","tag-tim-connelly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}