{"id":15873,"date":"2025-07-22T16:50:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T16:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/15873\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T16:50:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T16:50:14","slug":"jonas-valanciunas-fully-committed-to-nuggets-despite-eyeing-move-to-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/15873\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonas Valanciunas ‘fully committed’ to Nuggets despite eyeing move to Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a brief flirtation with Europe, Jonas Valanciunas will remain in the NBA.<\/p>\n

Valanciunas said Monday he is “fully committed” to joining the Denver Nuggets<\/a> next season, despite eyeing a move to Greek club Panathinaikos.<\/p>\n

“The idea of playing for Panathinaikos, closer to home, was very exciting to me, but that will have to wait. I am fully committed to honouring my contract with the Nuggets this season and will give it my all to compete for a championship,” Valanciunas said, per Donatas Urbonas<\/a> of BasketNews.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets traded for the Lithuania native Valanciunas earlier in July, only for reports to emerge about his interest in Greece despite having two years and more than $20 million remaining on his contract.<\/p>\n

Valanciunas, 33, is coming off a season in which he split time between Washington and Sacramento. He averaged 10.4 points, 7.7 rebounds and two assists over 81 games.<\/p>\n

Denver is counting on him to give superstar centre Nikola Jokic the occasional breather. The 30-year-old Jokic averaged a career-high 36.7 minutes per game last season.<\/p>\n

Nuggets executive vice president of basketball operations Ben Tenzer attempted to tamp down any conjecture over Valanciunas’ arrival during a news conference Friday that was set up to introduce\u00a0Cam Johnson, who arrived in a trade with Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been nothing but healthy conversations in terms of him honouring his contract and him excited to be a Nugget,\u201d Tenzer said of Valanciunas.<\/p>\n

So, no concerns that Valanciunas might not be with the Nuggets to start the season?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo concerns,\u201d Tenzer said.<\/p>\n

Now, it appears Valanciunas himself has put the idea to rest too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a brief flirtation with Europe, Jonas Valanciunas will remain in the NBA. Valanciunas said Monday he is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-15873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}