The thought of losing Christian Braun for nothing to free agency is horrifying, but keeping him in Denver is going to create its own headaches with the salary cap. Jake Fischer’s latest reporting has Braun making at least $25 million per year on his likely new extension, which he’s currently eligible for.
The deadline to ink that extension is rapidly approaching, October 20th, and the Nuggets are expected to complete it in the next few days. The team’s payroll next season is already set to be around $180 million, and that’s with just nine players accounted for.
This Braun deal would push the payroll well over $200 million, and extremely close to the dreaded second apron. That’s not including an extension for Watson, it’s assuming they decline the team option for Jonas Valanciunas, and it’s assuming that Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown aren’t back next season.
Nuggets starting lineup set to get extremely expensive
The Nuggets will be paying around $190 million next season for their starting lineup, which should be one of, if not the best, in the NBA. But that leaves nothing but scraps for a bench that would consist of Julian Strawther, DaRon Holmes II, Jalen Pickett, Zeke Nnaji, and Hunter Tyson.
Barring some massive breakouts from those guys, that’s not going to be a tenable bench situation for a team with championship aspirations. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a lot like what they went through the last couple of years. We just saw that Nikola Jokic, an elite starting lineup, and a weak bench is good, but not good enough.
Groundhog Day for Nuggets fans
The last thing the Nuggets can do is repeat these mistakes again and go down this path, wasting the remaining prime years of Jokic as the core of the team ages into their 30s. They can keep swinging on vet minimum guys, and maybe they strike gold, or get players to take discounts to try and win in Denver, but that’s a dangerous game.
There’s no easy solution to this problem, as the Nuggets certainly have to pay Braun, and his demands are warranted. But the bottom line is that the starting lineup is getting extremely expensive, and the situation is going to cause some problems in the next few years, one way or another.