Even without knowing how this bizarre Jonas Valanciunas saga will play out, the Nuggets have already won the trade just by getting off of Dario Saric’s contract. Calvin Booth used Denver’s taxpayer midlevel exception on Saric last offseason and gave him a player option for year two.
Within a handful of games into the Saric era in Denver, it became abundantly clear that he is no longer an NBA player. The Nuggets hoped he would come in and provide answers to their backup center problem, but that was not the case at all.
Saric was completely unplayable and out of the rotation just a few weeks into the season. The signing was a total disaster, and became even worse once he opted into his $5.7 million deal for next season as well. Saric would have had no market as a free agent, so opting in for any amount was a no-brainer, especially an amount that’s almost double the minimum.
He was set to be a sunk cost at the end of the Nuggets’ bench for another season, but the Kings surprisingly let them off the hook, agreeing to take Saric in return for Valanciunas with no other assets changing hands.
Even if Valanciunas never plays, dumping Saric was a huge win
Getting off Saric without surrendering an asset felt like an impossible task entering the offseason, but the new front office was able to do it. They even brought a solid rotation player back at a position of need. Now, we’ll see if that ever comes to fruition with Valanciunas, but even if it doesn’t, getting rid of Saric for free was massive.
If Valanciunas does indeed end up in Europe, as he so clearly wants, the Nuggets would get that money off their books and free up a roster spot. They’d have the entire $14.1 million midlevel exception to work with, plus multiple trade exceptions.
It will be hard to find another solid backup center at this point, but the paths to improving the roster are very much there. Without moving Saric, that would not have been the case. The situation with Valanciunas is dominating headlines, and understandably so, but realistically, if Denver traded Saric for nothing in return, that would still be an outstanding deal.
For the Kings, this move was a bit of a head scratcher for them to not even take an asset back, but they needed the financial savings to keep Malik Monk and sign Dennis Schroder. They seemingly could have just waited and bought out Valanciunas, but alas.
Sacramento’s folly is Denver’s gain in this case. If JV ends up playing out his contract and backing up Jokic, then this deal is even more of a win. But even if the big Lithuanian never steps foot in Denver, this trade was a slam dunk.