By now, most Denver Nuggets fans know that the team will be trying to move on from and trade Zeke Nnaji this season in an effort to shed his salary to get back under the NBA's dreaded second apron penalty threshold. But trading Nnaji and the remaining salary he's owed next season may be an impossible task, and the Nuggets may be stuck with him.
That latest edition of The Stein Line from NBA insider Jake Fischer (subscription required) details the Nuggets' interest in acquiring the Milwaukee Bucks' Kevin Porter Jr. for Nnaji. Fischer says that the Nuggets offered the Bucks two future second-round picks and a second-round pick swap along with Nnaji and his $7.5 million salary for this and next year for KPJ. The Bucks rejected it because, as he says, they "could not stomach the idea of swallowing Nnaji's $7.5 million salary for the 2027-28 season."
The Bucks "couldn't stomach" it, so much so that rather than acquire future draft capital, they decided to just cut loose Porter instead. And given the Nuggets' salary cap situation, the only team over the second apron, it's not likely that they'll pursue Porter as a free agent, either. Porter would have been the backup point guard that Nuggets fans have been clamoring for all offseason.
The Nuggets are probably going to be stuck with Nnaji
If the Bucks don't want a decent amount of draft capital for a player they wanted to waive anyway, then how bad is Nnaji's contract? It's bad. It's toxic, and the $7.5 million is actually below the reported market value of about $5 million in cap space per second-round pick, as Fischer explained.
Nnaji won't make the Nuggets rotation, and it's apparent that he's last on the depth chart. He was given a shot early in the preseason to prove his worth, and he fumbled his chance at getting any future opportunities. He's going to be no more than an overpaid paperweight on the end of the bench for the rest of the season.
At this point, the alternatives to reaching the goal of ducking back under the second apron will rely on the Nuggets' fortunes to trade either Spencer Jones or Julian Strawther. They could part with Cameron Johnson and his expiring salary, but they'd wreck their chances of making a run in the playoffs without Cam.
Another option is to add a third second-round pick to Nnaji, or, unfortunately, the first-round pick they acquired from the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Peyton Watson trade. But that's a steep price to get off Nnaji this year.
It's an unfortunate situation. It's possible the Nuggets just sit on their squad and accept the penalty of a frozen 2034 first-round draft pick by finishing the year over the second apron, as they could recover that pick by ducking the second apron in three of the next four years. But they lose trade flexibility with that option.
It increasingly feels like Nnaji will be around a bit longer than the Nuggets had hoped.
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