The Denver Nuggets were on the trade hunt for the Boston Celtics' Jaylen Brown, who was ultimately traded to the Philadelphia 76ers for Paul George and draft compensation. The NBA found out the Celtics' reasoning for the trade, and it's a sobering reality that the Nuggets are now learning the hard way as well.
The Celtics basically said that they couldn't afford to stay competitive and keep both Brown and Jayson Tatum, as they had become too much of a burden together on cap space to field a deep enough team to compete at the highest level.
"I might be wrong. I'm not going to stand up here and be defensive about that, but the path looked a little bit more challenging, with 70% of our cap and such a high percent of our usage tied into two players [Brown and Jayson Tatum]," said Celtics president of basketball operations, Brad Stevens.
The Celtics duo of Brown and Tatum was on the books for over $115 million of the $164.9 million salary cap for 2026-27. There simply wasn't a lot of room left without violating the luxury tax, again, and the Celtics also used the opportunity to gain flexibility with future draft picks acquired.
The Nuggets are learning the hard way to pay fines or face change
The Nuggets have a little over $109 million tied up this season between Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, representing 66.46% of the cap space for the Nuggets. Add in Aaron Gordon, Cameron Johnson, and the Nuggets' cap space is gone. As it stands, without Peyton Watson re-signing, and with four roster spots to fill, the Nuggets are at $216 million in salary, and facing a fine of $177 million. That's a huge tax bill.
The only way the Nuggets get out of that mess is to make some changes by trading, of course. But that trade would also need to be like the Celtics, gaining draft capital for future flexibility, because the Nuggets don't have that at the moment either.
It's not all the Nuggets' fault, and they probably planned that the salary cap would be higher, but the cap hasn't been going up at the same rate as the player salaries from the last collective bargaining agreement, and it's changing the landscape of how teams will be doing business, as the Celtics showed.
feels like this is as big a part of the jaylen brown trade as anything. teams thought they'd have one amount of money and are going to have much less instead. (via https://t.co/NedIRYE9w1) pic.twitter.com/cq53sK2wDH
— kev (@NBACouchside) July 6, 2026
According to that chart, it only gets worse from here for the Nuggets. They've got these huge contracts, but the cap is not going up in their favor, lowering the apron penalty thresholds, and now it's really catching up to the league, and especially the Nuggets.
The Nuggets aren't likely to sustain this, and eventually something will crack, like Brown in Boston. It's a tough financial reality the Nuggets are learning, and the ownership group better get comfy paying hefty tax bills to stay competitive, or major changes will be coming.
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