It might not appear so now, but the Denver Nuggets could have picked up a future gem from the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Peyton Watson sign-and-trade. Sure, 2031 is a long way down the road, but the 2031 unprotected first-round pick could be more valuable than many other draft picks that year if the Cavs end up on the same course as other contenders who 'went for it' trying to win a championship. Including, unfortunately, our Nuggets.
The Nuggets sent their 2032 unprotected first-round pick to the Brooklyn Nets in the Michael Porter Jr. salary dump trade, and it was labeled as one of the top trade assets in the NBA by Bleacher Report. That's because the blueprint for how post-championship-window teams play out, like the Milwaukee Bucks, who had built a loaded roster and paid large luxury taxes for years to keep the best team possible around Giannis Antetokounmpo, progressively got worse. The Bucks turned into a lottery team and lost their superstar in the process.
The post contender window could hit the Cavs hard, too
It happened to the Golden State Warriors, who missed the playoffs this year, and it happened to the Brooklyn Nets after they had a loaded squad that came up short.
And now, the Nuggets are already going down the same path. They traded MPJ last year and Peyton Watson this year, and had an early, putrid first-round playoff exit. Unfortunately, the NBA is a business, and keeping the large contracts on the roster just isn't feasible when you have even larger contracts, like Nikola Jokic's and Jamal Murray's. The luxury taxes become too costly, and slowly but surely, the roster loses its competitive edge.
That's the same thing that could happen to the Cavs in the next few years, because they're in the same boat as the Nuggets currently. Both teams have five players making more than $20 million per year, and both have two max players making $50 million or more. They're going to eventually have to come to terms with the issue.
So what's stopping the Cavs from going down the same path that others have walked before them? Draymond Green even brought it up during his podcast, The Draymond Green Show. "The Denver Nuggets picked up what a lot of people view as a great, great, great asset, which is the unprotected 2031 Cavaliers first-round pick," Green said. And he said it for the same reasons I just laid out.
When you look at it like this, Nuggets fans can at least take solace in the fact that there could be a great asset awaiting them when the team may truly need it. Because even with Nikola Jokic, the Nuggets may end up in a rebuilding process in a couple of years, like other teams before them.
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