It's been a couple of weeks since the Denver Nuggets sent Peyton Watson to the Cavaliers in a sign-and-trade. The 23-year-old signed a four-year, $88 million deal with Cleveland, which he wasn't going to get if he had stayed in Colorado. You could say they already did him a favor by setting him free, but if they had sent him to Los Angeles, that wouldn't be the case now.
The Clippers circumvented the salary cap by helping Kawhi Leonard secure millions in off-the-court deals, as the NBA-hired firm found. Los Angeles now faces steep penalties, including losing five first-round picks.
They were interested in landing Watson, and while they were part of the trade, it wasn't to get him but to get Max Strus from the Cavaliers.
What would've been a heartwarming "welcome home" type of moment for him could've turned into him wishing he had never ended up back in LA, had Denver traded him to the Clippers. In this rare instance, Cleveland actually is the preferable city.
It's better for Watson that he'll help the Cavaliers compete for a championship, proving Cleveland right about the price it paid for him and the contract the team signed him to. He wouldn't have been playing for another title in Los Angeles.
Clippers were interested in landing Peyton Watson
Los Angeles has a lot more on its mind right now, but if the organization hasn't already, it may soon wish it had pursued a Watson trade more aggressively, rather than waiting to see how the Leonard saga played out. That might not have been ideal for the forward, but it would've been for the Clippers, as they don't have much of a future to look forward to right now outside of Keaton Wagler.
Watson would've given the Clippers fans that are still out there something to look forward to, at least.
It's not that the Nuggets purposefully avoided doing business with the Clippers because of what it'd mean for Watson; no one could've predicted the league would come down on LA as hard as it did. It's one thing to believe that they circumvented the salary cap before the findings came out, but another to think that Adam Silver would do that much about it.
Denver took Cleveland's offer of an unprotected 2031 first-round pick and a 2032 Kings second-round pick (via the Cavaliers), as well as Julian Reese, whom they waived.
The Nuggets focused on getting the best offer because a gap remained between the four-year, $70 million deal they offered Watson and what he wanted. If that offer had come from the Clippers, things would be looking a lot different for the wing right about now, and certainly not in a good way.
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