It’s impossible to say what the Nuggets’ plan has been this offseason other than closing their eyes, turning their phones off, and hoping everything works out at the end of the summer. So far, that hasn’t exactly been working out. We’ve seen Tim Hardaway Jr., Jonas Valanciunas, and Jalen Pickett leave. The other free agents are still dangling out there. They whiffed on LeBron. They’ve made no trade and only signed Marvin Bagley III and Tyus Jones.
On Saturday morning, the situation got even more dire as the Oklahoma City Thunder signed Spencer Jones to a two-year, $12 million offer sheet. Denver has until Sunday at midnight to match the offer, but that’s going to be a difficult thing to do given their current financial situation.
The Nuggets have done nothing to solve their impending tax emergency, and they are hanging just below the second apron with Jones and Peyton Watson unsigned. P-Wat has been the priority, but Jones was a promising breakout player last season, hitting 39% of his threes and proving to be one of the team’s best defenders.
Nuggets' offseason plan is falling apart
Denver hoped that the market would stay away from him and that once they finished up their other business, they’d be able to circle back and lock up Jones on a longer, team-friendly deal. But Sam Presti and the Thunder aren’t having that.
After trading Lu Dort, OKC had some wiggle room below the second apron and saw the opportunity to offer the taxpayer’s mid-level exception to Jones, who could be a solid role player in their system, and his loss would weaken the Nuggets’ bench even further.
Nuggets likely to lose Jones due to tax crunch
As things stand, the Nuggets have nine players rostered, and thanks to the repeater tax, they are staring at a $36.4 million tax bill. If they match this offer sheet and retain Jones, that bill would jump all the way to $68.6 million for the coming season. If they do that plus sign Watson to a deal that starts at $23 million (which seems pretty fair and maybe on the low end for him), their tax bill would be $238 million, which doesn’t even include salaries.
That’s not happening. The Kroenkes aren’t going to foot the biggest tax bill in NBA history for a team that may not even be top four in the Western Conference. The Nuggets have a lot of work to do and a lot of tough decisions to make. They still have to figure out a way to trade Zeke Nnaji, Cam Johnson, or Christian Braun to shed money. They still have to figure out a way to bring back Watson. They still have to figure out a bench.
And now, their West rivals, the Thunder, are attacking their position of weakness and tightening the screws, forcing the Nuggets to work on a timeline and make an uncomfortable decision much more quickly than they hoped. Sadly, that probably means they’ll have to let Jones walk for nothing to one of their main competitors and lose one of their only young success stories they’ve had in years.
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