3 most overpaid Nuggets players on next season's roster
By Ben Handler
With the changes in the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, the salary cap and luxury tax aprons have become a massive part of basketball discourse. This has certainly been the case for the Denver Nuggets and their fans.
All summer long, fans have been hearing about the dreaded second apron and how important it is for the team to avoid it. The second apron became a bit of a culprit for the team’s decision to let Kentavious Caldwell-Pope walk in free agency.
The Nuggets also made a clear cost-cutting move, trading away three second-round draft picks just to dump Reggie Jackson and his $5.25 million salary. For better or worse, it has been a financially motivated offseason for the Nuggets, their front office, and ownership.
But while the various tax penalties are convenient excuses for the Nuggets’ - shall we say - shrewd decisions this offseason, many of these unfortunate roster moves could have been avoided if the team managed their assets better in previous years.
There are a few brutal contracts on the roster that are obvious overpays and are now coming at the expense of the roster. Overall, the Nuggets have done a good job of building the team, and no team is perfect, but they’ve given out some bad contracts recently. Here’s a look at the 3 most overpaid Nuggets players on the team for this coming season.
3. Dario Saric - 2 years, $10.6 million
This signing happened just a few weeks ago, and hopefully Saric will be a nice addition to the team, but this already seems like a bit of an overpay. Saric hasn’t done much in recent years to warrant more than a veteran minimum contract and it didn’t seem like he had many suitors.
But the Nuggets not only handed him the full taxpayer midlevel exception but also gave Saric a player option for next season. It’s unclear what other offers he had, but this contract may look brutal a year from now. We literally just saw this exact scenario play out with Reggie Jackson and the Nuggets had to give up valuable draft capital just to get rid of him.
If Saric doesn’t fit or play well, this could quickly look like a disaster and the team may have to move even more assets just to get him off the books. Let’s hope that’s not the case, but this big of a deal for Saric at this point in his career is a bit of a head-scratcher.
