Another piece of the puzzle comes together for the Denver Nuggets’ offseason

The first big official decision of the offseason for the Nuggets came on Sunday as the team declined Vlatko Cancar’s option for next season. But all signs point to that being a formality as the team may well bring Cancar back on another minimum contract that would be mutually beneficial.

While every dollar matters right now for the Nuggets, and that move does save them a couple of million dollars in the interim, it didn’t exactly send shockwaves through the NBA world. The next official move for the Nuggets came on Monday; this one was slightly bigger, but also not earth-shattering.

Reggie Jackson picks up player-option to stay with Nuggets

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported Monday afternoon that veteran point guard Reggie Jackson will be exercising his $5.25 million player option for next season and will be returning to Denver.

Since this was a player-option, the Nuggets obviously had no control over the decision and Jackson’s $5.25 million is officially locked in for next year. Jackson was a competent bench player for the Nuggets last season; he appeared in all 82 games and started the 23 games that Jamal Murray missed due to injury.

Jackson was a solid regular season fill-in, doing a commendable job off the bench and, of course, being extremely available. Some of the deficiencies in his game popped up in the playoffs and he played fewer than 10 minutes per game. Sadly, his utility as a playoff rotation player may have passed him by at this point in his career - although to be fair, the Nuggets didn’t have any better option behind Murray.

The Nuggets must now figure out what to do with Reggie Jackson

The question now becomes what to do with Jackson since his salary is locked in. The team can now use Jackson and his $5.25 million in a trade. If they attach some type of draft capital they could possibly bring back a better role player on a similar contract. But unless Kentavious Caldwell-Pope leaves in free agency, the Nuggets won’t be able to aggregate salaries in a trade.

In other words, they can’t add any salary to Jackson, he would have to be the only outgoing player in a deal. That means the team couldn’t put his salary together with Zeke Nnaji or a promising young player to try to bring back a bigger salary.

Now, if KCP does leave and the team remains under the second apron they could add Jackson’s $5.25 million to other players and create a bigger deal. Either way, he’s now likely a trade chip for Denver going forward. If they have to lean on him for playoff minutes next season that would be a borderline disaster and $5.25 million is too much to pay for a pure benchwarmer.