The NBA transaction cycle has definitely started to slow down as most of the top free agents have come off the board. Gary Trent Jr. was signed on Tuesday by the Bucks and he was widely regarded as the top player available. There are some useful rotation players still out there but the pickings have gotten slim.
The biggest names currently on the market are trade candidates entering the final season of their contracts like Lauri Markkanen and Brandon Ingram. But there doesn’t seem to be a ton of movement even in those cases. Shams Charania of the Athletic wrote a story centered around the markets for Markkanen and Ingram on Monday, but he brought up another star with a murky future, Russell Westbrook.
Westbrook last played with the Clippers and picked up his $4 million player option with the team for the 2024-25 season but all indications are that the two sides intend to part ways and that hasn’t changed. The Nuggets have been heavily connected to Russ with reports that even Nikola Jokic was pushing for the team to add the former MVP.
Nuggets still the favorites to sign Russell Westbrook
Indeed, Charania brought up Denver in his article, but the framing was interesting and notable. He said the Clippers are looking for a trade for Westbrook but that the Nuggets are the favorites to sign him if he becomes a free agent.
This is noteworthy because as of now, Westbrook is still under contract with the Clippers, but Charania made no mention of the Nuggets being interested in a trade. His reporting suggests that the Nuggets may only be interested in adding Westbrook if he’s first waived by the Clippers.
No guarantee that Westbrook hits free agency
But the Clippers are highly motivated to find a trade for Westbrook so they don’t simply have to eat the money by waiving him. Based on that, it sounds like the Nuggets don’t want to trade anything to acquire Westbrook (they don’t have much to offer anyway), and they’d only want to sign him to a minimum contract if he becomes a free agent.
This is a risky game as any team could swoop in and trade for Russ at virtually no cost. But the Nuggets are betting that no other team wants him (that seems like a fair bet at this point). Either that or the Nuggets don’t really covet Westbrook and are making a show of this to appease Jokic.
At the end of the day, the Nuggets badly need a backup point guard, and bringing in a proven veteran who is desired by the franchise player seems like a no-brainer. Westbrook is polarizing and has rubbed some people the wrong way, but there’s no denying the holes he would fill for the Nuggets. This still likely gets done, but it’s obviously not a given at this point either.