Nuggets trade away veteran rotation player and draft picks for salary cap relief

The Nuggets are in a tough spot this offseason, to say the least. The roster is getting expensive to a point that is almost unsustainable and they continue to lose key players with no means to replace them. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope appears to be the next casualty as he has officially declined his player option and will become an unrestricted free agent.

Multiple teams will be interested in signing KCP on the open market and the Nuggets are going to have to pay up to keep him, a move that would put them well over the second apron of the salary cap, hard-capping them and then some.

To say every dollar counts this offseason would be understating the situation. They need to be extremely diligent with every move they make and every dollar they spend. Trading up in the draft to get DaRon Holmes II was a good move, but the higher pick means a higher salary, which means more luxury tax penalties.

Nuggets trade away Reggie Jackson to save money

The Nuggets embarked on their first pure cost-cutting maneuver of the offseason on Thursday in an attempt to save some money, the team traded away veteran backup point guard Reggie Jackson to the Charlotte Hornets.

The 34-year-old Jackson has been a solid soldier for the Nuggets, especially last season, but his best years are clearly behind him and he was bordering on unplayable in the postseason. Still, the team had no control of the situation as Jackson was able to exercise his player option earlier this week, guaranteeing his contract for $5.25 million next season.

In and of itself that’s not a crazy amount of money, but with luxury tax penalties it adds up and those are precious resources that could be used on actual rotation players. Needless to say, Reggie had to go, and the Nuggets paid handsomely to be rid of him.

Along with Jackson, the Nuggets sent three future second-round draft picks to the Hornets in exchange for them taking on Jackson’s contract. The Nuggets got nothing in return; this move was purely to save money and get Jackson off their books.

Nuggets have major holes in the roster

Hopefully, this is a sign that the organization is ready to make a competitive effort to pay and retain KCP in free agency and this money will be used for that. If not, and it’s strictly to save the owners money, that would be fairly disappointing. With the picks traded, the Nuggets currently only have one single draft pick that is eligible to be traded, their 2031 first-round pick.

So now the Nuggets are basically out of picks and basically out of money. As much as Jackson has tailed off, he was still their eighth man last year, their only backup point guard, and a guy who was getting minutes in the playoffs. Whatever you say about Reggie, the team is objectively worse after making this deal and it cost them valuable draft pick capital to do it. They had better spend these savings on something good.