The Nuggets are in a bind entering the offseason, and everybody knows it. They’ve done a terrible job keeping things close to the vest and have somehow telegraphed their intentions to the entire league, making it clear that they intend to shed salary in order to keep Peyton Watson in Denver.
They’ve botched any hopes of having leverage in trade talks, but they did gain a little bit of leverage with their own players over the weekend as the Suns made two of the first major moves of the offseason, re-signing a couple of their own players.
First, on Saturday night, they agreed with Collin Gillespie on a four-year, $48 million contract; then on Sunday morning, they inked a new deal with Jordan Goodwin for three years and $19 million. Those are both great moves for the Suns, locking up two of their young, homegrown players to long-term, team-friendly deals.
It’s also great news for the free agent market and any teams hoping to re-sign their players at a discount, like the Nuggets. Gillespie and Goodwin are both good young players who could have helped a lot of teams. They could have pushed for mid-level exception money, or maybe even more, but instead settled for bargains to stay in Phoenix.
Nuggets may be able to keep Watson and Jones on team-friendly deals
Hopefully for the Nuggets, that’s a sign of the way players and agents are viewing this free agency market, realizing not many teams have cap space, there aren’t that many exceptions to go around, and a lot of role players are likely going to get squeezed out of money. Rather than test the waters, they both took the sure thing to stay home.
With any luck, the same will be true about Peyton Watson and Spencer Jones, two key restricted free agents for Denver. Everybody knows about Watson, who has become the top priority of the offseason. There were rumors that he could get an offer as high as $30 million a year, but that may have been an ambitious projection.
Teams may be looking to spend their money elsewhere, and rather than have their funds tied up for 48 hours with a restricted free agency offer sheet that the Nuggets could match, maybe they look elsewhere. The same could certainly be said about Jones, who should appeal to plenty of teams around the league and is quietly a big inflection point this summer, just not quite on the level of P-Wat.
But both players have never really gotten paid in the NBA. If Denver can come correct with a fair offer, these guys may be willing to bypass the free agency hoopla and lock themselves in as part of Denver’s core for the next few years. That would be great news for the Nuggets and would help massively with other offseason plans. If these early Suns contracts are any indication, it may suddenly be a real possibility.
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