I do not understand NBA contracts. It never seems like any front office actually has someone that considers long-term impact of contracts. However, NBA teams are built around 2 or 3 superstars and most of the rest of the players can be exchanged. The teams seem forced to overpay or lose players, even superstars. A salary cap of $135m with superstars getting $50m is ridiculous. It looks like only two or three teams will be below the cap this year. Even crazier are the "penalty levels" set at $172m & $182m. It looks like half the teams will be over $172m and nine teams will be over the $182m.
All of that to say, "Who cares about the money? Certainly not NBA owners!
IF Nnaji gets 20 mpg this year, it seems like a good contract, but that's a big IF.
2023 Offseason
Moderator: THE J0KER
Re: 2023 Offseason
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NuggetsWY
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Re: 2023 Offseason
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Manolito
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Re: 2023 Offseason
THE J0KER wrote:skywalker33 wrote:Zeke Nnaji signs a 3+1 extension for $32M, got some provin' to do, but this is the season. Definitely seems like a bit of a LOYALTY signing though.
I'm shocked by this deal. Murray will re-sign in 2025 so we will lose the same summer Aaron Gordon because of this strange Zeke deal. I can't see what kind of loyalty or obligations the team has to the player who played 39 minutes overall in playoffs in the past 3 seasons whereas the Nuggets played 35 postseason games. Bruce Brown comes to Denver with 14-5-3 numbers from the previous playoff and instead of giving him a 33M 2+1 kind of contract we underpaid him with a 13M 1+1 deal and lost immediately after the very first season.
BB's contract is totally different from Nnaji's. BB was a FA, maximum money Denver could offer was 13M 1+1, nothing else. Denver has Nnaji's Bird rights and can offer him as much as they want. Nnaji's contract is the lowest signed by any 2020 rookie class. It is also an asset for future trades, Denver has zero contracts between 5-15M.
Nnaji still has quite some upside, he is younger than Tyson and Pickett, and 3 months older than Christian Braun. Versatile big who can switch with everyone and good 3pt shooter, every team loves that profile. His natural position is PF, he has not played there in last two seasons. He is fully compatible with Jokic. This is lower than average first big of the bench contracts
He is worth the gamble, this is a very tradeable contract. He only needs to stay healthy. Had he been FA, Denver could not replace him