Shams: Christian Braun Agrees to 5-yr/$125M Extension with the Denver Nuggets

[BigGargamel]

Reggie Jackson. MPJ + a pick to get off salary. Letting KCP walk. Bruce Brown too. Your team won’t go anywhere near the 2nd apron. Every year you’ve cheaped out on putting the best team on the floor. You didn’t have to do most of these moves. You could have used that MPJ 1st to upgrade your team while keeping MPJ.

None of these examples were the Nuggets being cheap. I'm not sure you are making much sense.

1. Reggie Jackson - he was terrible and an overpay. This wasn't Denver being cheap, it was stupidly resigning someone who was washed up. He's out of the league now, so yeah.

2. MPJ + a pick to get off salary. How exactly is this Denver being cheap? Once again, giant overpay. Cam Johnson is a comparable player for half the cost, and Denver used the savings to resign Braun and add 3 guys to the bench.

3. Letting KCP walk. Have you seen KCP? This was the absolute right thing to do. He wasn't worth nearly that much money. Nuggets fans (myself included) appreciated what KCP did, but Braun was ready to take over. KCP was not worth nearly the 20 mill a year he got. Not resigning everyone doesn't make a team cheap. Same with Bruce Brown. He was not worth 20 million a year, and he very quickly showed just that. So Denver resigns both of those guys for 40 million total. That's a terrible use of resources. Not "being cheap".

4. Keeping MPJ. Once again, they had to use that first to unload the terrible contract that they gave him in the first place (spending too much money, aka not being cheap). That valuable first round pick allowed them to resign an up and coming player and three additional guys.

You're wrong on all counts really. It's not like Denver had the chance to sign Kevin Durant as a free agent and said no. Top free agents don't go to Denver. In the past 20 years it's been Kenyon Martin, Paul Millsap and.....that's about it. They've resigned almost all of their top players to big contracts.

If anything, Denver spent money too freely when it shouldn't have. People are still bashing the Murray and MPJ overpays. Yes, I read the rest of your post that I did not quote, and I am not sure where the "cheap" thing comes in. Overpay = cheap. Not going into the next tax apron = cheap. What exactly should they have done differently in your eyes, I'm not really sure. They're not a free agent destination and never will be.

[BelgradeNugget]

I think NAW is a better defender than Braun and that closes the gap. NAW also takes a higher volume of 3's and makes them at the same rate. Braun's 3pt volume is exceedingly low for a SG. Braun is a better cutter and better in transition but how much of that is from playing with Jokic? NAW has also been a bench guy because he's been playing behind the best SG in the league. It feels like he could be a solid 3+D starter if given the chance (though not a top 15 SG or anything).

I think if you put NAW on DEN his impact would be very similar to Braun. Better defense. More 3pt volume. Less transition and cutting but how much is Jokic bump worth? Tough to say. Braun still has some upside so I can see why he got more money but I think DEN would have been wiser to apply some pressure given their salary situation and their reluctance to pay the tax.

I don't think Braun is massively overpaid or anything but if you're going to be cheap (like DEN is) it's not wise to pay everyone at the top of their range. I would have squeezed harder and took the risk in RFA.

Just one question. Where did you get idea Nuggets are cheap and reluctant to pay tax? Here is where they ranked in highest payroles in the NBA in the last 4 seasons

21/22 - 10th, tax bill $0
22/23 - 8th, tax bill $17,302,510
23/24 - 6th, tax bill $20,240,495
24/25 - 6th, tax bill $20,356,788

It is easy to check before posting. So in one post you acussed them of being cheap and overspending? Makes sense.

You’ve had the best player in the league for 4-5 years. Compared to other contenders you have not spent much at all.

Reggie Jackson. MPJ + a pick to get off salary. Letting KCP walk. Bruce Brown too. Your team won’t go anywhere near the 2nd apron. Every year you’ve cheaped out on putting the best team on the floor. You didn’t have to do most of these moves. You could have used that MPJ 1st to upgrade your team while keeping MPJ.

The MPJ trade illustrates my point: you overpay these guys and then have to use picks to dump them in an effort to save money. This wouldn’t be as much of an issue if your owner (net worth $20b) was willing to eat a couple large tax bills but you end up selling you roster short because you have to use picks to get off overpaid players. MPJ-like contracts cost you guys like Brown/KCP.

For a team that has been a contender year in and year out your ownership has never gone above and beyond to try and win. If you want to contend but you’ve got a seemingly $20m tax ceiling you need to do better on contracts because the margins are narrower. If everyone outside of Jokic is overpaid by somewhere between $3–10m per year that adds up, costs you depth and you’re staring at Deandre Jordan as your backup C.

When you are wrong, you are wrong. Except for Reggie Jackson. They overpaied him and had to give few 2nds to get off of his contract.

So let's start with MPJ. They traded him + 1st round pick to salary dump and got back...Cam Johnson, who many argue is a better player and non will say he is worst player. But they could have kept MPJ and wait till 2034 when that player who will be picked in 2031 could impact winning. Good resoning. So what did they do with cap flexibility created with MPJ/Cam trade? Spent money - they traded Saric on $5M contract for Valanciunas on $10M contract to get back the best backup C in Jokic's ers. Cheap

Letting KCP walk. Well he was on $14M contract, used PO to get off of it and asked $66M/3 years. Money Braun got (comparing % of cap used). And he was not worth it. Orlando traded him in a year. So was this good decision. I guess.

Bruce Brown. Anyone who knows anything about Nuggets-Brown's story knows they didn't had his bird rights because he was signed as FO so max they could offer him was $7M, and Indiana gave him $20M. Couldn't mach that, and shouldn't even if they could, because he was not worth it. As you know I guess, he played for your team on that contract.

About giving money to upgrade team, there is something called CBA that limits amount of money teams can pay based on their payrole. They used all they could. Some ot that signing were bad (Jackson, Saric) but they couldn't pay more to get better ones. And they don't have nice beaches like Balmer has in LA when he was able to sign all of this FA's on under market value.

Nuggets will not get anywere near 2nd apron as any other team in the NBA, Boston had free sale to get out of it. Are they cheep too?

Again accusing them of being cheap and overspending in one post

BTW with that overpays of the past they won championship. Contracts they gave in the past were in last CBA. Things changed now. And now they have the best roster in Jokic era, and I'm arguing with Raptors fan who knows better about Nuggets team than any Nuggets fan here.

Something is not right

[Castle Black]

Got $125M dollars and proceeded to score 6 points tonight, 2 of which came in garbage time at the end of OT lol.

[DonaldSanders]

The contract length iss really my issue. OK if you want to bet on Christian for 2-3 years at 25 mil/per, but 5 years is too much. I don't think he'll continue to be as bad as he was tonight, but regardless of how this turns out I think the Nuggets took too much risk.

[Klomp]

He looked short and fat out there last night