The Denver Nuggets could be bailed out of their disastrous contract with Dario Saric before it ends with another overseas club sniffing around the big.

According to European basketball reporter Andrea Calzoni, Istanbul’s Fenerbahce Beko has made Saric an offer. And Dubai Basketball is also interested in the 31-year-old Croatian. This comes a few months after Real Madrid was circling Saric as an offseason target.

💣🚨Fenerbahçe Beko made an offer for Dario Šarić.

Also Dubai Basketball in the mix for him.

Šarić has a $5.426.400 player option for next season with the Denver Nuggets.

Updates soon…#EuroLeague #FenerbahceBeko #Fenerbahçe pic.twitter.com/y3XAULKnpo

— Andrea Calzoni (@Andrea__Calzoni) June 20, 2025

Fenerbahce just won the EuroLeague last month, as basketball’s second-best club championship in the world behind the NBA’s. They had some giant names play for them in the past, and this year’s Final Four was epic. Saric was nearly in it as he almost signed with 2024 champs Panathinaikos, where former Nuggets forward Juancho Hernangomez plays and helped them to a loss in this year’s third-place game.

Saric ultimately signed with the Nuggets on the taxpayer mid-level exception of 10.6 million over two years, with the second season of 2025-26 being a player option. Saric has played in just 16 games last season, despite being listed as healthy for the entire campaign. In that, he’s only come away with a plus-minus in the positive four times. Saric was thought to be the solution to the Nuggets’ long-known issue of backing up three-time MVP Nikola Jokic. But Saric has struggled so much in his 210 minutes this season that he went months without playing, and those stints were broken up by just a handful of minutes.

The issue with Saric was glaring at times since Jokic missed a few stretches of action, and still, the 30-year-old didn’t get on the hardwood. Instead, the Nuggets even played 36-year-old DeAndre Jordan on back-to-back nights for the first time since 2021 when he was on the Lakers. The Nuggets have also gone smaller with Aaron Gordon playing center, Peyton Watson at the position briefly, but have more often moved Zeke Nnaji over from power forward. Saric was thought to be a guy who could both back Jokic up and play alongside him, but he’s not been able to do either.

Saric averaged eight points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game for the Golden State Warriors a year ago, and that’s fallen to 3.5 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game in his limited action for the Nuggets.

Making matters worse for Denver was how expensive it was to acquire Saric. Since the Nuggets are above the salary cap and luxury tax, they can use this one route per year to sign external players for more than a minimum contract, called the mid-level exception. Denver has used this mechanism to get Jamychal Green, Jeff Green, Bruce Brown and to re-sign Reggie Jackson the past few seasons. On the Jackson deal, Calvin Booth also handed him a player option for a second year, which was this season, and that was picked up. The Nuggets didn’t want him anymore, in part to clear a spot and salary for Saric, so they dumped Jackson to Charlotte with three second-round picks—severely hamstringing Denver’s ability to make trades.

The entire reason the Nuggets did not re-sign Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was to maintain flexibility, with the main upside being able to use the mid-level exception. Basically, if Denver had re-signed KCP last summer, they could have had the same team this past season, just without Saric.

So not only has Saric been bad, but he was expensive to get, and that has kept the Nuggets from improving in other ways. While Jackson hasn’t had a good run of it in 2024-25, there were better options than Saric for the Nuggets using the same funds, like Kris Dunn—a key defender for the Los Angeles Clippers, who got time against Denver in the playoffs.

And still, the Nuggets are due to pay Saric $5 million this coming year unless he declines his option for another opportunity. If Saric picks up the money, it could make things harder for the Nuggets in keeping their core around Jokic in Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr. together. More likely is that if Saric picks up the money, it will complicate the summer deals of Christian Braun and Peyton Watson, who are each due for extensions. All the while, the Nuggets would struggle to add because of the money and roster spot due to Saric.

Without Saric, Denver will have much more flexibility in trades and free agency to add a player who may actually be useful to the roster.

Nuggets fans will be hoping Saric says sayonara to the NBA and merhaba to Turkey.