{"id":140416,"date":"2025-07-02T00:18:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T00:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/140416\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T00:18:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T00:18:13","slug":"how-the-nuggets-reloaded-and-escaped-salary-cap-hell-in-the-first-24-hours-of-nba-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/140416\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Nuggets reloaded and escaped salary-cap hell in the first 24 hours of NBA free agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week ago, Denver Nuggets<\/a> exec Jonathan Wallace said the team was “further along” than it may have appeared. They had to be “deliberate” in the offseason, he told reporters<\/a>, but, with the best player in the world on the roster and an elite starting five, their primary concern was depth.<\/p>\n

“Now it’s just adding a few more pieces that can just give these guys, honestly, some rest,” Wallace said.<\/p>\n

Twenty-four hours into free agnecy, Denver has done that. After Monday’s big trade<\/a>, which sent Michael Porter Jr<\/a>. (and an unprotected 2032 first-round pick) to the Brooklyn Nets<\/a> for Cam Johnson, the Nuggets have added three veterans to their bench: Bruce Brown<\/a>, Tim Hardaway Jr<\/a>. and Jonas Valan\u010di\u016bnas.<\/p>\n

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Brown, 28, played a key role in Denver’s 2023 title run, but left that offseason when the Indiana Pacers<\/a> offered him a two-year, $45 million contract. He’s returning on a one-year deal for the minimum, according to The Athletic<\/a>, and the Nuggets don’t have to worry about how he might fit in. He can run point when Jamal Murray<\/a>‘s on the bench, and he knows how to play off of Murray and Nikola Joki\u0107. He changed playoff games for Denver with his cutting, his defense — sometimes against much bigger players — and his sheer energy.<\/p>\n

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Hardaway, 33, also arrived on a minimum deal, according to the Denver Post<\/a>. He is not the defender that Brown is, but, because of the Nuggets’ particular needs, this signing might be even more significant. At that pre-draft press conference, Wallace also mentioned that the Nuggets had to “make sure that we find some more shooting.” This has been obvious for some time<\/a>, and it was made even more clear when the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> effectively dared the Nuggets’ role players to shoot 3s in the second round of the playoffs. That Denver took the eventual champs to seven games despite making only 31.5% of its 3-point attempts was a feat in itself.<\/p>\n

Hardaway’s 3-point accuracy has fluctuated: in the last six years, he has shot a cumulative 37.4% from deep, but that number has been as low as 33.6% and as high as 39.8% in individual seasons. Regardless of whether the shots are falling, though, he is not shy. Last season, no team attempted 3s as rarely as the Nuggets, and reserve guard Jalen Pickett<\/a> was their only player aside from Joki\u0107, Murray and Porter who attempted at least six per 100 possessions and made at least 35% of them. Hardaway, meanwhile, got up 10.1 per 100, and that that was his lowest 3-point frequency since 2016-17.<\/p>\n

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Johnson, Brown and Hardaway are going to have the time of their lives playing with Joki\u0107. The 33-year-old Valan\u010di\u016bnas, on the other hand, should help stabilize Denver in the non-Joki\u0107 minutes. He is a clear upgrade over Dario \u0160ari\u0107, whom the Nuggets sent to the Sacramento Kings<\/a> in exchange for Valan\u010di\u016bnas, and I am personally looking forward to watching him gobble up offensive rebounds and bully backup bigs. If DaRon Holmes II<\/a> (who has yet to play an NBA<\/a> game after tearing his Achilles at summer league) proves to be worthy of rotation minutes right away, then Valan\u010di\u016bnas might be a bit superfluous, but that would be a good problem.<\/p>\n

Denver is now slightly over the luxury-tax line with 14 players under contract, per <\/a>capsheets.com<\/a>. It has a $16.8 million trade exception from the Porter-Johnson swap, but it might be done dealing for now. If so, the Nuggets’ rejiggered front office has successfully reloaded while getting out of salary-cap hell. If this were easy to do, Denver would have done it last summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A week ago, Denver Nuggets exec Jonathan Wallace said the team was “further along” than it may have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[7,6850,2731,301,187,3943,1361,6,302],"class_list":{"0":"post-140416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bruce-brown","10":"tag-daron-holmes-ii","11":"tag-denver","12":"tag-denver-nuggets","13":"tag-denvernuggets","14":"tag-jalen-pickett","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nuggets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114780773484804963","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}