{"id":152953,"date":"2025-07-07T07:47:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T07:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/152953\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T07:47:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T07:47:15","slug":"nuggets-nets-trade-grades-denver-gets-flexibility-and-brooklyn-conducts-some-excellent-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/152953\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets-Nets trade grades: Denver gets flexibility, and Brooklyn conducts some excellent business"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Denver Nuggets and Brooklyn Nets swung a deal <\/a>just an hour after the opening bell of NBA free agency.<\/p>\n

It’s a simple one, but one with potentially huge future implications for both franchises.<\/p>\n

Let’s get into it.<\/p>\n

Nets stay the course and do as planned<\/p>\n

When you have millions upon millions of dollars in cap space, but have just started your rebuilding process, there’s really only one smart thing to do with all that money.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Rent it out for draft picks.<\/p>\n

That’s exactly what the Nets did by shipping out Cam Johnson, who’s earning $21 million this year, for Michael Porter Jr., who’s earning $38.3 million.<\/p>\n

The price for absorbing the extra $17.3 million this year?<\/p>\n

A fully unprotected 2032 first-round selection, courtesy of the Nuggets, which has a good chance of being juicy as Nikola Joki\u0107 will be 37 by the time the pick conveys.<\/p>\n

As for Porter, he won’t just clog up their cap. He’ll get a chance to play and put up numbers. Who knows? Perhaps the Nets can double-dip in 12 months and send his expiring deal of $40.8 million out for another long-term deal, potentially acquiring another pick along the way.<\/p>\n

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Good business by the Nets.<\/p>\n

Grade: A<\/p>\n

Cap flexibility coming to Colorado<\/p>\n

As you can probably deduce, the Nuggets took back less money and a player of similar caliber to Porter in Johnson.<\/p>\n

By clearing $17-plus million from their books, the Nuggets now find themselves with flexibility the next two years because they won’t be flirting with the second apron.<\/p>\n

They also accounted for Aaron Gordon’s raise from $22.8 million this season to $31.9 million in 2026-27 and prepared for the extra cap hit.<\/p>\n

Perhaps more importantly, Christian Braun is extension-eligible and will have a new contract in 12 months, which will be much richer than his current rookie-scale salary.<\/p>\n

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The Nuggets give up a pick seven years down the line for immediate cap assistance, and while that price was steep, this is a clear buy-in on the Joki\u0107 era and an attempt to prolong their competitive window.<\/p>\n

Grade: B<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Denver Nuggets and Brooklyn Nets swung a deal just an hour after the opening bell of NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[877,7,670,247,3803,1828,561,187,562,29130,6,3269,671,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-152953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-aaron-gordon","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-brooklyn","11":"tag-brooklyn-nets","12":"tag-brooklynnets","13":"tag-cam-johnson","14":"tag-christian-braun","15":"tag-denver-nuggets","16":"tag-michael-porter-jr","17":"tag-millions-of-dollars","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-nba-free-agency","20":"tag-nets","21":"tag-nikola-jokic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114810850144798795","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152953","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=152953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}