{"id":663120,"date":"2026-03-17T15:40:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T15:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/663120\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T15:40:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T15:40:17","slug":"western-notes-watson-grizzlies-ishbia-k-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/663120\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Notes: Watson, Grizzlies, Ishbia, K. Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having dealt for nearly the entire season with health issues affecting starters and rotation players, the Nuggets are inching closer to finally submitting a clean injury report. The team appears hopeful that wing Peyton Watson<\/a> will be able to return this week from the right hamstring strain that has kept him on the shelf since February 4, tweets<\/a> Vinny Benedetto of The Denver Gazette.<\/p>\n

With the exception of the players who are currently assigned to the club\u2019s G League affiliate, the Grand Rapids Gold, Watson is the only player left on Denver\u2019s injury report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Watson has been ruled out for Tuesday\u2019s matchup with Philadelphia, and Benedetto suggests he wouldn\u2019t count on the 23-year-old being activated for Wednesday\u2019s game in Memphis. However, it sounds like Friday\u2019s contest vs. Toronto could be a viable return date for Watson, who will be eligible for restricted free agency this offseason.<\/p>\n

We have more from around the Western Conference:<\/p>\n

FedEx executive Richard Smith tells Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/a> that he hired an advisory firm to assess whether Grizzlies owner Robert Pera is looking to sell or relocate the franchise and was told no on both counts. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any truth to rumors that he wants to move the team,\u201d said Smith, who added that he and his family would\u2019ve been interested in making a bid for the Grizzlies to keep them in Memphis if Pera were looking to sell. The Grizzlies and the city of Memphis are currently engaged in negotiations about the team\u2019s lease at FedExForum \u2014 the current agreement runs through 2028\/29.
\nThe binding mediation process<\/a> to resolve the legal dispute between Mat Ishbia and a pair of Suns shareholders could result in Ishbia buying out those minority owners and increasing his stake in the team to 96%, writes Baxter Holmes of ESPN<\/a>. Those owners, Scott Seldin and Andy Kohlberg, are the last remaining holdovers from the Robert Sarver era in Phoenix and currently control about 13% of the franchise, Holmes explains.
\nSpurs forward Keldon Johnson<\/a> was a full-time starter for three seasons from 2020-23, but he transitioned to a sixth man role in 2023\/24 and has since embraced the idea of coming off the bench, as Tom Orsborn details for The San Antonio Express-News<\/a> (subscriber link). While Johnson wasn\u2019t initially thrilled by losing his starting job, he and the Spurs are thriving this season as he makes a case for Sixth Man of the Year honors by averaging 12.7 points and 5.5 rebounds per game with a .529\/.377\/.789 shooting line. \u201cI feel like when you want to win, you got to remove your ego, especially when we got the team we have,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe all want to see each other be successful. I had to pull my ego away and say, \u2018This is what\u2019s best for the team.\u2019 And if I can maximize my role coming off the bench, as talented as I am and with the things I can bring to the game, I feel like we\u2019ll be in great shape throughout games.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having dealt for nearly the entire season with health issues affecting starters and rotation players, the Nuggets are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[43024,7,294,2850,3224,293,177,4070,6,1146,84575,51210,12195,42966],"class_list":["post-663120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-memphis-grizzlies","tag-andy-kohlberg","tag-basketball","tag-grizzlies","tag-keldon-johnson","tag-mat-ishbia","tag-memphis","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-memphisgrizzlies","tag-nba","tag-peyton-watson","tag-richard-smith","tag-robert-pera","tag-robert-sarver","tag-scott-seldin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116245274581204053","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663120","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=663120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}