{"id":835203,"date":"2026-09-14T17:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T17:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/835203\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T17:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T17:42:16","slug":"aaron-gordon-reacts-to-nuggets-trading-peyton-watson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/835203\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Gordon reacts to Nuggets trading Peyton Watson"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nuggets<\/a> might feel the loss of Peyton Watson<\/a> most when an opposing ball-handler gets past the first line of defense and charges toward the rim, when nobody comes soaring to the rescue from the weak side. Or maybe they\u2019ll feel it most when Nikola Jokic<\/a> and Jamal Murray<\/a> are on fumes, when they need someone else to bring the ball up the court and set the offense.<\/p>\n

Aaron Gordon<\/a>\u2018s family will feel his absence on Sunday mornings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my dog. But it\u2019s deeper than basketball with Peyton and I, you know?\u201d Gordon said. \u201cLike, our family members go to the same church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before running a FlexWork Sports<\/a> youth basketball camp Sunday in Lakewood, Gordon briefly shared his reaction to the Nuggets\u2019 offseason, which was highlighted by their controversial decision to sign-and-trade Watson<\/a> to Cleveland for two draft picks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d an expressionless Gordon said simply when asked what he thought of Denver\u2019s moves.<\/p>\n

Watson signed a four-year, $88 million contract with the Cavaliers at the end of a tense non-negotiation with the Nuggets, who held his rights as a restricted free agent this summer. Watson and Gordon had vacationed together earlier in the offseason, celebrating former teammate Michael Porter Jr.\u2019s birthday in France.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeyton is like my brother,\u201d Gordon continued. \u201cI\u2019m happy for him, the situation that he\u2019s in. Obviously, we would have loved to have him. But it worked out the way that it should have, that it was supposed to.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the churn of free agency took place around him, Gordon spent most of his summer in Denver, which he\u2019s called home for more than five years now. The power forward turns 31 on Wednesday, and he\u2019s coming off a second consecutive season in which soft tissue injuries limited him during the NBA playoffs. Team sources told The Denver Post that Gordon has been a consistent presence in the Ball Arena practice gym. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of soul searching and training,\u201d he said Sunday. \u201cSo I\u2019ve got my mind right, my body right, and I\u2019m ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to those sources, Gordon was also responsible for orchestrating a recent team bonding trip to Puerto Rico, where Nuggets assistant coach JJ Barea<\/a> has repurposed an abandoned private school into a sports complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dream is to one day have either the Denver Nuggets or the Dallas Mavericks have training camp in Puerto Rico,\u201d Barea told The Post last year. \u201cIt\u2019s like an NBA practice facility. \u2026 We just finished building it, so I\u2019m really excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c(We held) a mini-camp,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cI thought we could do something out of the norm. Everybody goes to LA all the time. I wanted us to do something that was out of our comfort zone as a team, and it ended up being a good exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jokic, Murray and Christian Braun<\/a> had prior engagements that prevented them from joining, but Gordon was able to wrangle most of Denver\u2019s roster for the trip, including Cam Johnson, Spencer Jones, Julian Strawther, Tyus Jones, DaRon Holmes II, Alpha Diallo<\/a>, Zeke Nnaji and rookies Trevon Brazile and Bryce Hopkins.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rookies are good,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cBryce is really good. TB is really good. They can play. I\u2019m not entirely sure where they\u2019re gonna fit in, but they can go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Players have gone their separate ways since the mini-camp to enjoy their last weeks of summer freedom before training camp, which begins Sept. 29 in Boulder. Johnson journeyed to England and took in a Premier League match last weekend. Jokic has been competing with the Serbian national team in World Cup qualifiers \u2014 \u201cI talked to him a bit,\u201d Gordon said, adding with a smile: \u201cNot much.\u201d And Murray has spent some of his summer in Japan, holding events connected to his New Balance shoe deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gordon has found himself pulled back toward home in Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be nice to do more of these,\u201d he said before the second session of Sunday\u2019s camp. \u201cThis is just a one-day thing. Hopefully we can do multiple of them. This is like an inaugural. So hopefully I can do more. Denver has shown me love since the I moment I got here, and I\u2019ve tried to repay the favor by showing passion and playing my heart out and playing the game the way I know how to play. Being the person my parents raised me to be. So hopefully I can be a role model for these kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nuggets might feel the loss of Peyton Watson most when an opposing ball-handler gets past the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3781],"tags":[877,95261,2276,7,1828,561,765,2102,2288,301,187,3943,3636,762,763,165,764,252,6,11,21829,253,302,1146,19629,26517,66,14704,6279,4714],"class_list":["post-835203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denver-nuggets","tag-aaron-gordon","tag-alpha-diallo","tag-ball-arena","tag-basketball","tag-cam-johnson","tag-christian-braun","tag-colorado","tag-contract","tag-daron-holmes","tag-denver","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-denvernuggets","tag-injuries","tag-jamal-murray","tag-julian-strawther","tag-latest-headlines","tag-michael-porter","tag-more-nuggets-news","tag-nba","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-new-balance","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-nuggets","tag-peyton-watson","tag-puerto-rico","tag-spencer-jones","tag-sports","tag-trevon-brazile","tag-tyus-jones","tag-zeke-nnaji"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117270632399095824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835203","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=835203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}