The first sign of that Peyton Watson maybe eventually break up with Nuggets happened last October when the team prioritized signings Christian Brown to a five-year, $125 million scale expansion for the start-up and bypassed the Watson start-up deal as Bennett Durando of The Denver Post details.
Brown was a much more proven player over three seasons and a superstar under center Nikola Jokic signed the decision on its extension, writes Duranda. ESPN’s Tim McMahon informed that Watson was demanding about $14 million a year at the time, but the Nuggets “wouldn’t go a dollar over $10 million (annually).”
Durando confirms Denver didn’t want to pay Watson more than $10-12 million per year last October. The decision to bypass the extension in lieu of limited free will was seen as “disrespectful” in Watson’s camp, according to Durand.
Injuries last season to Brown, Jokic, Aaron Gordon, Cameron Johnson led to an increased role for Watson, who responded by taking a year off until suffering a Grade 2 right hamstring strain on Feb. 4. Watson’s play at the time seemed to change the Nuggets’ roster planning, Durando wrote, as they appeared willing to eventually move the starter to create the financial flexibility to keep Watson.
However, Watson aggravated that strain in his fifth game on April 1 and missed the final six games of the regular season and all six of Denver’s first-round playoff loss to Minnesota. Watson recently said he felt he had been rushed back into the initial return to play process and that he planned to return in the second round. The Nuggets, on the other hand, “felt strongly that Watson could dress for the remainder of the (Wolves’) series, but were slowing his return to protect the value of his contract,” five league sources told Durando.
Watson’s side disputes that claim. A source close to Watson told The Post that the former No. 30 overall pick “didn’t have an opportunity” to play in the series and that his agent Rich Pavel had intervened to prevent Watson from further injury before free will. The same source also reported that Gordon, who has dealt with multiple soft tissue injuries over the past couple of years, was among teammates advising Watson to be cautious. But staff throughout the Denver organization were “disappointed” with the way the situation was handled by Watson’s camp, according to Durand’s sources.
According to Durand, despite the injury controversy, the Nuggets looked for ways to take a pay cut this summer to keep Watson, but they felt other teams made limited offers to take advantage of their financial situation. For example, several teams have asked for draft compensation to take over Johnson’s expiring contract, according to Durand’s sources.
Denver did get “at least one legitimately good suggestion“For Johnson, Durando wrote, but the team rejected him in addition to all other offers. The memory of Johnson recording 27 points and eight rebounds as the Nuggets were eliminated in Game 6 seems to have factored into the equation, according to Durando, who reports that the team currently intends to keep the veteran forward through the 2026-27 season.
At the start of free agency, Denver offered Watson a four-year, fourth-year deal with the team worth about $18 million per year, according to multiple sources. The Nuggets claimed their confidence in Watson has “taken a hit” due to the hamstring situation and that they are concerned about his “durability and maturity,” Durando added.
Watson’s camp immediately rejected the offer, Durando writes, and considered the concerns disrespectful. During initial negotiations, Watson was seeking more than $25 million per year, but the Nuggets never made a counteroffer after their original offer was rejected — although they were still willing to sign Watson to the original offer.
With negotiations going nowhere, both sides began exploring sign-and-trade scenarios, with Clippers, Bucks, Hawks and Trail Blazers everyone calls the Nuggets, according to Durand.
For various reasons, these negotiations never progressed. Jaime Haques Jr was seen as a possibility in talks with Milwaukee, and Durando hears the Nuggets would be interested in the sixth-round runner-up; however, he describes those talks as “conceptual” and the Bucks never actually made a sign-and-trade offer.
Chris Dunn with the Clippers is another player who has entered the sign-and-trade dialogue, league sources told Durando, but there have been a few complicating factors on that front, including cap space issues. Additionally, Los Angeles and Milwaukee are being investigated for possible salary cap violations, making it unclear what teams could offer Watson.
The Cavaliers were the last team to pursue Watson, eventually signing him to a four-year, $88 million deal with a fourth-year player option after parting with an unprotected first-round pick in 2031 in a five-team deal that did not require the Nuggets to return a player.
Sources tell Durando that Cleveland was the only team to offer Watson an unprotected first-round pick. Not surprisingly, given that he’s six-plus years older and expiring on his contract, no team was willing to do the same for Johnson at the start of the summer, according to Durando.
Although Watson publicly thanked the Nuggets organization after the transition, that much is clear from his comments to a former teammate on the podcast Michael Porter Jr that he was impressed with the team’s opinion that he could return early from his hamstring injury, according to Durand. Even if Denver had been willing to make the same offer as Cleveland, there was a feeling Watson would have turned it down, Durando added.
The Nuggets, meanwhile, were “thrilled” with a first-round pick from Cleveland after the arduous process of restricted free agency, and Durando suggests they plan to eventually use it to upgrade the roster. They recognize what they gave up by parting with Watson, but preferred to keep Johnson, Spencer Jones and adding a pick rather than making the moves they believe would be necessary to sign Watson to a lucrative long-term deal.
Durand’s story, which reveals some more interesting details about Watson’s departure from Denver, is worth reading in its entirety.
