Nuggets sign six-time All-Star DeMar DeRozan

In the same week the Denver Nuggets traded Peyton Watson to Cleveland, the club has inked his replacement — kind of.

Six-time All-Star DeMar DeRozan has agreed to sign with the Nuggets on a one-year, $3.9 million deal, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported.

DeRozan has been in conversations with Nikola Jokic, Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray and “is anxious for the opportunity to play for a contending team,” per Chris Haynes, who first reported DeRozan’s intention to sign with Denver earlier Thursday. DeRozan hasn’t won a playoff series since a first round bout against the Wizards in 2018 back when he was with the Raptors. Since he’s made just two trips to the playoffs, including a first round knockout in seven games to Denver in 2019.

The 37-year-old averaged 18.4 points, 4.1 assists and 2.9 rebounds in 77 games with the Sacramento Kings last season before being waived in July. He has played at least 60 games in every NBA season of his 17-year career — a durability trait the Nuggets desperately need after losing upward of 7,000 minutes off their roster this offseason.

The deal comes less than 48 hours after Denver traded Peyton Watson to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a sign-and-trade, after the team decided they would rather have a first round pick than pay the 23-year-old wing’s $88 million salary over four years to avoid a tax bill that ESPN’s Bobby Marks estimated could have reached near $250 million in penalties.

DeRozan’s $3.9 million veteran’s minimum — of which only $2.4 million counts against Denver’s salary cap under the league’s reimbursement rules — is the only mechanism available to a franchise operating as the league’s sole team in the second apron. The Nuggets could not take back salary in the Watson deal, and they can’t use exceptions unless they get under the second apron. The clearance rack is all Denver has and DeRozan was the very best player on it.

The signing gives the Nuggets 14 players on guaranteed contracts, per Marks. DeRozan’s $2.4 million cap hit pushes Denver $3.15 million above the second apron, with a projected tax bill of $75 million.

This is a move I talked about on my show this week. On Tuesday’s Shapiro and Piro, I laid out the case:

“I think DeMar DeRozan would be a wonderful sixth man for the Denver Nuggets and do a lot of the things that people hoped that Russell Westbrook would do but was unable to accomplish two years ago. I almost look at DeMar DeRozan at this point in his NBA career as where Jamal Murray was maybe three to four years ago, but a worse version, a less efficient version, not as three-point dependent, more of a mid-range guy. And these are positive things for a bench.”

DeRozan is not Watson. He’s 14 years older, not a wing defender, he’s not an athletic freak and not a long-term asset. He’s a six-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA player chasing his first championship at 37, joining a team built around the best player in basketball.

DeRozan can score, he’s available every night, and the Nuggets’ bench needed someone — anyone — who could take eight to 10 shots with confidence off the pine. And the Nuggets long-running issue of finding more ball handling wasn’t solved by DeRozan but he certainly helps as a guy who once averaged seven assists per game in the league.

DeRozan won’t be a true fill in for Tim Hardaway Jr. as a sixth man. The sharpshooter put up seven triples a game and hit on 41% of them last year. DeRozan has never taken more than 3.6 shots from deep a game in his career and his career make rate is just 30%. This is why the comparison to Westbrook’s role as sixth man two years ago may be more apt than what Hardaway did in 2024-25.

DeRozan will anchor that bench unit with fellow new pick ups for the minimum, Marvin Bagley III at big and Alpha Diallo as a defensive forward. Young forward Spencer Jones will be the highest-paid player in the rotation coming off the bench, returning on a new $6 million contract after Oklahoma City tried to swipe him. Tyus Jones is back on a minimum deal Then there’s former first round picks Julian Strawther and DaRon Holmes II, who will be given chances to crack the squad.

Jokic said Thursday from Belgrade, after Serbia’s 90-87 exhibition win over France, that the Nuggets would be okay after the Watson trade. Twenty-four hours later, the Nuggets did something that will make their fans feel a bit better, but maybe not all the way to okay.

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