Another new team enters the Peyton Watson sweepstakes

Cleveland wants in.

ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported Thursday that the Cavaliers are “poking around” with Peyton Watson, and that James Harden — still unsigned — has given Cleveland room to negotiate. The Consensus NBA separately reported that the Cavaliers are pursuing Watson as “the franchise looks for another contributor,” citing league sources.

That makes Cleveland the fourth team to surface in the Watson sweepstakes this month, joining the Clippers, Hawks and Bucks. None of the first three have gone anywhere. The Cavaliers face the same wall, if not a taller one.

Cleveland has no cap space and is staring down the second apron. The only path is a sign-and-trade. And a sign-and-trade runs into the same problem every other suitor has encountered if not worse since the Cavs don’t have any useful exceptions. In any sign-and-trade, Denver has to agree to it, and the Nuggets’ asking price hasn’t exactly been welcoming. Shams Charania of ESPN reported that Denver’s price has evolved from the Walker Kessler-level haul of two firsts and two swaps to “a really good high-level player as well as a first-round pick.”

That’s a significant shift in framing, but not necessarily in cost.It lines up more with the Nuggets’ timeline around Nikola Jokic and their need to improve the roster now. But a useful NBA player is surely more than the possibility of acquiring one in the future.

Cavs insider Chris Fedor at Cleveland.com laid out the obvious tension: “For the Cavs, any player on the current roster whose salary approaches what Watson wants would be someone Cleveland prefers to keep. Do the Cavs want to part with Jarrett Allen? Or Sam Merrill? Or Strus? Or Schroder?”

The answer to most of those is probably no. Which means this is likely another suitor circling the same problem everyone else has — Watson is available in theory but prohibitively expensive in practice.

That’s not to mention the balancing act the Nuggets would need to pull off in the deal since a sign-and-trade would hard cap them at the second apron, which they’re already over. If the Nuggets traded Watson, accepting any player back would most likely require a second trade to shed salary. In practice, the Nuggets could end up sending both Watson and Cameron Johnson in a sign-and-trade and getting back a player not as good as either one.

Meanwhile, the contract numbers around Watson have turned into their own game of telephone.

Tony Jones of The Athletic reported the Nuggets have offered Watson five years and $70 million. The Consensus NBA, citing two sources, disputed those figures. Their understanding is that Denver internally values Watson closer to a four-year contract worth slightly more than $80 million — though whether that framework has been formally presented remains unclear.

A source told me more than a year ago that former general manager Calvin Booth was prepared to offer Watson upward of $80 million last summer, had he not been fired. ESPN’s Bobby Marks projected four years and $90 million before free agency opened. If the Nuggets’ actual number is somewhere around $80 million over four years, that would be consistent with where internal thinking has been for over a year. The $70 million figure, whether it was a formal offer or an opening salvo, reads more like a negotiating posture than a real contract.

The qualifying offer chatter, reported by Marc Stein, should be viewed through a similar lens. Watson could accept his $6.5 million qualifying offer, play next season on it, and become an unrestricted free agent in 2027.

It would be an enormous gamble for a player with Watson’s injury history — he’s played 80 games only once, has totals of 23, 54 and 68 in the other three years of his career, and has logged just 303 playoff minutes across four seasons.

Is it possible? Sure. Would Watson leave roughly $73 million in guaranteed money on the table — even if Denver’s offer is below what he wants — for a player whose hamstring has betrayed him at the worst possible time in back-to-back seasons? That’s the kind of leverage play that sounds great in a negotiation and falls apart the moment it becomes real. For a player represented by Klutch Sports and Rich Paul, the threat itself is the point. They’ve only had two recent clients accept the qualifying offer and one was in the middle of a court case when he did so.

The Cavaliers’ interest does add a wrinkle worth watching Harden’s delayed re-signing initially gave Cleveland room to pursue LeBron James. That fell through, and now the Cavs are pivoting to other wings. One of those names is Jonathan Kuminga, who had his own nasty time in restricted free agency last summer and now can’t get a deal close to what he thinks he is worth.

Marks projected that matching Spencer Jones’ two-year, $12 million deal and signing Watson to a contract in the $23 million range would put the Nuggets at $238 million in tax penalties alone — pushing the team’s combined payroll and tax bill toward $450 million, a figure nearly unprecedented in NBA history.

The Consensus NBA also noted that both Cleveland and Denver have engaged in discussions with DeMar DeRozan and his representatives at Goodwin Sports — a reminder that the Watson situation doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Denver has multiple roster decisions still unresolved, and the DeRozan pursuit suggests the front office is exploring every avenue to reshape the roster, not just the Watson one. They still haven’t addressed what they called one of their biggest needs — ballhandling — as the team let its second-string backcourt walk and re-upped with third-stringers at guard.

Add Cleveland to the list of teams that want Watson. The Clippers have been priced out, or are caught up in scandal. The Hawks don’t have the pieces. The Bucks are a wild card. And now the Cavaliers — a contender built around Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley — would have to gut a piece of their core to make the salaries work, then convince Denver the return is worth it.

Watson averaged 14.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 54 games last season, shooting 49.1% from the field and 41.1% from 3. He’s 23, fits the two-way wing archetype every front office covets, and is likely the last realistic chance the Nuggets have at developing a star alongside Jokic and Jamal Murray.

This has now dragged into late July. Four suitors. No offer sheet. No sign-and-trade. Conflicting contract reports. Qualifying offer posturing. The only thing that’s clear is nothing is close.

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