Nuggets do the cheap thing, cut Jonas Valanciunas

The Denver Nuggets chose Enos Kroenke’s wallet over the team’s roster Wednesday, waiving center Jonas Valanciunas before his $10 million salary for 2026-27 became fully guaranteed.

Exactly one year ago, Denver traded Michael Porter Jr. partly to create the cap room that brought Valanciunas here. Sixty-five games later, they’re eating $2 million just to make him go away.

Denver now owes Valanciunas just $2 million — the partially guaranteed slice — and can stretch that across three seasons if it wants to get even thriftier. The savings? Roughly $8 million off a luxury-tax bill that was already threatening to smash franchise records. Factor in the repeater tax on a roster this expensive and the real savings climb into the tens of millions that would’ve come associated with the deal given how expensive Denver’s roster is.

So the front office that told us “everything is on the table, outside of trading Nikola” decided one of their big moves this offseason was punting on a perfectly functional backup center — something the Nuggets have been spinning in circles to get for much of the Jokic era.

The numbers don’t lie — and neither does the DNP column. Valanciunas, 34, averaged 8.7 points and 5.1 rebounds in 13.4 minutes per game across 65 appearances this season. Those are backup-center numbers, fine. But the back half of the year told a worse story: five consecutive DNP-CDs in March and five-or-fewer minutes in four of the team’s six playoff games as Minnesota bounced Denver in the first round.

When the Nuggets needed a body behind Nikola Jokic in a win-or-go-home Game 6, Valanciunas was a spectator.

It’s hard to argue that Val was right for every matchup, but it’s also hard to understand David Adelman’s logic with Val’s deployment.

Still — they cut a capable NBA player instead of having him as an option or at the very least, holding out for a trade partner? The Lakers had interest. Marc Stein reported it was “only growing.” So were the New York Knicks, per other reports.

The writing has been on the wall for a while with KSE more or less telegraphing this move last year by restructuring the guarantee language in Valanciunas’ contract. But it is worth going back to that time, because the Nuggets traded Porter a year ago Wednesday, along with an unprotected future first, for Cameron Johnson and savings they used to get Valanciunas.

Johnson was no doubt a level down for Porter but the pitch was the trade created depth and flexibility. All of it exercised in the form of Valanciunas with none of that flexibility actually touched. That turned out to be 65 games, and a future cap hold. A swap that didn’t work, and rather than squeeze any remaining value from it, Denver is using the savings to… save more money.

Valanciunas’ replacement is already in town, with Denver agreeing to a one-year deal with Marvin Bagley III. Though the big could’ve played power forward next to Valanciunas, too. But the Nuggets won’t have those luxuries, not when they’re worried about tax brackets.

Bagley is younger, quicker and cheaper. He doesn’t space the floor any better than Valanciunas, but he’s a more mobile defender, and right now that’s the bar. The Nuggets got torched on that end. Plus Bagley can play with or without Jokic. Denver’s double big experiments with Jokic and Valanciunas playing together never really panned out.

Valanciunas, a 14-year veteran with career averages of 12.8 points and 9.0 rebounds across 1,002 games for six franchises, isn’t finished. BasketNews reports he is expected to join EuroLeague club Zalgiris Kaunas — a homecoming of sorts for the Lithuanian big man — if he clears waivers. Though there is still real NBA interest in the big.

For Denver, the calculus is simple and frustrating. This team posted the league’s best offensive rating this season, and ownership is staring down a potential $200 million or more luxury-tax penalty even after the Valanciunas savings, if they keep it together and re-sign Peyton Watson. He’s still a restricted free agent. Jokic hasn’t signed his supermax extension, nor will he this summer — leaving the Nuggets in an uneasy spot even if Nikola has verbally committed.

Cutting Valanciunas doesn’t fix any of the Nuggets’ issues — in fact, it might deepen them. For Jokic, who has been overworked due to incompetent play behind him, Denver rolls the dice again. Off the court, Jokic complained about his friends all being gone before last season, while noting Valanciunas could be a buddy. That man is now gone.

This is the Kroenke playbook: trim around the edges, promise the big picture is intact, and ask fans to trust the process. The Nuggets lost in the first round for the second time in three years, and the boldest move of the offseason so far is saving eight million bucks on a backup five. All that money saved, maybe Enos can buy more land while the Nuggets spin for another backup big

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