Northwest division watch: Nuggets lose Watson, get DeRozan

As the offseason settles into the quiet, I’m taking a Warriors-centric look at Northwest Division. Let’s chat about those Denver Nuggets. They let 23-year old baller Peyton Watson walk and added a 37-year-old DeMar DeRozan. Watson signed a four-year, $22 million deal with Cleveland in a sign-and-trade while Denver told itself Watson’s number was too rich to match.

This is a difficult blow for Nuggets’ supporters who watched Watson develop into a solid piece for a Denver team not far removed from that 2023 NBA title parade:

Losing Watson is tough to swallow, there’s no way around that. Regardless of where one falls on their opinion of whether $22 million a season (and the much larger tax penalties) is worth it for Watson, the immediate return of a first and second round draft pick years in the future doesn’t inspire much hope in Denver’s immediate prospects to get a second ring with Jokic. Nor does it inspire a lot of belief that the organization truly prioritizes winning another championship with the greatest player in franchise history. Certainly those draft picks can help the Nuggets make further moves to improve the roster but the more likely scenario, at this moment at least, feels like those picks will just be used to offload more salary and further reduce the Nuggets tax penalties.

Watson has been establishing himself as a strong defensive option that could be trusted to take on the responsibilities of star assignments. His absence will absolutely be felt on that end. Denver is replacing that on the roster with DeRozan, who averaged better than 18 points a game last season in Sacramento on a team that spent the season in the cellar. He’s a bucket getter, no argument there. But don’t take my word for it, just ask the Denver Stiff blog:

The Nuggets will want DeRozan ready for the playoffs as well so he’ll play plenty next to Joker so that he too can acclimate to having a center as the hub of the offense, but the Nuggets desperately need an on-ball presence with the bench who can score without Jokic – and with almost 27,000 points in his career DeMar can absolutely score. His True Shooting Percentage of .594 last year showed he can keep his efficiency up as well, something else that will play extremely well in Denver.

Interestingly, it looks like Denver’s core had a lot to do with DeRozan choosing the Nuggets from among his suitors. Chris Haynes says that Nikola Jokic, Aaron Gordon and Jamal Murray all talked with DeRozan about joining the team. Having another vet who has been through big moments will be huge.

Denver still has Jokic and him alone keeps them alive in every series they play. But we’ve seen the Joker can’t do it all without getting impactful support from his teammates. I can imagine Joker operating from the three-point line, firing a great pass to DeRozan on the wing and then clearing out space for him with the defender on an island. It’s definitely gonna be tough for the Dubs to defend that, which could be an important subplot come playoff time if the Warriors actually make it this year.

Defensively though? I’m very curious how they are gonna hold up.

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