There are lessons to be learned in this, the summer of financial angst, for the Denver Nuggets. Those lessons are all rooted in the business of team-building; when to extend players’ contracts, how much to extend for, and anticipating what the next collective bargaining agreement might do to impact how money gets spent.
At the nexus of this is Peyton Watson, a player the Nuggets drafted, developed, and most-certainly want to keep. Yet, at the moment, they do not have the financial means to do so due to the NBA’s most frightening creation — the second apron. N
The situation will play itself out in whatever manner it does, but the bigger picture is how the Nuggets go about doing business in the future. It is likely altered to some degree. The aprons have changed how every team in the NBA builds its roster.
Part of the story is a Nuggets organization that got trapped in the transition from how business was done pre-second apron, which went into effect in 2024, to what must be done now. Currently, roughly 55 percent of the Nuggets’ salaries (including cap hold) is wrapped up in three players — Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon. Toss in the other two starters, Christian Braun and Cam Johnson, and it balloons to 73 percent of their total number.
Jokic, Murray and Gordon’s contracts were all agreed prior to, or right as, the new CBA went into effect. Team building in the NBA was different then. Even with escalating luxury tax penalties, if an owner had no problem paying them, they simply added talent without worry. The standard for a championship-level team was three “stars” (eg: max contract players). The Nuggets locked theirs in.
And they did so early.
Jokic, Murray and Gordon all agreed to new deals at least a year before their contracts expired. Same for Braun. Same for one of the core players on their 2023 championship roster, Michael Porter Jr. The Nuggets preference is to sign its own players early. It was a philosophy championed by former general managers, Tim Connelly and Calvin Booth.
And it was good business.
The team retains its player, most times at a rate cheaper than if it waited, watched the player play another great season and then would have to pay a higher price tag. The player, meanwhile, gets his money and the security that the franchise wants him for the foreseeable future.
But the second apron changed the calculus. The NBA did not want indiscriminate spending. It wanted parity. It wanted to level the playing field from big market to small market teams, and it did so not by levying additional easily-ignored financial penalties — it severely limited how any team could even make trades, retain future first-round picks, and sign free agents. Simply, it disabled the ability for a team to make meaningful changes to its roster.
The Nuggets, by virtue of retaining Spencer Jones on as 2-year, $12 milion deal, are in the second apron.
And with massive contracts to just a few players, with consistent injuries to some of those big contract players, and with skill-set deficiencies still evident on the roster, the Nuggets are in a bind. Early contract extensions signed in recent years have damaged the organization’s ability to be nimble in improving the current roster. All they have been able to do this summer is sign a series of one-year, minimum deals to Tyus Jones, Marvin Bagley III, Alpha Diallo, and a training camp deal to Lonnie Walker IV to try and round out the roster.
League-wide, we are already seeing the shift. Gone will be teams that have three max, or near-max, contracts. Two will be the cutoff mark. One, would be ideal. That allows for higher-level utility players to be signed. More money can be devoted to signing a deeper roster, which matters in this league.
As some of the bigger contracts start to come off the books over the next handful of seasons, expect the Nuggets to repurpose their finances to fit the new reality. They’ll also be more mindful of any new roster-building changes to coming in the new CBA, and sign players according to what might happen vs. what is happening in the current climate.
This is the lesson of the summer of 2026. It is one the Nuggets will never forget.