if we don’t get a good offer to move off watson, we can just sign him for less than he wants and no one can match. But high enough he’ll take it over QO

Guaranteed money is always the move and watson will definitely rather sign than not as long as it’s not offensively low

They’re happy to pay him 25 million. Every piece of reporting says they’re willing to pay the tax for him. Making this a cheap deal would only be helping the Clippers, no reason for the Nuggets to do that

There’s way too much risk for Watson to sign QO. Hamstring issue which usually lingers, and small sample size of success. I think it was a legit leap but if he shows any sign of regression or gets hurt he’s throwing away a huge bag. Ask Nerlens Noel how that turns out.

First contract you need to take guaranteed money

When the last time a RFA took a QO and it’s worked for them ?

Then, you had the injury risk for Watson.

The Nuggets are fully in the driver seat, they’re going to extend him for cheap.

Then they will trade Cam Johnson during the season and maybe Aaron Gordon too.

Exactly. A direct offer sheet is dead because the Clips only have like 23m in usable cap space to throw at him after you factor in mandatory incomplete roster charges. And since the Nuggets literally just dumped Jonas Val, matching 23m is an easy without getting wrecked by the tax

They are definitely not losing Peyton for nothing to an offer sheet. The Clippers literally have to convince the Nuggets to facilitate an S&T if they want him, which means the Nuggets completely dictate this either way. Media and this sub trying to paint it like Clippers hold all the cards is 10000000% false.

Yea but the Lakers were trying to get Kessler for years which only makes the asking price higher

The owners are not going to pay a $177m tax bill.

Oh yeah, he has the aspirations to do this for sure.

That would be also be idiotic

This doesn’t make sense because you literally cannot change the cap space. No matter what, Nuggets have the leverage. This sub and the media painting it like LAC has all the leverage is 10000% false. You can’t just magically wish the cap space was bigger lol

edit: downvoted because Clips are sad they can’t get away with wishful thinking here.

edit edit: To clarify what I meant about the cap space, renouncing Mathurin drops their payroll to clear up room, but it doesn’t move the actual hard cap ceiling itself. Their books are too bloated either way.

Clips can only offer around 23m which Nuggets can easily match after dropping Jonas lol.

imagine Clips renounce Mathurin and Denver matches Watson…LAC end up empty handed

Bro just give us Mathurin. That would actually be helpful

That’s what they want to offer him, and the only way to do that is for the Nuggets to sign and trade him there and tie the trade into one of their others (may have been the Kawhi trade). Again needs the Nuggets to facilitate the whole thing

They’re more fucked by trading all their remaining draft capital for a guy who will never make an All-Star team imo. They could also pivot to Duren like I said. But if they do get one of those two guys then they still have three or four picks and swaps to trade. They can maybe finally get close to being a contender which they aren’t now

Jazz would have matched. They have plenty of cap now and even worst case have plenty of picks if it became an undesirable contract by the time they are in need of more cap space.

If they did that, then would they have been able to sign Mamu, Sexton, Grimes, etc

you can use those picks on a cost controlled player later.

I mean that’s market value, you guys offered a much more promising package then us, i’d rather have 5th pick this and another 1st then have to bank on the lakers being bad in like 2031 and 2033 years.

everyone always says this and then guys don’t take the QO. Denver will give him plenty of guaranteed $, I highly doubt this ends with him taking the QO. Especially after missing time last year

He played 50 games last year and had 3 hamstring injuries, he can certainly try to bet on himself.

AG has also played like 90ganes or less combined the last 2 seasons. A long with a history of injuries not just the one. Lol

What? The Clippers physically do not have $25 million in open, unspent cap space to give Watson a straight contract offer. Even if they renounce other players, NBA rules prevent them from freeing up that much raw space under the hard ceiling.

The max they can give is still 23m which, Nuggets can match. They just dropped Jonas..

Would the clippers really do that tho?

Why would they pay him $25M when nobody else has the cap space to offer him that much. There is no market for him that is setting that price.

You don’t understand. Payton doesn’t have a $25m contract. Teams need to work out a sign and trade to get Payton that contract, the nuggets are not offering it themselves

Payton is the one with no leverage here. The team he plays for is broke and other teams don’t have money to give him. Hes going to get squeezed by the market unless some team is a big fan of his and makes it worthwhile for Denver

Why do Nuggets have to resign Pwat for 25 mil?

If there is no market for him they don’t need to do that lmao wtf are you talking about. Pwat will have to sign for less

They can salary dump Cam Johnson or AG. There’d be plethora of offers for both.

They can easily dump other salaries.

You’re right but does any team have 25m cap space?

They’ll just offer him less than that and force him to decide if he’s willing to sign a QA and wait a year.

They can always dump cam Johnson if needed.

Not a nuggets fan, and you’re solidly in the wrong here lol. Nuggets will likely have to pay tax anyways because they basically can’t dump anymore salaries. Moreover the max the clippers can offer in an offer sheet would be 14 million/y, which the nuggets would be more than happy to match. The only way they can realistically get him atp is a sign and trade

ugh 😩

resorting to ad hominem so quickly. ya hate to see it 😢

They were also a close game 7 away from beating the eventual champs just a year ago. People here have the memory of a goldfish lmao