Rumors are everywhere ahead of the NBA trade deadline. Executives are leaking just enough to get the market tested. Fans are refreshing feeds, as they wait for fireworks.
And then there are the Denver Nuggets — calm, unconfusing and eerily predictable.
On the face of it, Denver does not appear to be a deadline drama-ready team. The rotation is largely set. Nikola Jokić anchors everything. The Nuggets aren’t chasing a blockbuster, and there is no obvious hole to fill with a splashy move. But underneath that quiet facade there is a very real, very Nuggets-specific problem.
Money.
Denver currently is over the luxury tax by $402,000, and that little overage has caused a much larger headache than it’s worth. The Nuggets now also need to sign Spencer Jones, whose two-way eligibility runs out after just five games. That means a roster call — and a financial one — is imminent.
In short: Denver must drop salary, and quickly.
That’s why Danny Leroux’s comment on Dunc’d On podcast raised an eyebrow among the league.
“I think Hunter Tyson is one of the most likely players that could be traded in the entire league by the deadline.”
Read that again. Not “one of the most likely Nuggets.” Probably one of the most likely players in the whole NBA.
It sounds absurd at first. Tyson is buried at the end of the bench, can barely crack the rotation and doesn’t move the needle in any significant way on the court. But that’s also why his name keeps recurring.
Tyson makes $2.2 million and has a team option for next season. That contract is the cleanest pressure valve available for such a desperate team trying to get around the tax line. Move Tyson, sign Jones, solve the problem. Simple math.
Except it’s not that simple.
Not to be missed though is the uncomfortable fact that Hunter Tyson has basically zero trade value. He’s not a young upside flier. He is not a plug-and-play rotation piece. Any team that would take him on would also in principle be doing Denver a favor — and favors cost assets.
That’s when it gets uncomfortable.
The Nuggets would nearly have to put something more on top to offload Tyson. A far away second-round pick. A future swap. Perhaps, in a more painful situation, a young player with genuine league interest like Julian Strawther.
And that is where frustration comes in for fans.
This isn’t about making the roster better. This isn’t about chasing another title. This is a question of trimming pennies — just enough to escape the luxury tax — so that ownership can remain within a financial line that frankly isn’t something that should matter when a contender has been built around a generational superstar.
The roster spot already exists. The overage is minuscule. The stakes are microscopic in comparison to the stakes of maximizing a championship window.
Yet here we are again.
That’s not new territory for the Nuggets or for the Kroenke ownership group. Over and over again, Denver has kept one eye on the court and the other focused on the balance sheet. But even while winning, those margins get smaller. Even when competing, cost-cutting creeps in.
On its own, this move probably won’t matter. Hunter Tyson leaving won’t swing a playoff series. Nobody will be immediately haunted by a late second-rounder. But championship windows aren’t lost in one huge mistake — they’re lost in a bunch of small ones.
Death by a thousand paper cuts.
Denver has designed something really special. They have the best player in the world. They have continuity. They have a system that works. And yet, once more, the deadline conversation is not about ways to get better — it’s about ways to get cheaper.
A minor trade is coming. It’s almost inevitable. No matter whether it’s Tyson plus a sweetener or a little more painful concession, Denver’s going to do what it has to do to slide under the tax line and move on.