An intriguing young Denver Nuggets shooting guard is considered to be one of the team's top two major trade candidates heading into the 2025-26 season.
Denver has drastically reconfigured its roster after failing to advance beyond the second round of the playoffs for the past two seasons, despite fielding perhaps the best player in the league in three-time MVP center Nikola Jokic.
Nuggets executive vice president of basketball operations Ben Tenzer and executive VP of player personnel Jonathan Wallace have made a flurry of moves this summer to improve the club's depth and cap sheet around Jokic.
A New And Improved Denver
Most notably, floor-spacing small forward Michael Porter Jr. was shipped out to the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for the much cheaper Cam Johnson, a better two-way player. Denver also traded to acquire a solid traditional backup center behind Jokic in burly big man Jonas Valanciunas. The Nuggets inked free agent veteran wings Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown to minimum deals, as well.
Armed with new and improved roster depth, the Nuggets look ready to compete with the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder — whom they pushed to seven games in the second round, even while starting forwards Porter and Aaron Gordon were hurt — the Minnesota Timberwolves and the rising Houston Rockets for Western Conference supremacy.
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Now, Sam Amico of HoopsWire reports that 22-year-old guard Peyton Watson ranks among the two top trade candidates on the current roster this year, along with fellow swingman Julian Strawther. Certainly, the Nuggets don't need both young players — although they fulfill different functions. Watson is a defense-first perimeter option, while Strawther is more of an erratic microwave scorer.
A 6-foot-7 shooting guard, Watson was selected with the No. 30 pick out of UCLA in the 2022 draft.
He didn't carve out much of a rotation role during his first season in town, when a finely-tuned Denver squad won its first-ever NBA title.
But Watson has enjoyed consistent bench minutes in the intervening two seasons. He enjoyed his most prolific season in 2024-25, averaging 8.1 points on .477/.353/.693 shooting splits, 3.4 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 1.4 blocks and 0.7 steals a night.
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