A 2025 Denver Nuggets playoff hero has emerged as one of the team's likelier trade chips for the 2025-26 season, according to a longtime NBA insider.
MORE NEWS: Former Nuggets star Russell Westbrook predicted to land with East contender
Third-year shooting guard Julian Strawther, the No. 29 pick in 2023 out of Gonzaga, found himself pressed into service relatively quickly for Denver, emerging as a rotation player by his 2024-25 sophomore pro season.
Across 65 regular season contests last year (four starts), the 6-foot-6 wing averaged 9.0 points while slashing .432/.349/.822, 2.2 boards, 1.3 dimes and 0.6 swipes in 21.3 minutes per.
A Playoff Hero Becomes Expendable for New-Look Nuggets
He initially found himself squeezed out of then-interim head coach David Adelman's lineups during the playoffs, and ultimately averaged just 4.2 points on .433/.500/.857 shooting splits and 1.0 boards a night. But those stats belie the whole story.
Injuries to starting forwards Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr. compelled Adelman to play Strawther big bench minutes during Denver's final two playoff contests against the Oklahoma City Thunder in a hotly contested seven-game second-round series. Strawther came up huge in a must-win Game 6, scoring a playoff career-high 15 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the floor (including 3-of-4 shooting from deep) and 4-of-4 shooting from the charity stripe in just 19:31.
Per Sam Amico of HoopsWire, bench scoring guard Julian Strawther has become one of the club's top two expendable young players following the Nuggets' blockbuster trade of Porter to the Brooklyn Nets for the cheaper, better Cam Johnson, along with defense-first shooting guard Peyton Watson.
The Nuggets have added a pair of more seasoned veteran guards, former Denver champ Bruce Brown and sharpshooter Tim Hardaway Jr., for veteran's minimum deals this summer. Their additions essentially have made Strawther and Watson expendable, although either player could still stick in Adelman's revamped rotations given their intriguing upside.
MORE NEWS: Nuggets star Nikola Jokic beats out Shaquille O'Neal for impressive honor