The Denver Nuggets could be facing a tough reality once all the champagne has dried.
In an appearance Wednesday on “The Pat McAfee Show,” ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said that the Nuggets are “very likely” to lose swingman Bruce Brown in free agency. Wojnarowski notes that for Brown to stay in Denver, it would have to be “for a lot less money.”
Earlier in the day, Brown officially declined his $6.8 million player option for next season in the hopes of securing a bigger payday.
The 26-year-old Brown was a pivotal role player for the Nuggets during their NBA title run this year. He did all the dirty work off the bench, crashing the offensive glass, defending up a position or two, and bailing out the team’s halfcourt offense when needed with a three or a hard drive to the basket.
Brown has earned himself a sizable increase in salary, albeit one that the Nuggets will probably be unable to give him. Denver is a luxury tax team, and the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement is especially harsh on those teams (including a provision that does away with the taxpayer’s mid-level exception for those deep into the luxury tax). That is why the Nuggets have been working hard to find new avenues of adding cheap talent to their existing championship core (such as by making this trade earlier in June).
The good news for Denver is that Brown and 36-year-old Jeff Green are the only free agents this offseason from their eight-man championship rotation. But Brown (and his savage competitiveness) would be sorely missed if he was to leave the Nuggets.
