The Denver Nuggets feel that Peyton Watson did them dirty in a sense.
Denver continued to check in on their restricted free agent forward Watson’s status during their first-round playoff series against the Minnesota Timberwolves and thought that Watson was day-to-day with the hamstring injury he was nursing at the time, Anthony Slater of ESPN reported on Tuesday. But Watson ultimately never played in the series, leading to a “belief” on the Nuggets’ part that Watson’s impending free agency may have factored into his decision not to play.
Watson, 24, missed six weeks with a Grade 2 hamstring strain that he initially suffered in early February. He ended up returning in late March but re-aggravated the injury in early April and did not play at all for the rest of regular season and all throughout Denver’s first-round loss to Minnesota (a series that concluded on Apr. 30).
It was still a banner year overall though for Watson. During the regular season, he averaged career-high tallies with 14.6 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game on 49/41/73 shooting splits, adding another element alongside Watson’s superb defensive play.
But Watson is still unsigned as an RFA roughly a month-and-a-half now into the official free agency period. Denver also took themselves into the second apron of the luxury tax by matching an offer sheet for forward Spencer Jones, making it highly unlikely that they re-sign Watson to a new deal as well.
On one hand, you cannot really fault Watson from a business perspective for being cautious with a hamstring injury (which are notorious for lingering) ahead of his foray into the open market. But from a competitor’s perspective, you might also be able to see how that rubbed the Nuggets the wrong way, especially with some of the gutsy performances through injury that they got from some of their other current players.
