Peyton Watson’s Payday Could Force the Nuggets to Make a Painful Call on Cam Johnson

Cam Johnson didn’t dance around it. He sat down for an episode of Old Man and the Three and just said what everyone in Denver’s front office is thinking.

Peyton Watson played his way into a real contract. That’s great for Watson. It’s complicated for everyone else.

Watson, the Nuggets’ first-round pick back in 2022, averaged 3.3 points per game in college. That number looked like a typo when he dropped 14.6 per game last season and turned into the team’s most disruptive defender. He even carried the scoring load when Nikola Jokic sat out. That kind of jump doesn’t go unnoticed, especially in a thin free agent market.

But here’s the thing about the Nuggets. They already have Jokic on a supermax. Jamal Murray got paid. Aaron Gordon’s making real money. Christian Braun is coming up. And Johnson himself is set to make just over $23 million next season before hitting unrestricted free agency. The roster is good. It’s also expensive. The second apron is basically in the building.

Johnson put it bluntly.

“Let’s just take the elephant in the room,” Johnson said. “Peyton Watson is in contract negotiations. The only reason that we’re in this position in the first place is because he balled out. He played really well. So you see that, and it’s just like you want your guys to play well. You want your guys to make top dollar, and then you get to the end of the road and it becomes very like, oh man, now everybody can’t get paid crazy.”

That’s the math. Denver wants Watson back. But re-signing him likely means someone else has to go. Johnson’s name has come up in trade rumors as the most logical salary dump. The Nuggets haven’t done much this offseason to add talent, and LeBron James reportedly took himself out of the Denver sweepstakes. So the path forward is probably a trade involving Johnson to clear cap space, then a new deal for Watson.

It’s not a question of if the Nuggets make a big decision. It’s which one. And Johnson is self-aware enough to see the writing on the wall.

Watson earned his raise. The Nuggets just have to figure out who pays for it.