We have a trade!
The deadline is still three weeks away, but Boston, San Antonio and Denver struck a three-team deal in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. The terms will send Juancho Hernangomez from Boston to San Antonio, Bryn Forbes from San Antonio to Denver and Bol Bol and P.J. Dozier from Denver to Boston. Denver’s 2028 second-round pick also goes to San Antonio.
The biggest story here isn’t the trade itself but what it represents in the big picture: a belief by the Denver Nuggets that they can be healthy enough by the 2022 playoffs to contend for something important, even in a loaded West, and thus that it’s worth throwing assets at this season despite a 22-20 record.
We’ll go deeper into that discussion in a minute, but let’s start with the low-hanging fruit first. A rebuilding Spurs team with eleventy-seven shooting guards parlayed the one-year deal Forbes signed this offseason into a 2028 second-round pick. It’s hard to see how that one turns out badly for San Antonio. In fact, this is the one way signing veterans can work out really well for a rebuilding team — if they can be rolled into draft picks at midseason.
The Spurs also get Hernangomez in the deal, who has hardly played this year and presumably will be waived in the offseason, if not sooner (his $7.5 million for next season is non-guaranteed). San Antonio is still miles below the luxury-tax line and only added $1 million in payroll cash-wise, so think of this as buying a draft pick incredibly cheaply.
