- Has a $3,468,960 player option
One good thing for the Nuggets heading into this offseason is that they will have little free agency to contend with. Their three two-way players (Trey Alexander, PJ Hall and Spencer Jones) will all need new deals, DeAndre Jordan will probably want a fourth consecutive minimum salary, Dario Saric also has a player option that he should be expected to exercise, and Vlatko Cancar’s sheer staying power could well see him get a sixth season. He never much played, but then, he never did.
Of the rotation players, only Westbrook might enter free agency this season, if he declines his player option for the minimum salary. And he might. Entering the final stages of his enigmatic career, Westbrook – who at one point in his career looked fresh out of suitors – had a pretty good consolidation season. In 75 regular season games with 36 starts, he averaged 13.3 points, 6.1 assists and 4.9 rebounds per game, inevitably down from his triple-double heyday yet still a ton of production from a man who turns 37 in November. As ever, there is no one else quite like Russ.
Westbrook’s whirlwind, dynamic, brave-to-the-point-of-reckless style of play is well-documented, and will not change now. Nor, it seems, does he want it to. He is self-aware, unrepentant and extremely talented, in a way rarely before seen, and the occasional moment of chaos is the price of having what Nuggets President Josh Kroenke calls Westbrook’s “spice“. Basketball always requires a certain level of chaos, both to give the defenses something unexpected to contend with and to give the fans something to watch; Westbrook, unmistakably, is that. He adds qualities to the Nuggets if not a great deal of surety.
For the minimum salary, warts and all, they will not do better. Cagier, yes. Better, no.
