Nuggets Waive Matt Janning

12:27pm: The Nuggets have released Janning, the team announced via press release.

12:11pm: Janning has signed with Hapoel Jerusalem, the Israeli Winner League says via Twitter (hat tip to Sportando’s Orazio Cauchi). It’s a one-year deal with an option for a second, Pick tweets. The Nuggets haven’t announced anything about releasing Janning yet, and he’d have to clear waivers before any overseas deal could become official.

8:34am: The Nuggets will waive Matt Janning and his non-guaranteed deal, and the 27-year-old swingman is already in talks with Israel’s Hapoel Jerusalem, reports international journalist David Pick (Twitter link). Janning scored two points in about nine minutes of preseason action spread over a pair of games this month. The move will bring the Nuggets down to 18 players, including 15 with fully guaranteed pacts, as our roster count shows.

Janning’s contract with Denver is his first formal NBA deal since the 2010/11 season, when he was briefly on the Suns roster but didn’t manage to make it into a regular season game. He’s nonetheless been a frequent summer league participant, appearing on squads for the Suns, Celtics, Grizzlies, Pacers, Bulls, Nets and Timberwolves, though he didn’t play in an NBA summer league this year. Much of his career has taken place overseas, and he played for Anadolu Efes of Turkey last season.

He was a long shot to stick with the Nuggets for opening night, given the presence of those 15 guaranteed deals plus Erick Green, a holdover from last season who has a $100K partial guarantee. Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post opined recently that Green, and not Nick Johnson, who has a fully guaranteed one-year veteran’s minimum salary, is in the lead for the final regular season roster spot. Oleksiy Pecherov is also in Nuggets camp on a non-guaranteed contract as he attempts an NBA comeback, and Denver has summer-leaguer Devin Sweetney on a non-guaranteed deal, too.

Who do you think will end up on the Nuggets regular season roster? Leave a comment to give your thoughts.

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