Speaking to reporters at a press conference on Friday, Nuggets general manager Ben Tenzer said the team has “no concerns” about the possibility of newly added center Jonas Valanciunas not showing up for training camp this fall, per Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter video link).
“We’ve had great conversations with him,” Tenzer said. “There’s been nothing but healthy conversations in terms of him honoring his contract and him excited to be a Nugget.”
Two days after the Nuggets reached a trade agreement with the Kings early in free agency to acquire Valanciunas in exchange for Dario Saric, the Lithuanian big man’s future became a hot topic of discussion, as word broke that he was close to accepting a three-year contract offer from the Greek team Panathinaikos.
There’s some precedent for a European-born player giving up his entire guaranteed NBA salary in order to secure his release and get FIBA clearance to play for a non-NBA team — Sasha Vezenkov did it just last year. However, the Nuggets were never motivated to let Valanciunas out of his contract, even if he were willing to forfeit his full $10.4MM salary, since they’ve long had their eye on him and view him as an ideal backup for star center Nikola Jokic.
As rumors about Panathianikos continued to swirl, reports indicated that the Nuggets had told Valanciunas’ camp they expected him to honor his contract, and the trade was officially completed this past Sunday. Since then, head coach David Adelman has spoken about how he envisions using Valanciunas, and now Tenzer has publicly confirmed that there are no plans for a buyout.
For his part, Valanciunas hasn’t publicly said he intends to report to the Nuggets and play out the 2025/26 season in the NBA, so it’s possible he could still look to press the issue. But for the time being, all signs are pointing to him being in Denver this fall.
Valanciunas’ contract features a non-guaranteed $10MM salary for 2026/27 in addition to his $10.4MM guaranteed salary for the coming season.
It’s a trip how they try to minimize JoVal’s opinion in this to the point of making it seem like it doesn’t even matter what he wants. In reality the only thing that matters is what JoVal wants. If he wants to play in Denver he will but if he doesn’t he won’t & obv they can’t make him. It’s very clear that all signs do not currently point to him playing for the Nuggets bc the last thing he ever said about the issue was that he didn’t wanna play for them.
There is nothing in his contract that allows him to unilaterally cancel his NBA term or force his NBA team to release him. He is literally the only person doing something wrong in this situation.
What did he do wrong?
Len they do it every year. This is nothing new.
Horrible Denver management. Greedy greedy
Valanciunas hasn’t said he doesn’t want to play for Denver. He’s gone out of his way to try to avoid talking about the situation publicly. The extent of his comments has been stuff like “We’ll see.”
I do think if he were a free agent, he already would’ve signed with Panathinaikos. But since he’s not, and the Nuggets don’t want to release him, he has to decide what his next move is — he could certainly hold out, but if Denver decides to play hardball, he has no recourse to unilaterally get out of his contract. He could end up giving up a bunch of money and still not getting to play for Panathinaikos.
Given what we’ve learned since the Panathinaikos news initially broke (multiple reports about the Nuggets wanting Valanciunas and trying to sell him on Denver; reports out of Greece saying that Panathinaikos was surprised to learn Valanciunas’ release from Denver wasn’t guaranteed and that they’re considering Plan Bs; now Tenzer’s comments about “great conversations” and “excited to be a Nugget”), I think we’re probably trending toward Valanciunas ending up in Denver. But as I wrote in the story, he has the option of pressing the issue if he decides that’s really not what he wants.
From what I understand he had an agreement to sign with Panathinaikos, he flew over to Greece to finalize it, before he could Denver makes it known that they won’t just let him go easily & JoVal has since shifted his focus to the Lithuanian national team, choosing to deal with the Nuggets stuff after Eurobasket.
My issue is that much like media is known to do, you minimized JoVal’s own ability to make his own decision. As if it didn’t matter what he wanted, the Nuggets had made their decision & that was that. It might be true that signs are trending toward him playing for Denver but until he says so or at least hints towards accepting being a Nugget then clearly all signs arent pointing that way.
It’s not that it doesn’t matter he wants. It’s just that his leverage is really limited if the Nuggets aren’t willing to cooperate. If his options are “play for the Nuggets for $10 million” or “hold out and forfeit most of that salary while still not getting his letter of clearance to sign in Greece,” it would be pretty shocking if he chose the latter.
Maybe the Nuggets budge and another path opens up besides those two, but they’ve been pretty adamant to that point that that won’t happen, and I don’t think a new GM would make comments like he did today if they weren’t (at least somewhat) true.
I hear where you’re coming from in terms of the “all signs” wording, but my thinking there is that there have been no leaks (or public statements) from Valanciunas’ side within the last couple weeks suggesting he’s gearing up to fight this. It feels more like he’s coming to terms with accepting what wasn’t his first choice. We’ll see.
Nuggets leverage consists solely of the $ as far as I see. If he isn’t thirsty for the $ (I’d take it but it’s obv plausible that he wouldn’t. He certainly doesn’t have to) & really dw play as an NBA backup any more then they’re the ones with no leverage. And as far as things that are shocking, it’s pretty shocking to me that Denver traded for him & made him such a big part of their plan for success without first checking to see if he had interest in remaining in the country, especially when the rumors that he was interested in going back to Europe was as loud as they were.
Big picture I’m sure you see how hateful & anti-athlete the comments are in this comment section on a regular basis. There is a much more nuanced but just as regular slant against the athletes & pro team/league in vast majority of every story I ever seen in sports media in my lifetime. Perhaps this is partly why guys hate on these athletes so much. At the least y’all are helping perpetuate it.
This is incorrect. He can decide not to play for the Nuggets, as any NBA player can decide any time he wants. But he cannot play for any other team anywhere if he chooses that path. The Nuggets made it abundantly clear there is zero problem here. He will be enthusiastically reporting.
My comment I guess didn’t go through but Seamaholic is right
How can you possibly feel sorry for pro athletes who have to deal with the consequences of wanting to bail from a contract before it’s up. He agreed to play basketball in the NBA for the next 3 years. They are paid an obscene amount of money. He has options but it will cost him. Boo hoo.
Trade Jonas, Zeke, Pickett, Tyson and picks for any decent backup C, C prospect and a backup PG
Maybe trade all that and Tim Hardaway for KCP and sign the rest. Let Memphis waive everyone