The Denver Nuggets suffered a massive blow this offseason, as they failed to keep hold of restricted free agent Peyton Watson. The Nuggets and Watson couldn’t agree on a long-term deal, and he eventually headed to the Cleveland Cavaliers via a sign-and-trade.
The Nuggets not being able to retain a homegrown player has led to some complaints about the salary cap, but Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green doesn’t want to hear it. Green called out a double standard on the latest episode of The Draymond Green Show.
“Everybody that includes all 30 teams is running away from that second apron,” Green said. “Which is why you then see issues like this. I saw a lot of people like, ‘Oh man, it’s unfair that they drafted Peyton Watson, they built him up, they helped him grow, and now they have to trade him away because of the salary cap.’ And what I say to everybody who has that to say is shut the hell up.
“And the reason I say that is because the Golden State Warriors drafted Klay Thompson, Steph Curry, myself, Jordan Poole, Kevon Looney,” Green stated. “All of those guys were drafted, and decisions had to be made with our roster due to the Golden State Warriors drafting those teams. And there’s no breaks for drafting a guy and improving from within.
“You don’t pick up tax breaks and different things,” Green continued. “You hit that tax, you’re in the tax. And so a great, great, great, great example of that is the Warriors. And you look at where the organization has gone. No one talks about that piece of how the Warriors drafted great and ultimately had to make decisions between players that they had ultimately drafted. So I don’t hear that from anyone else.
“I don’t want to hear it because you’re talking actually a team that won championship after championship after championship and ultimately still had to make those decisions due to the new rules,” Green added. “Due to people not wanting a Kevin Durant to be able to go to Golden State. So, you get these new rules, everybody got what they wished for. Now, everyone’s running away from the trade deadline.”
The NBA introduced the second apron in the CBA signed in 2023, and it came into effect from the 2024-25 season. Green called it a hard cap here, as teams are desperate to avoid it.
The second apron was brought in with a team like the Warriors in mind. With their owners being free-spending, they routinely led the NBA in payroll, and the apron curbed their spending.
In the past, the primary concern with spending way more than anyone else was just the exorbitant luxury tax penalties. Now, there are a lot more restrictions in terms of team building, such as being unable to use the Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception, unable to get players via sign-and-trade, frozen draft picks, and so on.
With that being the case, the Nuggets are the only team in the second apron at the moment. They are likely to shed salary to get out of it.
The Nuggets did actually appear prepared to stay in it for Watson, whom they acquired via a draft night trade in 2022. They reportedly offered him a four-year, $70 million contract, but he was unlikely to ever accept that.
Watson eventually got a four-year, $88 million deal with the Cavaliers, and headed out of town. Had the Nuggets matched that, their luxury tax bill would have gone from about $68 million to over $220 million.
As Green, who won four titles with the Warriors, mentioned, there are no breaks. He had criticized the CBA back when it was ratified in 2023, and a lot of what he had said has come true.
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