Would Keeping Valanciunas Be The BEST MOVE The Nuggets Can Make?

Would Keeping Valanciunas Be The BEST MOVE The Nuggets Can Make?

All right. So, we don’t know what’s going to happen with Big Val, Yonis Val, and Junis. The trade’s going to be completed today, it sounds like, for Dario Charich. Today, July 6 Dline is when all those trades can be completed officially, but we don’t know if Big Val is going to be in Denver next season. We don’t know if he’s going to be in Greece playing in Athens next year. What are your highle thoughts on this? What what’s your feeling right now on on this conundrum we’re in?
We’re in quite the conundrum. We are in quite the conundrum. I am met I’ve been met with a lot of my own thoughts. I’ve been force-fed a lot of other people’s thoughts on this issue. Uh ranging from he’s under contract, lock him in the basement to
yeah,
it’s not your uh place to judge another person’s life. Um there’s bigger things are bigger than basketball. the whole litany of obnoxious uh you know signal flaring com comments about how you view the world. Um I want him to play here but I don’t want him to play here if he doesn’t want to play here. I mean it’s like pretty simple to me. Um Big Val was never a guy that we had on our list of most desirable targets. It just didn’t even because he’s under contract. You know we’re looking at free agency. Um, and frankly it didn’t really seem like there was a path to get him when the when Ben Wallace stepped up and created this magical path of getting off Daario Charich and into Yonas Falenunis, which he’s a player I’ve always had an affinity for. I mean, I like him. He’s a, you know, he’s a tough guy. He’s not flashy player, but he is a, you know, he’s a workmanlike player, and he really does feel like exactly what the Nuggets need. But you’re put in this weird position where it’s like, bro, I don’t want you to beg. I don’t want to beg you to come here, you know? Like, this is an age, this is the age of the Nuggets where the Nuggets can be like the hot chick, you know, like people should and it’s been proven by the other moves that they made. It’s like Bruce Brown and um uh Fresh
Cam Johnson.
Cam, no, not Cam Johnson. The other
Tim Hardway Jr.
Thank you, Tim Hardway. I I can keep going down the list of great players the Nuggets have added over the last
but like these are guys that like want to come and this is like what I’ve been talking about for the last however long is that the Nuggets are in their era where you can convince a David West to come. You can talk to these guys that are quote unquote ringchasers that see the opportunity of a team that’s truly truly in contention and the window is wide open and they want to be a part of it. And you know, Big Val felt very good to me. But I again, like if he doesn’t want to be here, like I I I can’t, you know, I can’t like beg anymore. Like, make your decision, man.
But that’s what’s been so interesting about this whole thing because the trade gets agreed to. We’re like, “Oh my god, Big Val, best backup center of the Jokic era. This is the real guy we needed. This is going to help Yoke so much during the regular season.” He’s good. Big Val’s good. He could start for a lot of teams. it. He’s going to the Nuggets now. Championship situation. Ideal role for him as Joic’s backup. He’s been on some bad teams recently throughout a lot of his career. Now he’s in this unbelievable situation set up to make a playoff run, maybe a championship, and that emotion hasn’t been reciprocated from him.
That’s what’s been so weird about it. You’re like,
shouldn’t you want to come to the Nuggets? like dude, you should be excited about this, but it seems like maybe his mind is made up and he’s just like, I just want to play in Europe.
Yeah. See, this is I mean, I need to understand the motivation before I can like really
hunker down like really get drilled down onto a reaction like
is this pressure from his family? Does he feel I mean are there are there things I mean obviously there’s a whole the entire story we are not privy to, right? If this is a play like I don’t want to be a backup, I want to be the starter. I’m like, f you. Like, beat it. Like, who cares? Like, we don’t we don’t want your services. If that’s the case, or if it’s a a strict leverage play, it’s like, all right. I mean, listen, you got I I’m a firm believer, I’ve said it on this podcast before, like in life, if you have leverage, you should use it. You don’t that you don’t always find yourself in a place of leverage, and you should always use leverage when you have it. I’m I don’t bismerch the man for that. But it’s just left us in this weird situation, especially coming off of last week, which was as as we said, an absolute fever dream. The Nuggets, the rebirth of the Nuggets, the pregnant man, the pregnant, I guess the we’re going to call them the maternity ward. Ben Wallace and and David Adelman just pumping out uh Rebirth Nuggets franchises.
Yeah, they’re good.
And they’re good. Um and so it’s just been it’s just been all lovely. And um it’s just a weird place to be, man. I don’t know. I I don’t feel comfortable like fully forming opinion, but I just it at my heart and I I saw a tweet also that said that Big Val has played in every iteration of the playin tournament. He’s the only player that has played the playin tournament every single year. And so it’s like yes, like you you’ve been a good player, but your time has been largely meaningless, you know, like Yeah.
And doesn’t the competitor in you want to prove to even for a season to prove to the world like how good you actually are? I mean, say what you want. Like I I’m not I’m not talking down on the European league, but it’s a different, you know, it’s like it’s not the MLS to the Premier League, but it is a step down. The the top competition in the world comes to the NBA. It’s not a that’s not a debatable fact. It’s like, don’t you want to be able to prove that you can do it on the highest possible level and then you know then you’re in your 30s, you have 60 more years of life, 70 more years of life. Like
he’s 33. He’s younger than I am.
That’s what I’m saying, dude. Like you It’s insane to make like a life like a a full life decision at this stage in your professional career. I don’t understand it. But I just got to I got to see. But I also again I’m very surprised we don’t have news by now since the trade is able to be made official today um that we haven’t we haven’t heard anything. So since we uh since this news kind of broke while we were waiting for uh Vlaco Chonchar to join the show on Thursday uh that’s when the news initially broke dude what a great guy by the way Vlatco Chanchchar if you guys didn’t watch
you want to see you want to understand a human being has the right perspective on life you watch Vlaco Chanhar
yeah incredible interview um so the news broke then there have been some details that have come out since one. And again, some of these details are like so flimsy and you’re wondering like who’s this really coming from some stuff, some wording has been changed over the last like who really knows how legit all this stuff is. But what I think might be somewhat legit is he’s got a real money offer out there. It seems like at at least from uh Panathanakos and some long-term money he can get, maybe a three-year deal. And a lot of people have come at me and said, “Oh, like the European salaries, they already take out the taxes and the agent fees, so he’s actually going to make more.” I don’t know. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. I don’t know. I don’t know. But it seems like some longerterm money, financial security could be a thing that he’s thinking about here. And he’s going to make $10 million under his contract next season in Denver. The season after that is not guaranteed. So maybe that’s part of what he’s thinking. M maybe it’s a family situation. He wants to be closer to home. I don’t know. But the latest news right now, and this came out from Mark Stein this morning, Sunday morning, and he said that the Nuggets are actually optimistic that Valentunis will be in Denver next season.
And it seems like to me they might be try trying to play some hard ball and being like, “No, dude, you’re under contract. Like, you’re going to come.” Yeah, I mean, you know, it is funny like all this is just obviously the topic dour. And so, you know, at the end of the day, we’re talking about the backup center role for the Denver Nuggets. It’s not a it’s not a role that’s like well, first off, it’s not a role we’ve ever seen any production from. But that’s why it’s so mesmerizing. It’s like, “Oh my god, could this finally be the guy finally be the piece that that gets I also my other thought is I love um analysis in the time of the tweet where you look at what optimistic like that’s the word you hone in on. It’s they are let’s go, baby. Let’s go.
I don’t know what that means. I love it though. I love like dissecting every word of a of a 40 40word tweet.” Um, yeah. I’ve also, like, listen, I have homies that are Greek, that grew up in Greece, uh, that grew up in the same neighborhood as some of the players that have played for that basketball team. when it’s been made been made very clear to me that there are always under the table dealings going on, trash bags full of cash showing up, you know, things that are like deep like super super offcord and super super like the the stuff you hear about with like,
you know, like creepy soccer contracts or whatever. So,
there’s no doubt that there is an underworld compar like element of this as well that we can’t even start to understand. But I just hope it’s like come on, man. Like if that’s really what it is, it’s the money thing. I mean, the Nuggets could offer him more money this year, they they with what they were able to get off of um with Dario Shar. They could if correct me if I’m wrong, like
well, he’s under contract.
He’s under contract for that 10 mil. I don’t I don’t think that could change, but maybe they could be like, “We’ll take care of you next year,
you know, when we have that option on your contract.” I yeah, I I wish that I knew all of the pieces at play so I could have a very clear picture to be like, okay, go through the pros and cons list that he’s undoubtedly going through in his mind. But we do know he he went to Greece, so that’s that’s something. Yeah. Do you like the Nuggets playing hard ball? Because I kind of do. You know, they could be like, “No, man. It’s cool. Uh go go go to Greece and play. It’s all good. Like, we we get it. Uh we’ll just pivot and try to find somebody else. go do what you think you should do. But they’re trying to fight it. Like they are trying to get him here and have him honor his contract. And I don’t know, part of me thinks a quote unquote disgruntled Big Val would still be good here. And you bring him here to Denver, you hope, all right, he just he kind of gets over it. He’s around yoke. He’s in a winning environment and cooler heads prevail. I think that’s what the Nuggets hope. I I like them playing hard ball here though.
Yeah. I mean like listen, they are in the set the tone era. Uh we’re really finding out what Ben Wallace is all about. Like this, you know, like um teams front offices have a persona like you know kind of if you’re going to deal be dealing with Danny A, it’s going to be weird. You’re going to end up giving up way too many first round draft picks. Formerly if you were dealing with Messiah Jiri, like you were going to get fleeced in one way or another. I mean, there’s just like it it’s and it’s good for them to establish a uh environment of no nonsense, but like well-intentioned nononsense. I actually do appreciate that. They really are. I mean, the Nuggets, it’s a blank page for the Denver Nuggets. There’s so many things that, you know, have been true that are no longer true just by virtue of the fact that it’s different people. So, we don’t know what this new regime actually looks like. And I agree with you. It’s nice to show some fortitude and some balls on this and just be like, “Hey, listen, man. We know what we have. We we have the best player in the world. We have a very good chance to to win a championship and like um we made a really good move and we’re not going to have that ruined because you’re being uh you are act like the Nuggets have done absolutely nothing wrong. You know, it’s it’s it’s difficult for them and for me to swallow the idea that they’re going to get penalized for being so
deafed. You know,
they have been deafed. And look, even if this trade goes through, which it will, and Big Val ends up in Europe, I still think this will come out as a win for the Nuggets just because you get off the Dario Shar contract.
Without question. Without question. If we would have been like, “Okay, we can trade Dario Sharich for anything a week ago, we would have said, “Yes, we’ll drive him to the airport.” So, that’s a hu that’s a huge win. And if he does wind up in Europe, like the Nuggets will have a ton of cap room. They’re not going to pay anything on his contract. What would happen if if that’s what takes place is he pretty much just doesn’t take the Nuggets money that the contract will get kind of voided. I think he’ll kind of just retire. Nuggets won’t pay him. He’ll go to Europe and Denver will have all this cap room. Will they try to get an Al Horford? You know, he’s still out there, but it seems like he kind of has his mind made up that he wants to go to the Warriors.
If he had his mind made up, if he had his mind made up, it could it could already have happened. There’s I think that there’s most assuredly
some sort of conversation like, “Hey, just hold on because I guarantee
we can give you a better situation and a better offer. Um there’s no rush.”
And and that would be a huge win. I mean, I think he’s a better player than Big Val. Definitely. He he’d be a better fit here, too. And they’ll have avenues to make trades. Maybe they can get somebody else. But whatever happens, like I don’t think this is going to be a storyline that like is going to erode the Nugget season or summer in any way. I I think this is more of a blip. If he comes to Denver, awesome. Like that’s what the whole hope was. And I think if he makes it here, cooler heads ultimately do prevail and I think he’ll be good here. If he doesn’t, I think the Nuggets will be able to pivot and and find another solution. So, we’ll see what happens. It’s kind of a crazy way for this uh Ben Tenz or John Wallace front office to start though. They’re they’re going through it, man. And they’re passing every test to this point. So, it is actually kind of cool in a way that we get to see all of the ways in which these guys operate. And um it’s uh you know, encouraging above all else. like at the end of the at the end of the day um whatever happens I just feel the utmost confidence in this front office like that and which is a beautiful feeling. It’s so nice to have faith in the guys that are running the team that you put all of your faith into and know that they are running it on good faith that they they want to win and they are just as committed to getting to that open ultimate goal as you are as a person that is willing to put your heart and soul and follow it. Um, so yeah, I I hope we get Big Val. I like him as a player. I don’t want it to be another Nerk situ situation where we had a a big guy that was pouting and grumpy. That was not good for anybody. Um, I don’t imagine that would be the case. Um, the Nuggets have had a player leave before in Rudy Fernandez and it’s fine. You just kind of you’re like, “Okay, whatever.” Um, but it sucks that it’s just it’s such a pivotal moment in their history for the franchise. It’s such a big time for the Denver Nuggets. And you know, we have things like the Jokic extension looming and there’s other big things at play and you just hope that all things come together and you just get the best outcome and that’s just kind of where we’re at.
Yeah, maybe uh the big fellow just needs to place a little call.
Dude, come hang out in Denver now. He’s probably been like coming he’s probably thinks about Denver when they have to play in February and knows every time. Come now, dude. You’ll be like, “Oh yeah, this is awesome.” We’ll see what happens. Hey, maybe we get news later today or tomorrow. We’ll see.

DNVR Nuggets Harrison Wind & Eric Wedum Break Down the Jonas Valanciunas Saga with Euro Basketball and the Denver Nuggets, and if Jonas Valanciunas will play for the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Next Season as Nikola Jokic’s Backup. The Denver Nuggets are playing hardball with Jonas Valančiūnas — but is keeping him truly the best move they can make? In this episode, we break down the pros, cons, and behind-the-scenes factors shaping Big Val’s uncertain future in Denver. From potential European offers to locker room fit, we explore what this means for Jokic, the Nuggets’ title window, and the new-look front office. Nuggets fans, don’t miss this deep dive into the biggest offseason question still looming.

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