Will Jonas Valanciunas play for the Denver Nuggets this season? | Denver Sports Daily

Will Jonas Valanciunas play for the Denver Nuggets this season? | Denver Sports Daily

Jonas Valenunis has strong interest in playing overseas this season. So, will we see him suit up for the Denver Nuggets in 2025? This is your Denver Sports Daily for June for July 7th. The biggest stories, the latest news. It’s Denver Sports Daily. The Denver Nuggets kicked off NBA free agency with a bang, having one of the more banner off seasons of any team in the National Basketball Association, kicking it off with a Michael Porter Jr. trade to bring in Cam Johnson from the Brooklyn Nets. Bringing back Brucey B. Bruce Brown uh as a key six-man off the bench, playing that role that Russell Westbrook tried to fill when Bruce Brown left after the title year. And then finally answering a question that has been somewhat puzzling to Nuggets fans over the last couple years or so, and that is, will they ever find a backup big, a true backup five to be able to give Nicole Joic breathing room off the bench and reduce his minutes both in the regular season and in the postseason where there’s little to no margin for error. They also added Tim Hardaway Jr., But the focal point right now for the Denver Nuggets centers around the center Yonas Valenunis. He was brought in via trade uh the co-executive vice presidents of Ben Tenzer and Jonathan Wallace doing some masterful front office work in finding a way to offload Daario Sarich’s 5.4 million player option. That was a brutal kind of buoy dragging the Nuggets down, sending him to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Jonas Valenunis, who while being paid much more than Daario Sarich was, is going to be able to actually contribute on a basketball court, which makes him a net positive overwhelmingly over Daario Saridge. But reports come out from overseas that Jonas Valenunis has a strong interest to play outside of the National Basketball Association overseas. and the Greek team Panathanos has strong interest in bringing in the veteran big man. Well, in no uncertain terms, it appears that co-executive vice presidents John Wallace and Ben Tenzer have told Yonas Valenunis, no dice, amigo, they fully intend, per Sham Shirana, to have Yonas Valenunis play out his NBA contract that the Nuggets inherited from the Sacramento Kings. And that will in theory as long as both parties do agree, which it does appear over the weekend that Jonas Valenunis was uh warmed up to that idea. He made an appearance overseas. Uh and it was reported that he intends to come to Denver after his overseas engagement to begin offseason work. So assuming all sides stay smoothed over, this will be an absolute feather in the cap for this new Nuggets front office regime of Ben Tenzer and Jonathan Wallace for not just executing a trade on paper that intends to make the Nuggets significantly better and maximize the title window with Nicole Joic, but in the process offload a terrible contract that was handed out by the predecessors to these two young VPs and provide an answer to one of the questions that we have had for about this Nuggets team since essentially Mason Plumbley walked out the door. And even then, we’re talking about true quality, reliable backup, big help behind the Joker to be able to spell him minutes in the regular season and keep him fresh ultimately for when the postseason comes and he is forced to shoulder the immense burden that we’ve seen him have to take on to keep this Nuggets team in contention in the Western Conference. So, the summer is still young in theory. We still have to figure out whether or not both sides are going to ultimately smooth things over and come to an agreement. But I have to tip my cap and respect the hard-nosed nature of Ben Tenzer and Jonathan Wallace for not in a very very player power, playerdriven league, bending to the demands or the wishes potentially of a Jonas Valenunis, somebody that they brought in as a trade asset and then entertaining the idea of a contract buyout or shipping him elsewhere and leaving their question behind Joic unanswered. So, I tip my cap to those two gentlemen and in addition to the moves that they’ve already made with Tim Hardaway Jr. and bringing in Cam Johnson, bringing back Bruce Brown and reestablishing a new core under this organization, I think that this is a positive sign for the direction of the Denver Nuggets moving forward. where we weren’t 100% sure how that was going to turn out after leaving uh behind the greatest coach in franchise history, the winningest coach in franchise history, and the general manager with just three games left in the regular season. The other team that calls Ball Arena own, the Colorado Avalanche, are have their off seasonason underway as well. And while it hasn’t been as noisy as potentially the the the Nuggets has thus far, they still have time to make moves. And it feels like something big could be brewing. They end up shipping Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood to the Columbus Blue Jackets in an apparent salary dump for some draft compensation and uh a prospect at Forward. And then they go out and resign Parker Kelly to a contract worth about $1.7 million AAV. and they bring in veteran defenseman Brent Burns, who has played for the Minnesota Wild, uh the San Jose Sharks, and most recently the Carolina Hurricanes over the last three seasons, and is a bit of an iron man by NHL terms, playing in 925 consecutive games. He is 40 years old, so he is certainly long in the tooth even as NHL players go. But I think he brings something to this Avalanche team that again like their uh ball arena tenants the Nuggets is a question that was remaining unanswered going into this off seasonason is that is how are they going to address their blue line depth. They’ve watched players including Ryan Lingren walk out the door after just a half a season or a quarter of a season or so with the team and they still have a a little bit of a thin nature because you can’t be perfect everywhere. But their their trading of Miko Rantin provided them an incredible amount of scoring depth potential on their from their top six through their middle six and into their bottom six. Bringing in the likes of Marty Nes and Jack Drury and the affforementioned Charlie Coyle who is now gone. But uh bringing in their next answer at second line center in Brock Nelson who they’ve locked down for three years at $7.5 million a year. that didn’t really address in the Miko Randon trade some of the defensive line depth issues that they found themselves. They have one of the best top defensive pairings in the National Hockey League and Devontaves and Kale Mar. But then below that, it starts to get a little bit shaky and despite the fact that the Black uh Miles uh Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood, McKenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgwood have provided a significant upgrade over Eustace Anin and Alexander Forv. Um the depth at the blue line in front of them is something that’s important enough and we saw manifest itself in the postseason series against the Dallas Stars where that overwhelming powerful nature that the Dallas Stars power play group and their top six especially in the forward department just overwhelmed the Avalanche. And for a goalender who was experiencing in Mackenzie Blackwood his first real postseason experience uh it proved to be in moments a little bit too much to handle. So bringing in a defenseman like Brent Burns to presumably slide in to your third defensive pairing alongside Sam Molinsky, I would assume, is somebody that is uh a veteran experience-wise. He brings size and grit and toughness. Somebody who has played almost a thousand consecutive hockey games in the National Hockey League across three different organizations. I think this is while an underrated signing at just one year’s $1 million. I do think that this is something that could be a sneaky productive and and good signing for the ABS based on the needs that they have heading into this off seasonason. I certainly don’t think they’re done either because I don’t think you ship off Miles Wood, Charlie Coyle, etc. to Columbus and create that cap space and that salary space just to resign Parker Kelly and Brent Burns. So, we will see ultimately where they go from here. But this signing, albeit small and slightly under the radar, I think could be something that helps the Avalanche in the margins to quote a quote from Ben Tenzer and Jonathan Wallace with the Nuggets front office that is currently missing. And in Major League Baseball, despite the fact that the Rockies are still on pace to lose more than 120 games and may finish as the worst team in the history of Major League Baseball, Hunter Goodman, the young rising catcher for the Colorado Rockies, did get some good news over the weekend that he was selected to his first Major League Baseball All-Star game. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Every team in Major League Baseball gets a guaranteed representative in the All-Star game. That is true and it is ridiculous in my opinion. But I don’t think that the fact that the the Rockies are a terrible team right now by record and they don’t have a ton of of hope and prospects in their pipeline in terms of projecting for the future. I don’t think that any of that should distract the fact that Hunter Goodman would be an all-star candidate and probably an all-star selection regardless of what team he was on. He’s one of the best catchers in the National League right now. He currently is batting 281 and leads the club in home runs with 16 and 50 RBI’s. He is proving to be a small bright spot on what is a gigantic black hole of a disappointing baseball team. And I think that the fact that he becomes just the second catcher ever uh in a Rocky’s uniform to make an All-Star game, trailing only Ilas Diaz, who made the game or made the selection and played in the game in 2023 and hit the game-winning home run for the National League, I think is a pretty cool accomplishment for a young player who has kind of battled and found his way uh to his natural position in Major League Baseball after coming through up through the minors and into the majors as a utility player to kind of take advantage of his strong bat, which is evidenced by his his hitting numbers. Uh he’s finally settled into a natural position there at catcher, and he is reaping the rewards of that. So, despite an evergoing ongoing, never- ending disappointing season that the Rockies seem to be uh uh taking part in as they lose a series to the Chicago White Sox, who are also one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball and the current reigning champ for the worst team in Major League Baseball history that may be dethroned this season. Hunter Goodman’s selection to the All-Star game and the fact that in my opinion he would be worthy of it regardless of whether or not he played for the Rockies or not and got that auto bid is a bright spot that I think we can at least take a moment on a Monday morning to enjoy. Thank you all so much for joining me. This has been your Denver Sports Daily for July 7th.