Jonas Valanciunas is officially with the Denver Nuggets, so now what? | The Rundown
[Music] The Jonas Valentunis trade to the Denver Nuggets is now made official, the team announced yesterday afternoon. So, what comes next for Denver and the veteran big man? Could a buyout be on the horizon? Or can we exhale and feel confident that Jonas Valenunis is going to suit up and play for the Denver Nuggets in this 2025 season and potentially beyond? Also, how much does coach Prime have left to prove at the University of Colorado? All things to come on today’s rundown, but we will begin in the NBA where it was made announced uh late last night or yesterday afternoon that the trade for Yonas Valenunis from the Sacramento Kings to bring the veteran big man to the Mile High City in exchange for the very little Daario Sarich was made official. Took a couple of weeks for this announcement to kind of marinate and sit out there before things were made official. The team obviously had to wait until the start of the new league year uh in early July and then also had to wait for the Cam Johnson trade to become official to make the financial aspects work out cleanly. But all of that has been ironed out. Jonas Valenunis is as of this moment a contract that is acquired by the Denver Nuggets. So what comes next? I seem to have maybe kicked a couple of hornets nest over in Greece and the Balkan region over there uh discussing this subject and the Greek basketball club Panathanos has a rabid and intense passionate fan base which I respect very much because clearly they know and love themselves some basketball. And I also talked last week about how I feel like I understand after digging into it a little bit deeper and really looking at both options on the table for a guy like JV. the pull that he feels to potentially continue to play in the NBA even for a title contender like the Nuggets and weighing that against going leaving the NBA going back to uh the Euro League, playing in Greece where he’s only a three-hour flight from his family. He’ll have a larger role, potentially be like a SARS star, superstar level player, averaging a double double or at least having a solid chance to on a Euro League champion contender versus having more of a reserved role uh veteran backup presence here in Denver. So, I understand that a little bit more. And just because this trade was made finalized doesn’t necessarily mean that Jonas Valenunis wants to or will suit up for the Nuggets in 2025. It certainly puts the right step in that direction because now he is acquired by the team in an official capacity and they own the rights to his contract. So what comes next for the Denver Nuggets and Yonas Valenunis? I think based on the way that David Adelman was talking about JV during the NBA summer league broadcast on NBA TV that clearly Ben Tenzer and Jonathan Wallace, the co-executive vice presidents of player personnel and basketball operations and David Adelman have a clear-cut, thorough and thoughtout vision of how to use Yonas Valenunis. on this Denver Nuggets roster in 2025. And I do not think that his role is limited to just spelling Jokic for 8 to 14 minutes off of the bench. I actually think using David Idelman’s comments as evidence that there is a reasonable plan to play Jonas Valenunis at times alongside Nicola Joic perhaps in spell of Aaron Gordon an aging player who is as tough as they come but as we’ve seen in recent years maybe needs a little bit more maintenance time and rest time to prevent the wear and tear on his body from grinding down over the course of an 82 game regular season. It’s clear, I think, the plan to use Valenunis in place of Joic and the fact that they have similar skill sets allows for some of that to happen. Valenunis is for the center position, somewhat of an above average passer, averaging between two, three, or maybe just north of three assists per game when he’s there. And he has plenty of playoff experience playing in over 50 playoff games, uh, starting in over 50 playoff games. And it remains to be seen whether or not that will translate here in Denver. In the regular season, it’s one thing. The postseason, whether bench shortens and the rotation tightens up significantly, that is another. But I do think now that Yonas Valenunis is officially a Denver Nugget and that contract has come over from Sacramento, Dario Sarich in an official capacity is now with the Sacramento Kings. The vision to play Yonas Valenunis in relief of Nicoola Joic is a valid one. It is necessary and it is something that has contributed to this team being held back along that second round wall for the majority of the seasons of Joic’s prime. Obviously, they’re a few years removed from winning a title, and the hope is to get back to that. But I don’t think we can just relegate Yonas Valenunis as this veteran backup role player who is going to spell Joic for roughly 10 minutes a game. I do think that there is potential and legitimate sense to play Valenunis at times alongside Joic whether it’s at the four in place of Aaron Gordon or shuffling around your positions to go big in gametoame situations. I think Valenunis has the skill set for it. I think the Nuggets have a need and can benefit from it. And I think that is part of the pitch and the vision that will help sell Yonas Valenunis, whether it comes from Tenzer and Wallace, from David Adelman, or from the mouth of Jokic himself, that will ultimately seal the deal to keep Yonas Valenunis as a contributing member in 2025 and not allow the door to return to Greece to remain open. Now, we do know that as of now, only one year of Yonas Valenunis’ uh contract through this trade is fully guaranteed. And I think that’s the speculation that some of the holdup on Yonas Valenunis’ side was because of the inconsistency in the contract when it comes to that second year. But for now, JV is coming to Denver, and we will see how David Adelman and company plan to deploy him if and when they get the chance to in the regular season. In the world of college football, Coach Prime made some headlines as he is want to do, but this time not for something that he said necessarily, which he had plenty to say at Big 12 media day. This time it was about what someone said about him. And that would be one of the more respected voices in the college football world who works for ESPN in Paul Finebomb. Paul Finebomb joined First Take to discuss Coach Prime’s comments at Big 12 Media Day and the conversation from there expanded to what exactly Coach Prime is up against and the expectations for the 2025 season. Here’s what Paul Finebomb had to say. quote, “I don’t think Dion has really anything left to prove. They may not have made the playoffs, which was unrealistic in some respects last year, but they proved that they are a high quality team, something I didn’t think was frankly possible when Dion got there in this short period of time. So, I think saying that Dion Sanders needs to prove anything is wrong. I just think he needs to show some consistency and get this program, as he said, more of a collective unit. But he can coach good players as opposed to exceptional players. Can he coach good players as opposed to exceptional players? That’s the question. That last tidbit there obviously in reference to two of his most notable departures from last year’s team and his son Shador Sanders, the starting quarterback, and the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, Travis Hunter. This will be Coach Prime’s first time having to deal with a quarterback battle in camp and the first time coaching a team where his son is not the primary signal caller. And then anytime you lose a Heisman Trophy winner, you’re going to take a little bit of a dip in talent in that regard. And in coach Prime’s own words, he thinks that individually they may not be as talented due to all the team talent that left for the NFL, but as a unit, a collective team, he feels going into 2025, they are more set up to succeed and maybe better from a roster standpoint than they were last year. Not sure I fully co-signed with that, but Coach Prime knows his team probably a little bit better than I do. That’s not the area that I want to respond to, though. It was the concept of right out of the gate Paul Finebomb saying that he believes coach Prime as the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloos has nothing left to prove. Obviously drawing from the substance of the fact that he took over a team that at the time was a 1-1 team voted almost unanimously one of if not the worst teams in the entirety of college football at the power five and now power four level and in just two years has turned them into a 9 and4 team with an excellent conference record and somebody who at one point during the season more than halfway through the season had the runway lights on to make a Big 12 title game until things fell apart against Kansas, Devin Neil ran roughshod all over the buffs and things kind of fell apart from there. But I also think that when it comes to Dion, we start looking at this and kind of framing conversations in a weird way where any time we want to be critical or potentially pose some sort of area for improvement or area for growth when it comes to prime of the Buffalo, it has to be prefaced and walked back initially with, well, it’s it’s clearly a home run higher. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the university. All the money, all the enrollment, all the this bad. Yeah. All of that. All of which, for the record, is 100% true. But I don’t think that those aspects of coach Prime’s start here in Boulder over two seasons nullifies the fact that on the football field, I think there’s still is a lot to prove. When you look at Coach Prime’s first couple of years here up in Boulder, yes, the financial revenue generation has come through the roof. Yes, as the transfer portal king self-proclaimed, he has turned this program’s roster upside down from one of the worst, if not the worst programs in Power Five to a genuine, at least from a conversation standpoint, contender in the Big 12. and we’ll see if that maintains status without Shadur and Travis. But he’s also one game above 500 as a head coach of the Colorado Buffaloos at 13 and 12. He’s 0 and1 in bowl games and he’s never made the college football playoff even in an expanded format that may continue to expand as the years go on. So, for me to say that there’s nothing left for Coach Prime to prove, I don’t know if I can go that far. Uh, and and I do disagree with Paul Finebomb on that regard. Again, I want to preface it by saying this. What Coach Prime has brought to the University of Colorado, in some ways that can be measured, is significant, and in some that can’t, is definitely relevant and noteworthy. the revenue generation, the enrollment boost, the eyeball standpoint where Colorado Buffalo’s games are each of their opponents most watched games of the season in many cases and they are regardless of record, win or loss, something that the national media and the college football world wants to consume. That in and of itself is a win. But where I disagree with Paul Finebomb in saying that Coach Prime has nothing left to prove is that they have not achieved anything of national merit or recognition on the actual football field. Is a 9 and4 season great? Yes, it is. It’s certainly better than the one and 11 where they were two years ago. But if coach Prime’s tenure as a Colorado Buffalo’s head coach ends without a conference championship appearance, without a college football playoff appearance, or at least a reasonable suspicion that they can get there into that point, then can we really call it a successful venture? Can we really say that we got the most out of the Coach Prime experience without those two things happening? I don’t think so. And therefore, I do think that coach prime still has plenty to prove as a college football head coach and specifically here in Boulder. And I think that he has the potential to reach those prove it points. I’m just not ready to take my foot off of that gas quite yet. Plenty to come in a jam-packed sports week. We continue the countdown toward training camp 2025. Rookies report in about 48 hours from now. and two of the most prominent Broncos rookies still don’t have pen to paper on a contract. That will be the focal point of tomorrow’s show and we will keep an eye out on any news that pops up between now and then. Until then, we’ll catch you at noon tomorrow. [Music] Second nature to put in
Jonas Valanciunas is officially with the Denver Nuggets, so now what? Will the veteran center suit up in the Mile High City this season? Could a buyout be coming? How much does Coach Prime have left to prove as head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes? Join @RichieCarni now!
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