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Report: Nuggets willing to ‘shake’ it up, trade Zeke Nnaji

Zeke Nnaji Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets are off to an 11-10 start to begin the new season, and their backup big rotation hasn’t helped out any. (Petre Thomas-Imagn Images)

Report: Nuggets willing to ‘shake’ it up, trade Zeke Nnaji

In October of 2023, coming off their first-ever NBA Finals victory over the Miami Heat, the Denver Nuggets extended big man Zeke Nnaji to a four-year, $32 million rookie-scale deal. Fast forward over one calendar year, the fifth-year big man has played just 14 games and is practically out of the Nuggets’ rotation.

According to NBA insider Marc Stein of The Stein Line, the brass is reportedly looking to “shake things up,” including potentially moving off Nnaji, who they invested a first-round pick (No. 22 overall) in the 2020 NBA Draft.

The Nuggets have lost two critical players–Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope–in each of the last two offseasons. We don’t know how the inner machinations of those negotiations, though what we do know is that it was impossible to re-sign Brown for the reported $45 million with his non-bird rights since he was only in Denver for just one season. We also know that head coach Michael Malone was reportedly not seeing eye-to-eye with general manager Calvin Booth and the front office this offseason for whatever reason.

Nnaji being on the roster may be part of that. He’s only totaled 71 minutes this season after averaging just 9.9 minutes per game in 2023-24 (58 games). Behind Nikola Jokic, who’s putting up video game numbers, the Nuggets have been an unmitigated disaster–Nnaji hasn’t helped. His limited role also comes in place of first-round pick DaRon Holmes II, who’s out for the season with a torn Achilles.

Malone has used a combination of Dario Saric, DeAndre Jordan, Vlatko Cancar and Nnaji, and none of it has mattered. Denver is 31.2 points per 100 possession better when Jokic is on the floor versus when he’s not (100th percentile), per Cleaning The Glass. This has been a plaguing problem for several years, and frankly, the 11-10 Nuggets are beyond lucky they have Jokic to fall back on.

Who knows which team will talk themselves into Nnaji–if that comes into fruition. In the current era of the second apron, more teams are meticulous about how they choose to allocate those resources. Shipping him off for draft capital–or, better yet, attaching capital to move off him–doesn’t feel like great process. But it also may be Denver’s best option, two months out from the 2024-25 trade deadline.

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