{"id":148119,"date":"2025-06-30T19:56:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T23:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=148119"},"modified":"2025-06-30T19:56:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T23:56:17","slug":"nuggets-bring-back-bruce-brown-nba-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/06\/30\/nuggets-bring-back-bruce-brown-nba-free-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets Bring Back Fan Favorite In NBA Free Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Denver Nuggets have started the 2025-26 NBA free agency moratorium off with a bang, first swapping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/portemi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Porter Jr.<\/a>\u00a0for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/johnsca02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cam Johnson<\/a> and then signing jack-of-all-trades <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brownbr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bruce Brown Jr.<\/a> to a one-year deal, per ESPN insider Shams Charania.<\/p>\n<h2>Nuggets Bring Back Bruce Brown Jr. In NBA Free Agency<\/h2>\n<p>In the following days, the bulk of conversation will no doubt circle around <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/06\/30\/denver-nuggets-cam-johnson-trade\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">the Porter-Johnson trade<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Almost 1.5 hours into free agency, the Nuggets land Cam Johnson via trade for Michael Porter Jr. and bring back a fan favorite and do-it-all forward in Bruce Brown Jr. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UeFkHyAQXC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/UeFkHyAQXC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1939825769938657567?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 30, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>However, his relocation has been <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/24\/michael-porter-jr-reaction-trade-rumors-nuggets-cloud\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">brewing for a while now<\/a>. The 6-foot-10 sniper\u2019s a high-quality player, averaging 17.4 points per game and shooting 40.1 percent from 3 over the past three seasons. Nevertheless, he\u2019s the only member of the rotation that\u2019s consistently been grumbling about his role.<\/p>\n<p>With that being said, this is how Brown <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/pelicans\/news\/pelicans-shootaround-update-bruce-brown-brings-elite-elite-role-player-to-new-orleans\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">has described himself<\/a> (h\/t NBA.com\u2019s Jim Eichenhofer):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI can guard (positions) 1 through 5. I think I\u2019m a really good defender. Get deflections, guard the best offensive player every night. Offensively, I\u2019m plug-and-play, figure it out on the fly. Play off the great guys we have.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With he and Johnson in tow, Denver simply has a more selfless rotation.<\/p>\n<h3>Russell Westbrook Replacement?<\/h3>\n<p>The Nuggets also figure to improve defensively.<\/p>\n<p>Though Johnson will be replacing Porter, Brown could be doing the same, but with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/westbru01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Russell Westbrook<\/a>. To that point, Westbrook is <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ChrisBHaynes\/status\/1939807285020369273\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">set to take<\/a> a free agent meeting with the Sacramento Kings, according to NBA insider Chris Haynes. He did play well for the Nuggets in spurts last season, but his weaknesses were a bit too much of a hindrance.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_148131\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-148131\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-148131\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/IMG_7243-300x202.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"202\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/IMG_7243-300x202.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/IMG_7243-1024x689.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/IMG_7243-768x517.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/IMG_7243-1536x1034.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/06\/IMG_7243-2048x1379.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-148131\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jan 14, 2024; Denver, Colorado, USA; Denver Nuggets fan holds a cut out of Indiana Pacers forward Bruce Brown (11) in the first quarter at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Last but not least, it\u2019s worth mentioning that this isn\u2019t Brown\u2019s rodeo in Denver. In 2022-23, their championship season, he averaged 11.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.1 steals per game.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Denver Nuggets have started the 2025-26 NBA free agency moratorium off with a bang, first swapping Michael Porter Jr.\u00a0for Cam Johnson and then signing jack-of-all-trades Bruce Brown Jr. to a one-year deal, per ESPN insider Shams Charania. Nuggets Bring Back Bruce Brown Jr. In NBA Free Agency In the following days, the bulk of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":148132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1608,6,62,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nuggets","category-basketball","category-nets","category-nba","category-news"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148136,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148119\/revisions\/148136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}