{"id":148276,"date":"2025-07-01T13:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=148276"},"modified":"2025-07-01T13:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:49:12","slug":"nuggets-jonas-valanciunas-backup-nikola-jokic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/07\/01\/nuggets-jonas-valanciunas-backup-nikola-jokic\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets Finally Find A Backup For Nikola Jokic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, the Sacramento Kings agreed to trade <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/v\/valanjo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jonas Valanciunas<\/a> to the Denver Nuggets in exchange <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/saricda01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dario Saric<\/a>, ESPN senior insider Shams Charania.<\/p>\n<h2>Nuggets Finally Find A Backup For Nikola Jokic<\/h2>\n<p>This move could have just been a cost-cutting one for the Kings.<\/p>\n<p>To that point, Saric is on a $5.4 million expiring contract. Conversely, Valanciunas will earn $20.4 million over the next two seasons (his 2026-27 salary is only partially guaranteed). On top of that, the Kings and Dennis Schroder agreed to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1940088563292307695\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a three-year, $45 million contract<\/a> on\u00a0the second of the 2025-26 NBA free agency moratorium period, according to Charania.<\/p>\n<p>However, the trade was undoubtedly about much more than that for the Nuggets.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Sacramento Kings are trading Jonas Valanciunas to the Denver Nuggets for Dario Saric, sources tell ESPN. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/D2Xmbm4DN1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/D2Xmbm4DN1<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/1940077515974029420?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 1, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>For years, Denver\u2019s been determined to add a solid backup for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jokicni01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikola Jokic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_148303\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-148303\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-148303\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7252-300x200.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7252-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7252-1024x684.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7252-768x513.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7252-600x400.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7252-1200x800.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7252.jpeg 1314w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-148303\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mar 5, 2025; Denver, Colorado, USA; Sacramento Kings center Jonas Valanciunas (17) knocks Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) to the court in the second quarter at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As he\u2019s the Sun to the Nuggets\u2019 solar system, said center might not get to play a wealth of minutes. However, because Jokic\u2019s highly gifted and has a distinct skillset, it\u2019s been imperative that they have a talented pivot behind him on the depth chart. The second that the three-time NBA MVP sits, Denver\u2019s offense freezes over.<\/p>\n<h3>The Value Of Jonas Valanciunas<\/h3>\n<p>All of that being said, Valanciunas is a dynamic big man with great size at 6-foot-11 and 265 pounds. He can score from all three levels, create for others and is a beast on the boards. At the defensive end, he\u2019s respectable when asked to guard in the phone booth. Over the past four seasons, he\u2019s averaged 13.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 0.7 blocks per game.<\/p>\n<p>He may not stop <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/11\/21\/nuggets-are-too-reliant-on-nikola-jokic\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">the point-clotting that regularly occurs<\/a> when Jokic is on the bench. Yet, he\u2019s someone who can help keep the wheel spinning, even if he\u2019s not driving the offense. With Jokic now on the other side of 30, that\u2019s more important than ever.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, the Sacramento Kings agreed to trade Jonas Valanciunas to the Denver Nuggets in exchange Dario Saric, ESPN senior insider Shams Charania. Nuggets Finally Find A Backup For Nikola Jokic This move could have just been a cost-cutting one for the Kings. To that point, Saric is on a $5.4 million expiring contract. Conversely, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":148305,"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":[20,1608,62,3,29],"tags":[268,252,167,297,1382,72],"class_list":["post-148276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nuggets","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","category-kings","tag-dario-saric","tag-dennis-schroder","tag-jonas-valanciunas","tag-nba-free-agency","tag-nba-trade","tag-nikola-jokic"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148276","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=148276"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148308,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148276\/revisions\/148308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}