{"id":151392,"date":"2025-07-21T12:22:46","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T16:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=151392"},"modified":"2025-07-21T12:23:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T16:23:46","slug":"jonas-valanciunas-clears-air-nuggets-panathinaikos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/07\/21\/jonas-valanciunas-clears-air-nuggets-panathinaikos\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonas Valanciunas Clears The Air About Nuggets, Panathinaikos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Denver Nuggets have their guy after all. After an intriguing episode that left <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/v\/valanjo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jonas Valanciunas<\/a>\u2019s future in question, he\u2019s now committed to his new NBA team and their championship aspirations.<\/p>\n<h2>Jonas Valanciunas Clears The Air About Nuggets, Panathinaikos<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cI want to clear the air about my playing situation next season now that Denver has made their decision to keep me,\u201d Valanciunas says (h\/t Donatas Urbonas of BasketNews).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Jonas Valanciunas spoke with me to clear the air on the Nuggets and Panathinaikos situation:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to clear the air about my playing situation next season now that Denver has made their decision to keep me. The idea of playing for Panathinaikos, closer to home, was very\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Donatas Urbonas (@Urbodo) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Urbodo\/status\/1947315600931373150?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 21, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe idea of playing for Panathinaikos, closer to home, was very exciting to me, but that will have to wait. I am fully committed to honoring my contract with the Nuggets this season and will give it my all to compete for a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>What Happened?<\/h3>\n<p>Valanciunas\u2019s contract dispute, for lack of a better term, wasn\u2019t difficult to understand.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_151398\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-151398\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-151398\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7653-300x200.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7653-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7653-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7653-768x512.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7653-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7653-600x400.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7653-1200x800.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/07\/IMG_7653.jpeg 1729w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-151398\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mar 5, 2025; Denver, Colorado, USA; Sacramento Kings center Jonas Valanciunas (17) reacts after a play as Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic (15) looks on in the second quarter at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A 13-year NBA veteran, he\u2019s played for three teams in just the past two seasons. He hasn\u2019t played more than three consecutive seasons with any franchise since being traded by the Toronto Raptors in 2018-19. So, tired of the journeyman lifestyle, returning home to Europe had a certain appeal for the Lithuanian.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps expecting to reach a buyout with the Sacramento Kings, Valanciunas then entered contract negotiations with Panathinaikos. By all accounts, both parties expected him to be playing in the EuroLeague in 2025-26. However, the Kings traded Valanciunas to the Nuggets, who strongly preferred to keep him. After years of trying to find a suitable backup for centerpiece <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jokicni01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikola Jokic<\/a>, Valanciunas certainly <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/07\/01\/nuggets-jonas-valanciunas-backup-nikola-jokic\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">looked the part<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>What He Can Bring To The Mile High<\/h3>\n<p>Like Jokic, Valanciunas is gigantic, and excels at crashing the glass. Though he\u2019s obviously not on the three-time NBA MVP\u2019s level, he\u2019s also skilled, capable of scoring from all three levels and creating for others. He\u2019s not only serious about the game but he\u2019s tough. Last but not least, because Jokic has a soft spot for his fellow Europeans, their chemistry could benefit the locker room.<\/p>\n<p>It remains to be seen just how well Valanciunas will fit in Denver. However, on paper, it looks like it should work out.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Denver Nuggets have their guy after all. After an intriguing episode that left Jonas Valanciunas\u2019s future in question, he\u2019s now committed to his new NBA team and their championship aspirations. Jonas Valanciunas Clears The Air About Nuggets, Panathinaikos \u201cI want to clear the air about my playing situation next season now that Denver has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":151397,"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":[20,1608,2,61,62,3],"tags":[1721,167,1382],"class_list":["post-151392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nuggets","category-basketball","category-featured","category-international-basketball","category-nba","category-news","tag-euroleague","tag-jonas-valanciunas","tag-nba-trade"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151392","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=151392"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151401,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151392\/revisions\/151401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}