Now that the roster is almost fully set for training camp and to enter the 2024-25 season, it’s a good time to take a look at the Nuggets’ finances and how they’ve allocated their resources. Recently, I dug into the negative side of things and focused on the most overpaid players of the current team.
Luckily for fans, the list is pretty short and the only players who are visibly overpaid to the point of hurting the team are Michael Porter Jr. and Zeke Nnaji. And even those players aren’t killers since MPJ is still a plus player and a key starter while Nnaji is making less than $9 million this season.
But let’s now look at the other end of the spectrum and focus on the Nuggets’ underpaid players. Just like the overpaid players, there aren’t a lot of candidates, but a few stand out. One of the key takeaways from this exercise is that most of the players on the roster are fairly well-compensated right now.
But that doesn’t apply to everyone. Here are the three lowest-paid players on the Nuggets heading into the 2024-25 season.
Braun will make just over $3 million this year and has a team option for next season worth less than $5 million. It’s no fault of anyone’s, it’s just the standard rookie contract where he was drafted, but he still far outperformed that contract.
Braun has proven to be a solid role player at worst, and someone Michael Malone could count on in key moments in the playoffs as a rookie and sophomore. Letting KCP go was also a vote of confidence in Braun, and it seems likely the third-year player will start this year.
If Braun has another solid season and continues to improve his game, it’s likely the Nuggets will extend his contract for a much more reasonable amount before next season. But still, the fact that a title contender can pay a solid starter just $3 million this season is like stealing.
