- Has a $3,468,960 participant choice
One good factor for the Nuggets heading into this offseason is that they are going to have little free company to deal with. Their three two-way gamers (Trey Alexander, PJ Corridor and Spencer Jones) will all want new offers, DeAndre Jordan will in all probability need a fourth consecutive minimal wage, Dario Saric additionally has a participant choice that he ought to be anticipated to train, and Vlatko Cancar’s sheer endurance might effectively see him get a sixth season. He by no means a lot performed, however then, he by no means did.
Of the rotation gamers, solely Westbrook would possibly enter free company this season, if he declines his participant choice for the minimal wage. And he would possibly. Coming into the ultimate levels of his enigmatic profession, Westbrook – who at one level in his profession seemed recent out of suitors – had a fairly good consolidation season. In 75 common season video games with 36 begins, he averaged 13.3 factors, 6.1 assists and 4.9 rebounds per recreation, inevitably down from his triple-double heyday but nonetheless a ton of manufacturing from a person who turns 37 in November. As ever, there is no such thing as a one else fairly like Russ.
Westbrook’s whirlwind, dynamic, brave-to-the-point-of-reckless fashion of play is well-documented, and won’t change now. Nor, it appears, does he need it to. He’s self-aware, unrepentant and very proficient, in a method not often earlier than seen, and the occasional second of chaos is the value of getting what Nuggets President Josh Kroenke calls Westbrook’s “spice“. Basketball all the time requires a sure degree of chaos, each to provide the defenses one thing surprising to deal with and to provide the followers one thing to observe; Westbrook, unmistakably, is that. He provides qualities to the Nuggets if not a substantial amount of surety.
For the minimal wage, warts and all, they won’t do higher. Cagier, sure. Higher, no.
