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When Jonas Valanciunas trade to Nuggets is expected to become official
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- When Jonas Valanciunas trade to Nuggets is expected to become official
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The post When Jonas Valanciunas trade to Nuggets is expected to become official appeared first on ClutchPoints .
The Denver Nuggets ' offseason overhaul is nearly complete, but they still need the trade with the Sacramento Kings to acquire Jonas Valanciunas to officially go through. There was a bit of a hangup with Valanciunas' contact and whether he would even be staying in the NBA, but now all signs are pointing to him being in Denver at the start of next season.
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As of now, it appears that the Valanciunas trade is going to go through this weekend. Saturday is the first day that it can go through and it shouldn't take long after that marker passes that the Lithuanian big man is a Nugget, according to Marc Stein of The Stein Line.
As it turns out, the Nuggets had to sort out their other trade with the Brooklyn Nets sending Michael Porter Jr. to the Big Apple in exchange for Cam Johnson before they could proceed with the Valanciunas trade.
"I'm told that, for sequencing reasons, Denver needed additional time this week for all aspects of its Michael Porter Jr. deal to be finalized before going ahead with the Valančiūnas acquisition … all of which is expected to proceed at last this weekend," Stein reported on X, formerly Twitter.
Valanciunas flirted with trying to get out of this contract to go overseas and play for Panathinaikos, but the Nuggets would have had to let him out of his contract in order for him to do that. Denver understandably didn't want to do that after moving Dario Saric to Sacramento to get him, and now it looks like Valanciunas will be in Denver.
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Adding the veteran center will give the Nuggets a serviceable and reliable backup to Nikola Jokic for the first time since arguably 2020 when Mason Plumlee was in the rotation. Backup center has been a major weakness for the Nuggets for multiple years now, forcing the Nuggets to overtax Jokic during the regular season and have him come into the playoffs with extra tread on the tires.
In the playoffs, Denver has been going to small lineups with Aaron Gordon at center when Jokic is on the bench. While that should still be an option for David Adelman and company, having a scorer and rebounder like Valanciunas off the bench allows them to have extra versatility in the rotation.
Related: Jordi Fernandez reveals what Michael Porter Jr. will bring to Nets
Related: Nuggets' Cam Johnson reflects on Nets tenure during emotional goodbye
