Money Talks: The Christian Braun Extension And Peyton Watson Non-Extension

A good deal still leads to an uncertain future.

Photo by BP Miller on Unsplash

On Monday, the Nuggets came to terms with Christian Braun on a five-year, $125 million extension.

You can break down the things about how this played out into surprising and unsurprising.

CB CASHES IN

It’s unsurprising that CB got a big-money, big-years deal. Braun is a true success story of the Nuggets’ system. They drafted a player who they felt could play immediately, he played immediately, and they won a title in part thanks to his (small) contributions.

He developed well in Year 2 and then coming into Year 3, the team gambled that Braun was ready to take the starting spot from Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

Former GM Calvin Booth mangled the KCP talks, barely even reaching out to him, but that was more from an optics perspective. The Nuggets were never going to make a seriously competitive offer for KCP, in part because not only was the team internally so high on Braun, but so was ownership.

This can’t be overstated enough: according to sources close to the Nuggets, ownership was a big factor in the decision to give Braun the starting nod.

You can’t make that move, have it worked out as well as it did last year, and then risk losing the guy or damaging relationships with him.

Braun turned into an elite finisher last year. I’ve never felt like he’s a good shooter, but he was 39.7 percent from 3-point range last year, which is objectively good.¹

I really can’t stress the finishing part. For as many of his shots were in transition on leak-outs off outlet passes from Jokic, he was still facing 1-2 defenders and was able to finish around, over, and through them. He would routinely pump-fake to get one defender in the air and then finish through contact on another.

Defense is why Braun was drafted and he showed great capacity early in his career. Last year was a learning experience for him both in terms of endurance playing longer minutes and the toll it takes to play both ends on that volume of possessions, and in terms of navigating screens.

Screen navigation was a big issue for him early last season but by the end of the year, he’d made huge strides. He was great against both James Harden and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the playoffs and the challenge doesn’t get higher than that. He’ll only improve in those areas.

The surprising part of Braun’s extension is that they got him for less than the market-expected max. Braun's high end would have been $30 million per year, and his low end was $25 million per year. Based on the backing of ownership, management, coaching, and Jokic, I expected something close to $28.

To get him on $25 shows Braun's recognition of what ensures his role — playing next to Jokic— and the team's recognition of his value — capitalizing on opportunities from Jokic — while giving both sides security. The Nuggets don’t have to worry about a wing slot for five years; CB gets guaranteed money long-term.

There’s a market signal here that the Nuggets were not willing to try and put Braun through the restricted free agency wringer to try and get a super-cheap deal on him. Braun’s deal is fair, not an overpay or an underpay, and the Nuggets were content to give him the long-term based on his age and injury history.

It’s a little surprising it took this long, but while CB getting paid is unsurprising given ownership’s support of him, the wait probably indicates the front office and ownership’s patience in seeing what the market provided.

Based on these figures, CB is paid between his high-end target ($30 million, reportedly) and what Toumani Camara got at $20 million per year. That feels exactly right.

This is the rare deal that I think hit the nail on the head for value on both sides.

PEYTON’S OPPORTUNITY

I’m not surprised at all that the Nuggets did not extend Peyton Watson.