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Nuggets waive Jonas Valanciunas for salary cap relief, making backup center a free agent The Nuggets waived backup center on Jonas Valanciunas on Wednesday, clearing a chunk of roster payroll as their 2026 offseason remains in limbo.
, a league source told The Denver Post on Wednesday, providing them with at least $8 million in salary cap relief and making Valanciunas a free agent.
One year after a Greek team tried to lure him away from the NBA, Valanciunas is free to go overseas and play closer to home if he wants to sign in the EuroLeague.
Or the Lithuanian big man can field offers from other NBA teams in need of frontcourt depth if he prefers to stick around for a 15th season in North America.Valanciunas backed up Nikola Jokic during his lone season in Denver, one of the only situations in his 14-year NBA career in which he regularly played off the bench.
If this is the end of that career, Valanciunas will have appeared in 1,002 games, starting 854 of them.
Most known for his six years and change in Toronto, hes averaged 12.8 points and nine rebounds in the NBA.
He averaged 8.7 points and 5.1 rebounds per game as a Nugget.The 34-year-old had a non-guaranteed $10 million salary with the Nuggets next season.
Last October, the teamto guarantee him $2 million of that total in exchange for pushing back the guarantee deadline to July 8.
The Nuggets rationale was to give themselves a longer runway into the 2026-27 league year to explore trade options involving Valanciunas.The problem with their efforts to trade him over the last few days was that any team taking on his contract would have had to shoulder the full $10 million.last offseason.
After the trade was completed and while Valanciunas was competing overseas with the Lithuanian national team, the EuroLeague power Panathinaikos attempted to pull him away from Denver with a three-year contract offer.He was unable to sign it while under contract with Denver, though, and the Nuggets were unwilling to release him from that contract.
Teammates and coached vouched for his professionalism throughout the season as he played the fewest total minutes of his career.
Knowing they would need a second-string center for Jokic yet again, the Nuggets agreed to a one-year deal with Marvin Bagley III last week.Valanciunas was more successful than most backups whove passed through Ball Arena, but he fadedas coach David Adelman went to a small-ball look more frequently.
Bagley, DaRon Holmes II and Zeke Nnaji are currently the biggest bench players on the roster.
Aaron Gordon and Spencer Jones have also played the five in some of those smaller lineups.
Jones is currently negotiating for a new contract with the Nuggets as a restricted free agent.Waiving Valanciunas leaves Denver about $6 million below the second apron, but with five open roster spots.
The Nuggets can choose to stretch the $2 million in guaranteed salary across three seasons if they want.
That would reduce their dead cap to $666,666 for next season and each of the following two.
It was unclear on Wednesday afternoon whether they would choose to do that.