Per Marc Stein, Denver Nuggets forward Dario Saric is activating his $5.4 million player option for next season. This was expected – Dario Saric has had rumors that multiple teams are interested in his services in Euroleague basketball next year, but none of those teams were going to pay him $5.4 million. The contract was unfortunately a waste of the Taxpayer mid-level exception last year as Saric barely played at all even though DaRon Holmes was lost for the season with his Achilles injury and the Nuggets could still not find minutes for Saric.
Denver is unlikely to retain Saric for next season, but it’s possible that new head coach David Adelman has a different plan for him than former coach Michael Malone, who only found 210 minutes for the power forward despite Aaron Gordon’s season-long calf injury and the lack of other backup options at both power forward and center. If they do not keep Saric, it’s just a matter of whether they can use his salary in trade (for a team that can then buy him out of a portion of that contract which he can make up in Europe) or if Denver is simply going to buy him out themselves.
The hope would be for them to be able to save $2 million or so off the price of the option with that buyout, which would give them enough to add a veteran on a league-minimum contract to replace him, but whether or not Denver or another team does that Saric has guaranteed himself the payday that Calvin Booth promised him when giving him the player option in the first place.
