It's fitting that 15 years after LeBron James created the most memorable summer in NBA history, we finally have an offseason storyline that threatens to surpass The Decision in its ramifications. It's the question that is dominating every discussion, that every NBA insider is attempting to get answered as they furiously type away at their phones: Is Jonas Valanciunas going to Greece or what?
Valanciunas, a 33-year-old big man and 13-year NBA veteran, started the 2024–25 campaign with the Wizards and was traded to the Kings for a couple of second-round picks during the season. The Kings shipped him off to Denver in exchange for Dario Saric last week. This was the sort of offseason trade that mostly scans as idle shuffling: The Nuggets no longer wanted Saric because he sucks, and the Kings no longer wanted Valanciunas because they don't want to pay him the $10 million he will be owed next season. The Kings got some salary relief (Saric will only make $5 million next season, if he doesn't get bought out), and the Nuggets finally got a true center who can spell Nikola Jokic for 10–14 minutes every night. Everybody got what they wanted.
Or did they? On July 3, with the Saric-for-Valanciunas trade still not official, reporters at Basketnews.com, which covers the EuroLeague, reported that Valanciunas was "close to accepting" a three-year, $13 million contract from Greek powerhouse Panathinaikos. This was another report of the type that usually escapes notice during the offseason: an aging European player getting himself bought out of his NBA contract that so that he can go play overseas has happened before and will happen again. This particular story was a little odd, though, given that the Nuggets had just traded for Valanciunas. Did they know all along that he wanted to give up $10 million to go to Greece? Did they only acquire him to free up even more cap space?
The Nuggets did not do that. Pretty soon Marc Stein and Shams Charania were reporting that the Nuggets had no intention of letting Valanciunas escape to Greece, and expected him to report for duty in Denver. Right around the time this information was coming out, Valanciunas was stepping off a plane in Athens, where he had apparently flown to negotiate a deal with Panathinaikos. At this point, another delightfully named website covering European basketball (Sports DNA) shed some light on why this was all happening. According to their sources, Valanciunas's Lithuanian agent had negotiated a deal with Panathinaikos, assuring the Greek team that his client would be able to get out of his NBA contract. The only problem with this plan is that the agent never informed the Nuggets of Valanciunas's intentions.
What are Valanciunas's intentions, exactly? By some stroke of luck, the big man made a public appearance on Tuesday as a panelist at a basketball networking event in Lithuania. Valanciunas was asked directly if he will be playing in Denver this season, and he did not exactly provide an answer:
"Once the trade is finalized, we’ll put together the plan for the trip to Denver. The team will outline how they see the situation, medicals, and all the details. That part is up to the them," he said to BasketNews.
"Can it be said that you’ll be playing in Denver next season?" he was asked by the reporters.
"You can say whatever you want — people have already said plenty," Valančiūnas said with a laugh. "The whole thing blew up like a bubble," he added with a smile.
The only thing funnier than an NBA veteran stumbling into a low-grade international incident because his agent may have been getting a little too loose with the wheelin' and dealin' is the fact that there is actually quite a bit riding on the resolution of this standoff. For one, Valanciunas is much more important to the Nuggets than he would be to almost any other team in the league. For basically the entirety of the Nikola Jokic era, the Nuggets have not had a backup center who could be described as a functional basketball player capable of setting screens, grabbing rebounds, playing out of the pick-and-roll, and putting the ball in the basket. Valanciunas can do all of those things, and getting 13 minutes of that sort of production on a nightly basis is the kind of development that could rescue the Nuggets' perennially awful bench units.
Beyond that, there's reason to believe that the Valanciunas Affair is holding up further offseason developments around the league. Free agent Al Horford is reportedly deciding between the Nuggets, Warriors, or retirement, and that choice will be heavily influenced by whether the Nuggets lose Valanciunas and end up with a lot more money to throw at Horford. And what Horford ends up deciding will probably also have a big impact on what the Warriors ultimately decide to do with Jonathan Kuminga, who wants to get out of town via sign-and-trade. It's very funny to imagine poor Steph Curry sitting at home, having to agonize over who is going to be on his team next year, all because Jonas Valanciunas took a cheeky trip to Greece and gave some coy comments in Lithuania.
OK, sorry, there is actually one more thing about this story that's funnier than that: The Kings seemingly traded Valanciunas strictly for salary relief, and yet somehow they were not aware of the fact that he would have willingly given up his $10 million to go play in Greece. Now they have Dario Saric on the roster for no reason. Oops!
