The Clippers may have just complicated the Peyton Watson market in a big way.
Los Angeles has been linked as a possible landing spot for the Nuggets’ restricted free agent for most of the offseason, but ESPN’s Shams Charania reported the team has signed veteran wing Bradley Beal to a two-year deal. On its own, that’s a notable move. Put it next to the rest of the Clippers’ roster situation, and it gets strange fast.
The Clippers now sit at 16 players, and that’s before any effort to bring back their own restricted free agent Bennedict Mathurin. Once the season begins, teams can only carry 15. So if Los Angeles still plans to keep adding, it will have to clear space somewhere along the way.
That’s where Watson comes back into the picture. If the Clippers are still in on him and also intend to re-sign Mathurin, they would likely need to waive multiple players. If they’re trying to work out a sign-and-trade for Watson instead, the path gets messy there too, because another team would probably have to enter the mix to help absorb the extra pieces.
The Nuggets don’t have much room to make that easier. Denver is currently a little over $2 million above the NBA’s second apron penalty threshold, which limits how much flexibility they have in a sign-and-trade.
Even the rumored idea of the Clippers taking Zeke Nnaji and sending out Kris Dunn would not be enough by itself to get Denver under that line. A third team would still be needed.
If the Beal signing does knock the Clippers out of the Watson chase, that would leave the Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers as the only other rumored suitors. That would only add more pressure on Watson to decide whether to accept the Nuggets’ reported offer or take the qualifying offer and bet on himself.
Denver’s reported extension offer for Watson is four years and $70 million, with a team option in year four. The qualifying offer sits at $6.5 million and would set him up for unrestricted free agency next summer. That leaves Watson looking at an $11 million gap next season, with the hope that he could make it back - and then some - on a bigger deal later.
For now, the Clippers’ latest move just adds another layer of confusion to a situation that was already hard to read.
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