The Denver Nuggets have set a steep price on Peyton Watson, and the Clippers have so far shown they’re not ready to meet it.
According to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype, Los Angeles has not even put a first-round pick on the table for Watson, despite having the draft capital Denver is said to want in a sign-and-trade. That lines up with how the Clippers appear to be viewing the 23-year-old: clearly interested, but not to the point of emptying the future for him.
Watson’s breakout season is the reason he’s in this conversation at all. He flashed the kind of two-way ability that makes front offices sit up and pay attention, and he came through when the Nuggets needed him most. If he had already taken the next step into true All-Star territory, the asking price probably would not scare anyone off.
But there are still real questions attached to his rise. One is how he creates offense in the half-court.
Watson can get out and run in transition, but the more revealing test is what happens when the defense is set and he has to manufacture something on his own. A lot of the shots he made last season came with a defender right on top of him, and even when they went in, they didn’t come easy.
The other issue is availability. Watson played only 54 games last season after a hamstring injury in early February. He came back after nearly a month and a half, appeared in just four more games, and then missed the rest of the year with the same designation.
That combination helps explain why the Clippers are staying patient. Watson may have a big ceiling, but right now Los Angeles is not treating him like a player worth paying a premium for. If anything, the most the Clippers might be willing to part with is someone like Derrick Jones Jr. or Kris Dunn.
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Mavericks Face A Late Free Agency Squeeze Fans Should Watch
With more than a month gone by since NBA free agency opened, most of the market has already been picked over, with 44 of the top 50 names for 2026 now committed to new deals. But a few notable players are still hanging around in the open, including Jalen Duren, James Harden, Peyton Watson, Jonathan Kuminga, Bennedict Mathurin and Brandon Williams, keeping a thin layer of uncertainty around the league as teams continue to sort through the last meaningful negotiations.
For the Clippers, the name worth watching is Mathurin, whose status as a restricted free agent keeps him tied to the larger late-summer squeeze. Several players have already received offers without putting pen to paper, and the longer this stretches on, the more each unresolved case becomes part of the same slow-moving market. Los Angeles has every reason to monitor how the final pieces fall, since the holdouts now say as much about team planning as they do about the players themselves. [Read more 🡒]