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Peyton Watson’s time with the Denver Nuggets ended after a very strange few months. Following the best season of his career, the 23-year-old forward entered restricted free agency, waited most of the summer for his situation to be solved, and eventually left Denver for a four-year, $88.0 million deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers in a sign-and-trade, saying farewell to the team he had played for since being drafted. Watson had earned a much bigger contract after averaging career highs of 14.6 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 2.1 assists in 2025-26. He also shot 41.1% from three while showing his elite defensive level, averaging 0.9 steals and 1.1 blocks as a 6-foot-8 wing. The main problem for the Nuggets was financial restrictions. Denver was already dealing with the second apron and had added more salary after matching the Thunder’s two-year, $12.0 million offer sheet for Spencer Jones. Keeping Watson at more than $20.0 million per season became very difficult, and after almost three months without a deal, Cleveland finally stepped in. Speaking on the Curious Mike podcast with former Nuggets teammate Michael Porter Jr., Watson said leaving Denver brought mixed emotions after spending the first four years of his NBA career with the team. “It was a bittersweet feeling when the news finally came. I remember during the summer, just going through the ins and outs of negotiations and talks with the team and my agents and understanding that we had gotten to a point where Denver was between a rock and a hard place financially. Everybody was aware of them facing the tax bill,” Watson initially stated. “The way things shook out at the beginning with free agency, a few teams had cap space, but then the cap just dried up super quick. A lot of teams were not willing to go through the war that restricted free agency is. There are still some really good restricted free agents on the market,” he continued, with Jalen Duren as the main one remaining. “I’m lucky to have gotten a resolution with my situation as fast as I did. Like we talked about, this could have stretched out all summer,” he stated. The contract situation wasn’t the only issue around Watson during his final months with the Nuggets. His right hamstring injury also became a major story after he missed Denver’s entire first-round series against the Timberwolves, a series the Nuggets eventually lost. ESPN’s Anthony Slater reported in August that the Nuggets believed Watson’s upcoming restricted free agency played a role in his decision to sit out. The story grew even bigger after his agent, Rich Paul, discussed Watson’s injury on the Game Over podcast. “Guys want to play, and you have to protect them from themselves in that moment,” Paul said. His comments led to more questions about whether Watson’s contract situation was part of the reason he didn’t return, but Watson strongly disagreed with that idea and explained what happened with his hamstring. “I remember going out there in one of the last games of the season versus Utah and re-injuring my hamstring. We got an MRI, and basically the doctors came back and said it looked the same way that it did when I injured it the first time, which was a Grade 2 hamstring strain, literally in Game 80 of the season. Now I’m like, ‘I feel like we kind of rushed it, and we didn’t take the right approach.’” Watson also responded to people who said he had quit on the Nuggets or stayed out because he didn’t want another injury to hurt his value before free agency. He made it clear that those comments bothered him because he believed they questioned his effort and his character. “Still, to this day, I’m getting chastised about that. People are saying I quit on the team. Anybody who knows Peyton Watson knows the last thing I am is a quitter. I’ve never cheated the game. That hurt me, because I felt like I had given Denver my all and it was a really sickening feeling.” “All of these things are just like a narrative that somebody’s putting out there that’s completely untrue. One, and then two, it’s just like an indictment on my character, which is even crazier.” Watson then explained Paul’s comments too. According to him, his agent wasn’t trying to keep a healthy Watson off the court, but rather trying to stop him from rushing back and making the injury worse. Watson said he was still thinking about playing because he wanted to help Denver. “I think a lot of people took that out of context. I wasn’t healthy. He (Paul) was protecting me from myself, because I was still considering playing to help the team out. If we got to the second round, I was 100% planning on playing. There’s nobody in the world that was going to stop me from playing in the second round. I just wasn’t healthy enough.” That injury situation made the end of Watson’s Nuggets career even more complicated. He went from having his best NBA season to missing the playoffs, hearing questions about why he wasn’t on the court at the end, and spending most of the summer without knowing what would happen next. Cleveland finally gave him the long-term contract he was looking for, while the Nuggets decided to avoid adding another huge salary to an already expensive roster. Watson now leaves the Nuggets after four seasons and starts a new chapter with the Cavaliers, but his comments show that the way his time in Denver ended still bothered him.