Sports
NBA Rumors: Christian Braun's 3rd-Year Contract Option Picked Up by Nuggets – Bleacher Report
The Denver Nuggets have reportedly picked up the third-year option on Christian Braun’s rookie contract, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The option will pay Braun an estimated $3 million in the 2024-25 season, per Spotrac. The young guard also have a fourth-year team option in 2025-26 for an estimated $4.9 million.
Braun, 22, emerged as a solid role player in his rookie season, averaging 4.7 points in 15.5 minutes per game across 76 contests (six starts) during the regular season. He shot 49.5 percent from the field and 35.4 percent from three.
He saved his best for last, averaging 5.8 points per game in the NBA Finals, including a 15-point outburst off the bench in the team’s Game 3 win (a performance that was justifiably overshadowed by the 30-point triple-doubles registered by Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray, the first time in NBA history a pair of teammates accomplished that feat in the same game).
The Nuggets beat the Miami Heat in five games to clinch the title and Braun was trusted with 16.2 minutes per game in the series, an indication that a bigger role was in his future. Perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a shock that the moment wasn’t too big for him—he also won a national championship with the Kansas Jayhawks during the 2021-22 season.
That composure has him in line to handle sixth-man duties for the team. It was a role that Bruce Brown largely filled last season, though a two-year, $45 million deal lured him to the Indiana Pacers this summer.
“When you’re talking about apples-to-apples replacement [of Brown], you’re talking about Braun,” Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth told the Denver Post’s Bennett Durando. “And Christian, I think, has improved his ball-handling a ton, but he won’t be playing any backup point guard. … Braun is going to bring a lot of the same things Bruce brought, but Bruce played on the ball more.”
He’s impressed his head coach, too.
“He was the best player in our gym most days this summer,” Michael Malone told Durando. “And you’re just watching that confidence and that swagger he has, and the experience he went through last season in the playoffs, in the Finals. Not many rookies have the impact that he did.”
Which made picking him his third-year option—and eventually his fourth-year option—an easy decision.
