A pair of veteran free agents found new homes this weekend as the Denver Nuggets added DeMar DeRozan while the Miami Heat signed Klay Thompson.
DeRozan will join the Nuggets on a 1 year, $3.9M deal and adds some much needed depth to Denver’s roster following the Peyton Watson sign and trade. His team friendly deal comes at a time when the Nuggets desperately needed bodies that could contribute to their rotation, while simultaneously carrying a small cap hit so as not to exacerbate their already precarious financial position.
What will be interesting to monitor is how his addition affects what Denver does on the court, given the difference in profiles between DeRozan and Watson. Watson was a defensive minded wing, generally tasked with shutting down the opposition’s primary scoring threats. Meanwhile, at this stage of his career, DeRozan is a bit of a defensive liability on the court, but can offer a higher scoring upside than the now departed Watson.
The 6’6″ forward averaged 18.4 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 4.1 assists per game with the Kings in 2025-26. He remains, even at 37 years old, one of the NBA’s more effective mid-range shooters, but has yet to have a season in which he’s shot better than 35.2% from beyond the arc. That could create some interesting matchup issues for head coach David Adelman who will need to balance points in the paint and keeping teams honest defensively from range.
Despite leading the league with 122.6pts per game in 2025-26, Denver averaged the 11th fewest 3-point attempts across the NBA. And by removing Watson (a 41.1% shooter from 3 last year) and adding DeRozan, that figure is likely to take a dip this season.
Nevertheless, the Compton native remains a good “get” for a Nuggets squad whose bench was looking rather barren heading into the new season.
Meanwhile, the new look Miami Heat added another veteran sharpshooter to the mix in South Beach, inking Klay Thompson to a 2 year deal worth $13M, which features a player option for year 2.
Few will make the argument that the now 36 year old guard is the same player he was when he was the second half of the Splash Brothers in Golden State. But Miami also doesn’t need him to be that player to make an impact with their current roster. Whether warranted or not, teams will continue to pay attention to Thompson defensively based on name recognition alone, which can help open up things offensively for his new teammates.
If he can play the Ray Allen role for this team, the Heat front office will likely take that deal every day of the week. Allen famously joined Miami as a 37 year old back in 2012-13, averaging 10.9pts on 41.9% shooting from beyond the arc across 25 minutes a night.
That kind of stat line seems more than doable for Thompson who averaged 11.7pts across in 21 minutes of action per night with Dallas last year.
Miami lost both of their top shooters from 2025-26 this offseason as Norm Powell and Tyler Herro are now both gone. Instead, they’ll try to patch together some outside scoring via Thompson and Tim Hardaway Jr. Part of the reason why Dallas viewed Klay as expendable was his regression on the defensive side of the ball.
At one point, Thompson garnered defensive player of the year votes while with the Warriors, but has since declined to a below average defender in the latter stages of his career. However, given the fact that Thompson will likely have some combination of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bam Adebayo, Davion Mitchell or Andrew Wiggins on the court with him, the Heat appear well positioned to make up for some of those limitations from Klay.
If nothing else, he should be a solid rotational piece for a Heat team that needed outside scoring and was low on viable options prior to his release from the Mavericks.
Photo: Erik Drost. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.