The Offseason Looks Busy. The Backup Center Spot Looks Empty.

Jonas Valanciunas averaged 13.2 minutes a night last season and shot 58.2 percent from the floor. Not glamorous work, but reliable — the kind of quiet efficiency that buys a coaching staff flexibility in foul trouble and rest situations. He's gone, playing for Zalgiris Kaunas now, and the number that matters most about his departure isn't what he produced. It's what happened to him right before he left.

In his final ten games of the regular season, Valanciunas saw his minutes balloon from 17.3 to 22.3 per game — a 29 percent jump — and his field goal percentage fell more than ten points as a result. The workload spike didn't create production; it exposed the fragility of asking a backup to carry starter minutes. Denver was already leaning on him harder than the role required, and he was cracking under the weight. That's the context for understanding why his departure to Europe isn't just a roster footnote — it's the removal of an already-strained load-bearing piece, with nothing placed underneath it.

The offseason noise has been about wings. Watson to Cleveland, DeRozan from Sacramento — moves I've written about, moves that address real concerns about perimeter creation and playoff experience. DeRozan is a six-time All-Star who has been in pressure situations for two decades, and that matters. But the wing renovation, however justified, has functioned as a distraction from the position that actually broke down when the stakes were highest. When Minnesota eliminated Denver in three games, the Nuggets had no reliable answer for what happens when Jokic needs rest, picks up foul trouble, or faces a physical front that wears him down across a series.

The synchronized efficiency collapse that defined Denver's late-season slide — Jokic's field goal percentage dropping nearly seven points in the final ten regular-season games, Murray's cratering by nine — suggested a team running out of gas rather than a team that simply ran into a better opponent. A functional backup center doesn't solve that problem entirely, but it solves the part of it that's solvable: it gives Jokic fewer minutes of obligation, keeps him fresher for fourth quarters, and prevents opponents from simply waiting out his stamina. Right now, Denver has no such option. The roster as constructed asks Jokic to be the answer to every question, including the ones about center depth.

My read is this: the Watson-DeRozan swap was defensible on its own terms, and the wing additions of Lonnie Walker IV and the retained Spencer Jones give Denver real perimeter options. But the front office has now spent its visible offseason capital on the positions that were already functional. Aaron Gordon and Trevon Brazile remain day-to-day heading into training camp, which adds forward uncertainty on top of the center void. The championship window isn't closed — Jokic makes that window wider than any other player in basketball could — but Denver is entering 2026-27 with the same structural vulnerability that Minnesota exposed, and no meaningful move to address it. The box score from last spring knew the problem. The offseason didn't answer it.