WEDNESDAY, 1:36pm: The Blazers and Clippers are among many teams who have strong interest in acquiring Chandler, Dempsey reports, though coach Brian Shaw denies that the team is trying to trade either Chandler or Afflalo. Chandler says the Nuggets told him they wouldn’t trade him, Dempsey writes, echoing his earlier report, though the swingman doesn’t dismiss the possibility that the team would nonetheless deal him away. Shaw clarifies that while the team isn’t shopping anyone, the Nuggets won’t turn away offers of the sort that pried Mozgov loose. The Nuggets have been “flooded with inquiries” about nearly everyone on the team, Dempsey writes.
“I’d be willing to go out on a limb and say that anybody on our team and everybody on our team, if there were an offer that was too good to pass up, everybody would be expendable,” Shaw said. “If Phil Jackson came out of retirement and said he wanted to come coach the Denver Nuggets, I’m expendable. You know what I mean? It is what it is. We all have had to deal with it at some point in our careers. They’ll be fine.”
TUESDAY, 9:30am: The Nuggets are aggressively shopping Wilson Chandler in a future-focused pursuit of assets, TNT’s David Aldridge reports (Twitter link). It appears there’s plenty of interest from other teams in the eighth-year veteran, as Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com reported Monday that the Nuggets were receiving numerous calls about Chandler as well as Arron Afflalo. Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post also heard last month that the team had fielded multiple inquiries about Chandler, though he added that the Nuggets had told the 29-year-old that they preferred to keep him. That was before the team traded Timofey Mozgov last week in a deal that brought back two first-round picks.
The Thunder reportedly checked on Denver’s willingness to part with Chandler, according to a report from Chris Mannix of SI.com a month ago, though a trade last week may have changed the equation for Oklahoma City, too, since the Thunder have acquired Dion Waiters. Chandler wanted to play for the Pistons in the past, Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press tweets, though it’s unclear if that’s the case now. The swingman is making nearly $6.758MM this season, but next season’s salary of almost $7.172MM is only guaranteed for $2MM, putting him on an expiring contract of sorts.
Denver had been drawing closer to the realization that the playoffs are most likely out of reach, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe wrote last week, but the team has won four in a row. Still, the Nuggets are 17-20, three and a half games behind the Suns for eighth place in the Western Conference. A Chandler trade could help Denver escape mediocrity, as I wrote when I examined his trade candidacy.