The Nuggets have been granted a disabled player exception in the wake of DaRon Holmes‘ season-ending torn Achilles tendon, league sources tell Tony Jones of The Athletic (Twitter link).
The exception is worth $1,532,820, half of the rookie’s $3,065,640 salary for the 2024/25 season.
Holmes, who starred in college at Dayton, sustained the injury in his Summer League debut with Denver on July 12. The Nuggets traded three second-round picks to Phoenix to move up six spots in the 2024 draft (from No. 28 to No. 22) to acquire the rights to the 21-year-old big man.
A disabled player exception gives an over-the-cap team some extra spending power – but not an additional 15-man roster spot – when it loses a player to an injury deemed likely to sideline him through at least June 15 of the upcoming season.
We go into more detail on who qualifies for disabled player exceptions and how exactly they work in our glossary entry on the subject. But essentially, if a team has a player suffer a season-ending injury prior to January 15, the exception gives that team the opportunity to add an injury replacement by either signing a player to a one-year contract, trading for a player in the final year of his contract, or placing a waiver claim on a player in the final year of his contract.
Since the DPE for Holmes is so small, there’s a good chance it won’t be used by March 10; the Nuggets have 15 players on guaranteed standard contracts, and the exception doesn’t create a roster spot. Still, there was no downside to applying for the DPE, even if it may not prove very useful.
The only benefit I could see is if they see a rookie or two-way player on another team that they’d like to offer a standard contract for more than the rookie minimum. It wouldn’t be covered by the minimum salary exception but would be covered by the DPE.
Next up Bulls get one for Lonzo Ball.
One 1 time. Already used