The Denver Nuggets are bad. They're not dumb.
The Nuggets claimed Shavlik Randolph off of waivers from the Boston Celtics on Wednesday, saving themselves more than a million dollars in the process.
The 31-year-old Randolph had been waived by the Celtics to make room for Chris Babb, and while the power forward has little utility to a rebuilding team in a lost season, it was suspected that the Nuggets may claim him. Prior to the claim, the Nuggets were $1.9 million below the league's salary floor, and Randolph's $1.23 million salary pushes them much closer.
The kicker is that the Nuggets save money by paying Randolph here - the prorated amount of his contract is $52,091 but they now owe just $635,357 in disbursements to their roster for being beneath the floor rather than the $1.9 million they owed before. It's a nifty bit of cap maneuvering, even if it does serve to take some money out of the pockets of the other players on the roster.
Randolph could see a bit of a run at the end of the bench for Denver but is unlikely to play much of a role over the season's final week. Undrafted out of Duke in 2005, Randolph has appeared in 146 games over eight seasons for five teams, averaging 2.3 points and 2.5 rebounds.
