Nuggets just signed Mason Plumlee to a surprising 3-year, $41 million deal

The Denver Nuggets and Mason Plumlee have agreed to a three-year, $41 million deal, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The 27-year-old center was a trade deadline acquisition for the Nuggets last season in a deal that swapped him for Jusuf Nurkic.

Plumlee is entering his fifth year in the league. He’ll be the clear backup center for Nikola Jokic this season, but the team may also try to play them together in certain moments. Last year, the Jokic-Plumlee pairing played 175 minutes together.

Training camp starts in almost a week, but Plumlee’s free agency dragged out this long because he’s a restricted free agent who had little leverage. It always seemed clear that the Nuggets would re-sign him eventually, and after July went by without any offer sheet being sent Plumlee’s way, it seemed clear that the rest of the league was willing to let Denver do just that.

That’s more than anyone expected Plumlee to get, although it’s about in line with the money Cody Zeller received in his four-year, $56 million extension last offseason. Zeller and Plumlee are comparative players, so it’s not hard to see why Plumlee would ask for that type of money.

Still, the Hornets may have overpaid for Zeller, and the Nuggets just did the same thing in a colder market.

If Plumlee can coexist next to Jokic, he’ll be more valuable and there’s a better chance he’ll live up to his money. In their 175 minutes together last year, the Nuggets had a 109.0 offensive rating and a 108.1 defensive one, which is a net positive — albeit barely.

But Plumlee is a 6’11 player without the foot speed to guard many modern power forwards, who are quicker, smaller, and thrive on matchups like this that they can exploit. On the other end, Plumlee doesn’t have an offensive game that would allow him to expose such a mismatch. He’s a good backup center, but Denver may find he’s just that.

If so, his $41 million feels awfully extravagant.