The Golden State Warriors continued their excellent form on Friday night, taking down Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets in an impressive 118-104 victory at Chase Center.

One player we didn’t see in the game was former Warrior and now Nuggets big man Dario Saric, with the Croatian seeing another DNP in what’s becoming quite the occurrence dating back to end of his tenure in the Bay.

Former Warrior Dario Saric is set to pick up his player option with the Nuggets

After spending the final weeks of last season largely outside Steve Kerr’s rotation, eyebrows were certainly raised when the Nuggets signed Saric to a two-year, $10.6 million contract in free agency. Having been on a one-year, minimum deal with the Warriors, there was little to suggest that the veteran big man should have got more than that again, let alone the taxpayer mid-level with a player option thrown on top.

After appearing in 10 of Denver’s first 15 games, Saric has played in just six games since which includes just three since the 40th game of the season on January 15. Even when the Nuggets were incredibly short-handed without all their starters on Wednesday against the San Antonio Spurs, Saric saw just over seven first-half minutes and wasn’t seen again thereafter.

Given the 30-year-old hasn’t had the on-court playing time to increase his value, it makes total sense that he’d opt into his $5.4 million contract for next season. That appears likely to be the case, with Bennet Durando of The Denver Post reporting that Saric is likely to turn down offers overseas to return to the Nuggets.

“Despite reports out of Europe that multiple clubs have courted Saric to return overseas next season, including Dubai Basketball and Real Madrid, multiple sources told The Denver Post that Saric currently plans to exercise his $5.4 million player option with the Nuggets,” Durando wrote.

While this seems like a fait accompli, it can’t be underestimated how much this could handicap Denver’s free agency plans and their ability to build a championship-contending roster around their 3x MVP in Jokic.

Every team may have one or multiple players who sit at the end of the bench on minimum contracts, but having someone making over $5 million that’s practically unplayable is incredible restrictive in today’s age of first and second tax aprons.

Saric is averaging 3.5 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 13.1 minutes with the Nuggets, having averaged 8.0 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 64 appearances for the Warriors in 2023-24.