Jonas Valanciunas will land in Athens, Greece, tomorrow morning to meet with the Greek side, Panathinaikos, and has verbally committed to the European franchise, sources told League Alerts. The Lithuanian National team center, Valanciunas, was traded away from the Sacramento Kings to the Denver Nuggets in exchange for Dario Saric on Tuesday. Valanciunas, a 13-year NBA veteran center, desires to ‘feel important’ and is willing to push the Nuggets to free him from his contract post-trade. His contract with Denver is worth $23.4 million over the next two seasons, with no guarantee in the second year. According to Marc Stein, the trade cannot be finalised until this Sunday, which is something to consider regarding the reported European deal.

During an appearance on the DNVR Denver Nuggets Podcast on Thursday, the 28-year-old Slovenian power forward talked about his departure from the Denver Nuggets and the process leading to a deal with the EuroLeague club. “After the season and before the free-agency, I was kind of talking with my agent, and then I was asking, ‘What’s going on with Denver?’. Unfortunately, they came out with the news, kind of like a remodeling, but not really a remodeling type of thing. They wanted to say thank you for everything that you did, but they’re trying to move on now and bring some new energy, some new players. And then I accepted it,” he said, “I’m glad I was part of the team for six years. For me, it was OK.”

Brian Windhorst: So, on Mike Brown — what you need to know about Mike Brown… and I don’t think he does this anymore, but it helps you understand a little bit about him: He, for years, used to bring his own iron on the road. He had this thing where he would iron — he would bring an ironing board too — because he had a specific ironing board. He definitely packed his preferred iron. And the man who was in charge of packing his iron was Jordi Fernandez. Jordi Fernandez was the lowest staffer on the Cavs’ staff — just over from Spain, looking for a foothold in the NBA. Jordi was kind of like… I don’t know what his role officially was, but he was basically Mike Brown’s gopher. I mean, he helped out in practices — he was doing some coaching — but he was also Mike Brown’s gopher. He was in charge of packing the iron. Mike had this thing where — before every game — he would have an ironing board set up in the coach’s office, home and road, and he would iron his own shirt. He wanted to be the one to iron it. It was like a zen thing for him — a routine to clear his mind before going out to the game.

Jake Fischer: “Cam Thomas—no—does not really have a market, to my understanding. Josh Giddy also—I think people know what his price tag, he would like it to be. We’ve heard he wants $30 million as well. I don’t see a widespread market for that on the open market right now too.”

During an appearance on “NBA Today” Thursday, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said all eyes are on the Lakers superstar, who is due for a contract extension this summer. “I almost would argue the most important thing in the whole NBA this summer is Luka Dončić, whether he extends or not, because that frames so much of what the Lakers are going to do, and frankly, the whole league would do,” Windhorst said. “So, I don’t want to put too much pressure on it, but the Lakers really need to get him locked down, even if it’s for a couple of years to verify that he’s bought into what they’re doing,” added Windhorst.