Vlatko Cancar spent six years with the Denver Nuggets, and while he looks back fondly on his time with the team, there was one thing about his American teammates he didn’t like. During an appearance on the X&O’s CHAT podcast, Cancar stated that they would start making excuses when it was time to pay the bill after a team dinner.
“Americans start backing off, you know,” Cancar said. “As soon as they see the bill coming, they’re up like, ‘I gotta wash my hands,’ or ‘I need to go to the bathroom.'”
Millionaires looking the other way in this situation certainly isn’t a good look. Cancar didn’t mention any names, but there might be one individual whom we can rule out. The Slovenian spoke glowingly of Aaron Gordon in this podcast.
Cancar called Gordon the most generous of his former Nuggets teammates, and so you’d imagine that he wouldn’t have an issue paying his part of the bill. As for those team dinners, the 28-year-old revealed that they started going for those more often once DeAndre Jordan, Jeff Green, and Ish Smith arrived. He also mentioned that Jordan was the connector.
“They were the veterans on the team,” Cancar stated. “And they’d be the ones to say, ‘Come on, let’s go out for dinner, hang out a bit.'”
Cancar said the Nuggets would cover the tab up to a point, and the players had to pool in if they went above that limit.
“When we started going out there in the NBA, the prices are insane,” Cancar said. “But it’s their fault because they order these wines that cost four, five thousand dollars, you get me? It’s just showing off, totally unnecessary.
“Any wine is wine, man, honestly,” Cancar added. “… Some of it smells bad, tastes sour. What do you need that for? Just grab some vodka, get drunk, and who cares.”
At least Cancar doesn’t have to worry about this now. He signed with Olimpia Milano in Italy this summer, and you do wonder if his NBA career has ended.
The Nuggets selected Cancar with the 49th pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, but he only came over to the U.S. in 2019. The forward found playing time hard to come by at first, but his role slowly increased over time.
Cancar played 60 games in the Nuggets’ title-winning 2022-23 season, but disaster struck months later. He tore his ACL while playing for Slovenia against Greece in a FIBA World Cup preparation game in August 2023.
Cancar missed the entire 2023-24 season and wasn’t quite the same when he returned. He played just 13 games in 2024-25 and decided it was time to move on. Cancar has left the NBA with career averages of 3.4 points, 1.8 rebounds, 0.9 assists, 0.3 steals, and 0.2 blocks per game.
