Nuggets get devastating news, rookie tears Achilles in Summer League

DaRon Holmes II was solid in his professional debut in the Las Vegas Summer League on Friday night but sadly it ended with the rookie leaving the court with a torn Achilles.

Holmes will miss the entire 2024-25 NBA season after playing just 25 minutes for the Nuggets, due to the injury. He had 11 points and seven rebounds in Denver’s 88-78 loss to the Clippers.

The Nuggets had hope that they found an answer in the 2024 NBA Draft by picking Holmes II to a problem that has long plagued them—a big who could slide between power forward and center and getting a rookie to do so right away. Now that’s on hold and the future is in doubt. More devastatingly, the Nuggets traded up to draft Holmes and have few assets to replace the big role the rookie was supposed to fill.

The Nuggets took another swing at finding a backup for Nikola Jokic in taking Holmes with the No. 22 pick out of Dayton. At 6-foot-10, the Arizona native left the Flyers after his junior season in the A-10 where he averaged a 30th-best in the country 20.4 points with 8.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 2.1 blocks per game. He hit a three-a-game on much-improved 39% shooting. This led Holmes’ Flyers to the second round of the NCAA Tournament this spring. They went 71-31 in his three-year college career playing under Anthony Grant.

Nnaji was once viewed as the long-term solution to the role Holmes was drafted to play and it seems as tough Nnaji will again get a crack at the spot. There’s reason to believe Nnaji might work out one day, as there was a 30-game stretch in the 2022-23 regular season where he balled, and that’s why he has a four-year deal. But his 2023-24 follow-up was a disaster playing fewer minutes a night and losing the trust of Michael Malone. All of Nnaji’s numbers went down and his early career three-point shooting has nearly completely disappeared as too did the ferocious glasswork that made him the Pac-12’s best rebounder at one point.

That led the Nuggets to draft Holmes. But even if Holmes had been healthy he would’ve likely slid behind the recently signed Dario Saric, who averaged eight points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game for the Golden State Warriors last season. So it would’ve been Holmes and Nnaji fighting for the backup power forward job But that’s done while Saric played behind Jokic for now. That of course is not what will happen and Denver will see the impacts of losing Holmes’ size as well with Peyton Watson likely sliding back up to the power forward spot quite a bit.

The Nuggets have one roster spot to play with which could be occupied by a player they acquire with a minimum contract. Denver could also add a more expensive player using minimal assets by taking advantage of league mechanisms—that player could be Russell Westbrook. At that point, the Nuggets offseason would basically be complete. But now with another big down, just as Vlatko Cancar went down in the summer last year, maybe the Nuggets readjust their plans. Though, 40% of their roster is already filled with backup bigs, making it unlikely they use another spot on a similar player.

This also could impact Aaron Gordon, who has two years left on his contract with the second being a player option. That means AG could walk at season’s end and the Nuggets would be left with even more uncertainty filling his job than they had Kentavious Caldwell-Pope walked earlier this summer. In all likelihood, the Nuggets are now even further incentivized to get an extension done with Gordon this summer.