Denver Nuggets rookie power forward/center DaRon Holmes II, selected with the No. 22 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft out of Dayton, has torn his right Achilles tendon, and is likely to miss all of the 2024-25 season, sources inform Shams Charania of The Athletic.
In what will now be his one and only Summer League contest of 2024, an 88-78 loss to the L.A. Clippers on Friday night at the Pavilion in Las Vegas, the 6-foot-10 consensus All-American Second-Teamer and two-time All-Atlantic First-Teamer manned the middle, scoring 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the field (3-of-3 from beyond the arc), seven rebounds, one assist, and one steal across 25:43 of action.
Holmes was the Nuggets’ top pick in the draft after they swapped selections with the Phoenix Suns, who in turn acquired the draft rights for Virginia small forward Ryan Dunn with what was Denver’s No. 28 pick.
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Since last offseason, the Nuggets have now let three of the top seven players on their 2023 championship team walk in free agency.
The loss of veterans Bruce Brown (who signed a two-year, $45 million contract with the Indiana Pacers in 2023, and was eventually flipped to the Toronto Raptors midway through the season), Jeff Green (who inked a two-season, $16 million deal with the Houston Rockets last summer) and most recently Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (who agreed to a three-year, $66 million contract with the Orlando Magic) seems to be leveling the playing field a bit in the West, somewhat muting Denver’s excellence. The team absolutely needs to hit on young new players in the draft who can be kept under long-term team control while signed to rookie-scale contracts.
Last year, without Brown or Green shoring up their depth off the bench, Denver faltered, losing to the jumbo-sized Minnesota Timberwolves in a seven-game second round playoff series this past spring. Now, the team is losing a title-winning starter in Caldwell-Pope, who will add his floor-spacing and perimeter defense to a frisky young playoff club in the Eastern Conference….
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