DaRon Holmes‘ rookie season appears to be over before it started. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link), Holmes sustained a torn right Achilles tendon during his Summer League debut on Friday and is expected to miss all of 2024/25.
It’s a brutal blow for a player whom the Nuggets were so high on that they surrendered three second-round picks in order to move up from No. 28 to No. 22 in last month’s draft to make sure they got him.
While there was no guarantee Holmes would have played rotation minutes in his first NBA season, he likely would have been given the opportunity to earn a regular role on a Denver team that will need contributions from a few of its younger players. Instead, the forward/center’s NBA debut will almost certainly be delayed until the fall of 2025.
Prior to entering this year’s draft, Holmes compiled an impressive résumé in three college seasons at Dayton, earning All-Atlantic 10 honors in all three years, including a First Team spot in 2023 and 2024. He was named the Atlantic 10 co-Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year in 2024 after averaging 20.4 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 2.1 blocks in 32.5 minutes per game across 33 starts in 2023/24. He also posted a shooting line of .544/.386/.713.
Prior to his injury on Friday, Holmes had been enjoying a solid Summer League debut, with 11 points and seven rebounds. His parents and agent were in attendance at the game, notes Bennett Durando of The Denver Post.
With Holmes sidelined for the 2024/25 season, the Nuggets figure to lean more on Zeke Nnaji and newly signed big men Dario Saric and Vlatko Cancar for frontcourt depth. DeAndre Jordan will also be back, though his new deal with the team isn’t yet official.
As Harrison Wind of DNVR Sports observes (via Twitter), Denver could apply for a disabled player exception following Holmes’ injury, but it would be worth just $1,532,820, half of the rookie’s $3,065,640 salary, so it wouldn’t be very useful. You can learn more about how disabled player exceptions work in our glossary.
Told you all he should of been drafted somewhere else
Have
How does that have anything to do with this?
He wants internet validation because mommy and daddy ain’t giving it to him.
Why didn’t the Raptors select him ?
I Fn knew it. This was a bad opportunity and situation for him when they drafted him. Nuggets thinking was we need a center so bad to play a couple minutes off the bench behind our best player who is a center, so the Nuggets go erratic and drool over Holmes who will not get a chance to start ever because he is blocked by A Gordon and no defense just shoves in the back Jokic and trade some stuff for him. Bad situation and then this happens. Poor guy. At least he signed that contract
I don’t recall any major injuries happening in previous SL this is a shame for him. I expect he still gets the label rookie next year.
He should, Holmgren did when he got injured after he played in the summer league.
Holmgren did not get hurt playing in summer league…
I didn’t say he did, he got hurt after summer league.
What a shame. Hopefully kid will fully recover and have successful career after it.
Probably the worst injury for a basketball player, but he’s young, which should aid him in his comeback.
DEN is one of a growing number of top teams that have crossed the second apron (or are hard capped there) and are effectively prohibited from upgrading their rosters by the usual means. Hopefully, somebody, at some point, will at least ask the question of whether this state of affairs is really in the league’s interest. Or even in the more narrow interest of the owners who pushed so hard for these restrictive rules.
It’s terrible , but we knew that the day it was signed
Give bleacher Report another 11-13 months to catch up and the masses will follow shortly afterward
I hope small/mid markets like Mil and Den take the podium first and voice thier displeasures – We have catered to them for so long ( wrongfully ) and now that it’s shown it’s teeth fully we need those markets to fight for change more than anyone.
* there should be a limit on how many firsts you can own at a time as well , when more go into the tankers buckets less activity is available league wide for the teams actually trying to win – We can call it the Presti rule
Yep. The problem ownership group is in the majority, so at least some of them are going to have to look past their parochial concerns, and consider what’s good for the league as a whole. Like in any business, the quality of the product has to be the first priority (not the owners, or a group of them). Until they recognize that, they as a group, regardless of their numbers, will remain unfit to lead.
Pretty sure the middle/bottom of the pack teams (on terms of money) were the ones that wanted these cap rules so much, ironic that it is ruining them now