Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon will be sidelined for “multiple weeks” as he recovers from a right calf strain, sources tell Shams Charania of ESPN.
Gordon was listed on Denver’s injury report with right calf inflammation ahead of Monday’s game vs. Toronto. He was cleared to play, but logged just four minutes before exiting with what the team called a calf strain.
“Honestly, I was a little surprised he played last game,” head coach Michael Malone said after the game, per Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post. “The schedule has not been overly kind to us early. I think he’s dealing with just bumps and bruises, nothing long-term. But I’ll have to talk to our training staff to get an update on that.”
Based on Charania’s reporting, it sounds like the prognosis for Gordon is worse than Malone had hoped. The veteran forward is the second Nuggets starter to go down with an injury in the early going of the season — point guard Jamal Murray has missed the past two games while in the concussion protocol.
A key connecting piece for the Nuggets on both end of the floor, Gordon was averaging 17.5 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 3.5 assists in 34.7 minutes per game, with an excellent shooting line of .529/.550/.846, entering Monday’s game. The team has posted a +10.3 net rating when he’s on the court, compared to a -14.0 mark when he’s not.
The 29-year-old signed a long-term extension with Denver prior to the start of the season and is now under contract through at least 2028 (he holds a player option for ’28/29).
Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, and Zeke Nnaji all established new personal season highs in minutes played on Monday and are among the top candidates for increased playing time for as long as Gordon remains unavailable. Second-year forward Hunter Tyson will also be in that mix.
The Nuggets could pursue Lonnie Walker IV at some point during the season, Marc Stein reports in his latest Substack article.
Walker chose to sign with Zalgiris Kaunas in the EuroLeague last week after he was waived by Boston.
The veteran swingman signed an Exhibit 10 contract with the Celtics in late August in hopes of winning a roster spot in training camp. He reportedly impressed team officials, but Boston is operating under second apron restrictions, so it would have cost roughly $8.8MM in luxury tax penalties to keep Walker, on top of his $2.1MM salary.
Walker’s agent, George S. Langberg, negotiated an unusual buyout in Walker’s contract with the Lithuanian club that enables him come back to any NBA team at a cost of $450K between now and Feb. 18. Real Madrid and Maccabi Tel Aviv were among the other EuroLeague clubs that pursued Walker, but Zalgiris‘ willingness to consent to that clause was a decisive factor for Walker, according to Stein.
The Celtics were hoping Walker would head to their G League affiliate in Maine, but Walker feels he has a better chance of impressing NBA teams by playing in the EuroLeague. Boston reportedly attempted to trade Jaden Springer before the end of camp to open up a spot for Walker.
The Nuggets have depth issues, so Walker could make an impact if they pivoted his way. Denver has a full 15-man roster and all of those contracts are guaranteed, so the Nuggets would have to trade or waive a player to make room for Walker.
Concerns about the Nuggets‘ depth appear to be justified so far, writes Bennett Durando of The Denver Post. Although Christian Braun has played well in his promotion into the starting five, the team has been left with a lot of questions off its bench.
Part of the problem is unfamiliarity, Durando adds. Julian Strawther has been added to the rotation, while Michael Porter Jr. is adapting to a new staggered role that has him seeing more time with the second unit. Russell Westbrook and Dario Saric were offseason additions in free agency, and Peyton Watson missed the entire preseason with a hamstring injury.
“Too early to be trying to figure out if and what doesn’t work,” Westbrook said. “You don’t know what’s gonna work. You’ve gotta give a healthy dose of kind of seeing what’s what, and then you go from there.”
Rebuilding the bench was an offseason priority after the Nuggets seemed to run out of gas in the playoffs as coach Michael Malone had to lean heavily on his starters. That pattern is already repeating itself, as Durando points out that the starting unit logged 104 minutes together in the first four games.
“We’ve gotta figure something out with that bench unit,” Malone said after an overtime win in Brooklyn this week. “And it’s a fine line of, ‘Hey, we’ve gotta give it time, but how much time can you give it before you start looking at different options?’ And that’s kind of what we’re still evaluating. … Plenty of basketball to be played. I always make sure I challenge myself and ask myself, ‘Am I helping Russell Westbrook and Julian Strawther and Peyton Watson and Dario Saric?’ So it’s not just on those players. It’s on myself to try to figure that out.”
There’s more from the Northwest Division:
Jazz forward Lauri Markkanen has been ruled out for a second consecutive game, according to Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune, who tweets that Markkanen will be unavailable on Saturday in Denver. Utah’s leading scorer also missed Thursday’s loss to San Antonio after exiting Tuesday’s game vs. Sacramento early due to low back spasms.
According to Larsen (Twitter link), Markkanen doesn’t anticipate a lengthy absence, indicating today that he believes he’ll return to action at some point during the team’s current road trip. That trip will include stops in in Chicago (on Monday), Milwaukee (Thursday), and San Antonio (next Saturday) before Utah returns home on November 12.
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
Timberwolves point guard Mike Conley spoke in more detail this week about the left wrist injury he has dealt with for the last few years, admitting that it prevented him from golfing over the summer after he fell on the wrist last season and aggravated an old ligament issue, per Jerry Zgoda of The Minneapolis Star Tribune. Still, Conley has gotten used to playing through the injury and plans to continue doing so.
“When I’m 50, I’ll get surgery, not right now,” he said. “The surgery is a little bit complex and I’ve been playing with it for years, so I feel like I’ll just finish it.”
Entering Friday’s bout with Denver, Conley was shooting just 22.6% from the field through Minnesota’s first four games this season, including 27.3% on three-pointers. While the wrist issue may be a factor in the veteran’s shooting struggles, the sample size is small and he’s confident those numbers will improve once he gets through an early-season adjustment period.
“I’m just trying to work back the strength of it,” Conley said. “That’s the biggest thing. The pain and stuff is gone. But there are some times when I’ll shoot it and think, ‘Ah, that’s good,’ and it’ll be like two feet short. So you’re just trying to gauge the differences and work through that as the season goes forward.”
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
Magic star forward Paolo Banchero will be sidelined indefinitely after being diagnosed with a torn right oblique. Head coach Jamahl Mosley was understandably disappointed by the news, but he also said it’s an opportunity for other players, per Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press.
“It sucks. There’s no other way to put it,” Mosley said. “It sucks for him, the way in which he started this year, the way in which he was playing, the way he’s carrying us in so many ways. And in the same breath, you have to say it’s an opportunity — it’s an opportunity for guys to step up, step into their role, opportunity for guys to continue to play to our standard of basketball.”
Orlando announced that Banchero will be reevaluated in four-to-six weeks. The former No. 1 overall pick is hoping he’ll be back sooner rather than later, Reynolds adds.
“Hopefully, it’s not a multi, three-, four-month injury,” Banchero said. “Hopefully, it’s just six, something weeks. Just trying to stay engaged as much as I can and stay positive, take it one day at a time and be ready to come back.”
Here’s more on the Magic:
Following the Jazz‘s loss to San Antonio on Thursday in Utah, head coach Will Hardy had some pointed words for his club, according to Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune. The Jazz committed a ghastly 26 turnovers, with the Spurs stealing the ball nine times in the third period — the most thefts in a single quarter since 1996.
“This is not guaranteed. Being in the NBA is not guaranteed,” Hardy said. “There’s a lot of players who have established themselves, but they’ve had to fight to do so. You have to scratch and claw and battle to be an NBA player for a long time. I think the average NBA career is like under four years or something, and that’s because the league will just churn players in and out.
“And right now, I just don’t feel that desperation. I don’t feel that hunger on every play.”
Larsen points to a couple of bad plays by second-year guard Keyonte George as being emblematic of the team’s poor effort, and writes that none of Utah’s young players — aside from maybe Walker Kessler — should feel secure about their place in the NBA. The Jazz (0-5) are the only team in the league that has yet to win a game.
Here’s more from the Northwest:
In an interesting feature story, which is worth reading in full, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne explores the philosophical “disconnect” developing within the Nuggets as they try to capitalize on Nikola Jokic‘s remaining prime years.
As Shelburne writes, Denver has lost four veteran role players — Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Bruce Brown, Jeff Green and Reggie Jackson — from the team that won the championship in 2023. General manager Calvin Booth acknowledges those departures have created some internal tension between the players and coaching staff and the front office.
“There was this urge to compete, especially from the players and the coaches and even myself,” Booth told ESPN. “You want to win, especially coming off the heels of winning the championship. And that’s probably where the tension started.
“What are you guys trying to do? Are you trying to win? Are you trying to develop? I think everybody had the best intent going in. There was buy-in. But I think competition and the focus on that can distract you from the buy-in.”
Multiple sources tell Shelburne that the Nuggets have been discussing a contract extension with Booth for months, and a deal is expected to be reached soon. Booth has largely focused on finding young players on affordable contracts to build out the Nuggets’ depth due to the roster-building restrictions of the new tax aprons, but head coach Michael Malone has typically turned to more proven veterans.
Shelburne points to big man Zeke Nnaji as “perhaps the best example” of the disconnect between Booth and Malone. After the Nuggets signed him to a four-year, $32MM rookie scale extension last offseason, the 23-year-old Nnaji saw his minutes and effectiveness decline in 2023/24, and he has only played two minutes through the first four games of this season.
Here’s more on the Nuggets, all courtesy of Shelburne:
One key reason the Nuggets were unable to defend their title last season was a lack of roster depth, which forced head coach Michael Malone to lean too heavily on his starters. Malone found himself falling back into old habits in Monday’s overtime win over Toronto as he tightened his rotation down the stretch and played all his starters at least 39 minutes in the first game of a back-to-back set.
“Obviously we found ourselves in a game (Monday) night that we kind of shortened our rotation up a little bit in the second half, feeling the pressure of trying to get the first win of the season,” Malone said before Tuesday’s game vs. the Nets, per Bennett Durando of The Denver Post. “And when you look at the box score after the game, especially going into the second night of a back-to-back in Brooklyn, you have your starters all at or near 40 minutes. And that’s not sustainable. We can’t do that. Game three, it was cool, man. Let’s get our first win, kind of take a deep breath. But that’s not sustainable.”
Several key Denver players also logged major minutes on Tuesday as the team once again required overtime to get past a non-playoff opponent. Nikola Jokic helped seal the victory with 29 points, 18 rebounds, and 16 assists in nearly 41 minutes of action.
Still, it was evident Malone was trying to avoid overextending his starters — four of the five played fewer minutes on Tuesday than they had on Monday, with Russell Westbrook stepping up off the bench to contribute 22 points and five assists in his best game as a Nugget so far.
“It’s hard to win in this league,” Westbrook said. “People think it’s easy, man. It’s hard. Especially when you’re a team that’s won year after year and always been in the running for NBA championships. It’s hard. We’ll get everybody’s best shot. We’ve gotta be prepared for it. However we’ve gotta get wins right now, we’ll take them.”
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
Nikola Jokic was concerned about how the Nuggets performed in the preseason. Denver has also lost its first two regular season games but the superstar center says the offense simply isn’t clicking yet, according to Tony Jones of The Athletic.
“I think we are struggling to score,” Jokić said. “We have scored 87 and 104 points in our two games. That’s not enough. In today’s NBA, you have to score more points. I think the defense has been good, so that’s a positive. But we are just not scoring enough points. We aren’t making shots. Open looks aren’t going in. We just aren’t converting and executing the way we need to.”
Jones points out that Christian Braun is still settling in to the starting lineup, while Russell Westbrook, Dario Saric and second-year shooting guard Julian Strawther are trying to do the same on the second unit.
We have more from the Western Conference: