Denver Nuggets Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Nuggets Sign Braxton Key On Two-Way Deal

July 18th, 2023 at 3:43pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

JULY 18: The signing is official, according to a team press release.

JULY 13: The Nuggets are signing combo forward Braxton Key on a two-way contract, his Excel Sports agents Anthony Coleman and Max Lipsett tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).

Prior to this agreement, Key had been turning heads as an athletic finisher and defender for the Mavericks’ Summer League team.

Since going undrafted out of Virginia in 2020, the 6’8″ high flyer has bounced around a bit between the G League and the NBA proper. He also enjoyed a brief stint with a club in a Puerto Rican league earlier this year.

Key has served two separate stints on the Sixers’ NBAGL affiliate, the Delaware Blue Coats, in addition to suiting up for two contests with Philadelphia proper on a 10-day contract. He also inked 10-day and two-way deals with the Pistons during the 2021/22 season. He has cumulatively appeared in 14 total NBA games to date.

That said, he has been racking up accolades in the G League of late. With the Blue Coats in 2022/23, Key averaged 13.7 PPG, 7.7 RPG, 4.1 APG, 1.7 SPG and 1.2 BPG with a .523/.402/.638 shooting line en route to a a G League title with Delaware last season. Key was also named to the All-NBA G League Second Team and the NBA G League All-Defensive Team while with the Blue Coats in 2021/22.

Denver extended point guard Collin Gillespie, a two-way player last season, a qualifying offer earlier this summer, making him a restricted free agent. With Key forthcoming, the reigning champs will still have two other two-way vacancies available, with Gillesepie a prime candidate to occupy one of those slots.

Jay Huff Signs Two-Way Deal With Nuggets

July 18th, 2023 at 3:41pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

JULY 18: The signing is official, according to a team press release.

JULY 16: Free agent center Jay Huff has agreed to sign a two-way deal with the Nuggets, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).

This will mark the third two-way contract for Huff, a 7’1″ big man out of Virginia. The 2019 NCAA champion first joined the Lakers on a two-way agreement in 2021/22, and most recently was a two-way player for the Wizards in 2022/23.

Huff has spent most of his pro time with the G League affiliates of those clubs, having appeared in a grand total of just 11 NBA games. In those contests, he’s posted averages of 4.6 PPG on .536/.429/.938 shooting splits, along with 2.3 RPG and 1.0 APG.

Across 28 total regular season appearances split between the Lakers’ NBAGL team, the South Bay Lakers, and then eventually the Wizards’ affiliate, the Capital City Go-Go, Huff posted averages of 15.0 PPG, 7.8 RPG, 2.9 BPG and 1.3 SPG in 2022/23.

For his efforts last season, he was named the NBA G League Defensive Player of the Year, as well as an All-NBA G League First Teamer and an NBA G League All-Defensive Teamer.

Most recently, Huff has been playing for the Rockets’ Summer League club.

The Nuggets also recently agreed to a two-way deal with forward Braxton Key, and have a two-way qualifying offer on the table for guard Collin Gillespie.

Nuggets Re-Sign Collin Gillespie On Two-Way Deal

July 17th, 2023 at 5:46pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Nuggets have retained Collin Gillespie on a two-way deal, according to the NBA’s transactions log.

Gillespie suffered a lower left leg fracture last summer but still received a two-way contract and remained on Denver’s roster despite the injury. The Nuggets extended him a qualifying offer last month, making him a restricted free agent.

An undrafted guard out of Villanova, Gillespie averaged 15.6 PPG for the Wildcats in his final college season, shooting 41.5% from three-point range. Gillespie averaged 11.3 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 4.3 APG and 1.5 SPG in four Summer League contests last year before sustaining the injury.

He saw action in four Summer League games this month, averaging 7.8 points, 4.2 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 2.4 steals in 29.7 minutes per game.

With Gillespie back in the fold, the Nuggets have filled their three two-way spots. Forward Braxton Key and center Jay Huff will reportedly take the other two spots, though those transactions aren’t yet official.

Rockets’ Cam Whitmore Named Summer League MVP

July 17th, 2023 at 2:46pm CST by Rory Maher

Rockets forward Cam Whitmore has been named the Las Vegas Summer League Most Valuable Player, the NBA announced (via Twitter).

The NBA also announced its All-Summer League First and Second Teams, which are as follows (Twitter links):

First Team

Keyonte George, Jazz (Backcourt)
Sam Merrill, Cavaliers (Backcourt)
Orlando Robinson, Heat (Frontcourt)
Hunter Tyson, Nuggets (Frontcourt)
Cam Whitmore, Rockets (Frontcourt)

Second Team

Max Christie, Lakers (Backcourt)
Javon Freeman-Liberty, Bulls (Backcourt)
Xavier Moon, Clippers (Backcourt)
Emoni Bates, Cavaliers (Frontcourt)
Jabari Smith, Rockets (Frontcourt)
Jalen Wilson, Nets (Frontcourt)

According to the NBA (Twitter link), Christie and Moon received the same amount of votes, which is why there is an additional backcourt player on the second team.

Whitmore, a projected lottery pick in last month’s draft who fell to Houston at No. 20, averaged 20.4 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 2.2 APG and 3.0 SPG on .465/.293/.625 shooting in his five Vegas Summer League games, per NBA.com.

Houston faces Cleveland at 8 p.m. CT tonight in the Summer League championship game. Both teams are undefeated, holding identical 5-0 records.

Scotto’s Latest: Suns, Pacers, Knicks, Wright, Hornets, More

July 15th, 2023 at 2:32pm CST by Rory Maher

The Suns, Pacers and Knicks recently had exploratory trade talks on a deal that would have sent Cameron Payne to New York, T.J. McConnell to Phoenix, and Evan Fournier and draft picks to Indiana, league sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype. Other iterations of the deal included Jordan Nwora, according to Scotto, though it’s unclear where the Pacers forward would have ended up in that framework.

However, the talks on the three-team trade have stalled, Scotto reports. Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports was first to report the Suns and Pacers discussed a deal involving Payne and McConnell, and suggested the Knicks may have been involved as well.

Here’s more from Scotto’s latest article for HoopsHype:

League sources tell Scotto that the Hornets are on the hunt for a backup point guard after Dennis Smith Jr. signed with the Nets in free agency. As Scotto previously reported, Charlotte had interest in Aaron Holiday, but he wound up signing with the Rockets. According to Scotto, one player on Charlotte’s radar is Wizards guard Delon Wright, who will make $8.2MM next season in the final year of his contract. The Wizards traded for Tyus Jones and Jordan Poole, and Wright was signed by the previous front office regime. The 31-year-old has already seen his name pop up in a few other trade rumors this offseason.
Scotto recently spoke to a handful of second-round picks at Summer League about their goals entering their rookie seasons. Those players are Nuggets guard Jalen Pickett, Celtics forward Jordan Walsh, and Mouhamed Gueye and Seth Lundy of the Hawks. Walsh, the No. 38 pick of the 2023 draft, has high expectations for himself, he told Scotto. “If I get a chance to play with these guys and help the team, I want to be on the All-Defensive First or Second Team or Defensive Player of the Year,” Walsh said. “My goals are defensively oriented and winning a championship, which is No. 1. If I’m able to accomplish any of those things, I’d feel my rookie year went pretty well.”
In case you missed it, we passed along some Raptors rumors and free agent rumors from Scotto as well.

And-Ones: Team Canada, Ownership Stakes, Cap Room, Giles

July 15th, 2023 at 9:20am CST by Luke Adams

While a Team USA roster led by Jalen Brunson, Anthony Edwards, Brandon Ingram, and Mikal Bridges will enter the 2023 World Cup as the frontrunner next month, Team Canada’s initial 18-man group features some real star power.

The extended roster, announced this week by Canada Basketball, is headlined by Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder forward Luguentz Dort, Knicks forward RJ Barrett, and Rockets forward Dillon Brooks.

It also features five other players currently on NBA rosters: veteran big men Dwight Powell (Mavericks) and Kelly Olynyk (Jazz), guards Nickeil Alexander-Walker (Timberwolves) and Cory Joseph (Warriors), and forward Oshae Brissett (Celtics). Purdue’s star center Zach Edey is on the roster too.

Team Canada will have to make a few cuts to get down to 12 players for the World Cup, and it’s possible some of the more notable names will drop out in order to focus on the NBA season. However, league sources tell Joe Vardon of The Athletic that Murray has reaffirmed his commitment to the team despite a lengthy postseason run with the Nuggets this spring.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

The minimum stake that someone can own in an NBA franchise has been lowered, according to Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic, who says a minority shareholder can now control as little as 0.5% of a team, down from 1%.
A total of eight teams operated below the cap this offseason, having entered the league year with $277MM in combined cap room, per Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype. As Gozlan outlines, over half of that league-wide cap space was used to accommodate trades or contract negotiations rather than free agent signings.
Sean Cunningham of FOX40 in Sacramento (video link) caught up with free agent big man Harry Giles to talk about the 25-year-old’s efforts to make it back into the NBA, as well as the new rule related to two-way contracts that will unofficially be named after him.

Northwest Notes: George, Nuggets, Lillard, Holmgren

July 13th, 2023 at 8:55pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

Rookie Jazz shooting guard Keyonte George, the No. 16 pick in this summer’s draft out of Baylor, injured his ankle midway through a Wednesday Summer League contest against the Nuggets, writes Sarah Todd of The Deseret News.

There is no official diagnosis of the ailment as of this writing, but there’s also no indication to suggest it will adversely impact his status for training camp in the fall.

“It’s a gut punch for us, but the absolute biggest gut punch for him, especially with how well he was playing,” Utah’s Summer League team head coach Evan Bradds said. “It’s terrible, it sucks. Whenever you see somebody go down it sucks no matter where you’re at, what you’re doing.”

Sources have informed Todd that George won’t be available for the rest of Summer League.

There’s more out of the Northwest Division:

The reigning champion Nuggets‘ Summer League run has been a bit of mixed bag. The team has gone 0-3 thus far in Las Vegas, but the performance of Peyton Watson in particular has given president Calvin Booth hope that he can help replace the output of Bruce Brown, who left Denver in free agency, per Parker Gabriel of The Denver Post. “Really excited about Peyton Watson,” Booth said. “I think we have some guys that can come in and try to replace some of what Bruce did.”
As Damian Lillard trade chatter continues, Pelicans executive David Griffin weighed in on how the Trail Blazers can take advantage of their All-Star’s demand to be moved, as Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald relays. The Heat are known to be Lillard’s preferred destination. “I want people to invent as many different scenarios as they can and put them out into the universe because it gives you leverage,” Griffin told Amin Elhassan and Justin Termine of SiriusXM NBA Radio (Twitter video link). “If there’s actually a chance that you would trade him somewhere other than Miami, you get a much better deal.”
A right foot surgery postponed Thunder lottery pick Chet Holmgren‘s NBA debut for an entire season. Ahead of 2023/24, the 7’1″ big man seems to be gearing up for an impactful rookie run, says Mark Medina of Sportsnaut.

NBA Reveals Dates, Groups For In-Season Tournament

July 8th, 2023 at 7:40pm CST by Arthur Hill

The NBA has announced the five-team groups that will used for the league’s first-ever in-season tournament, writes Tim Bontemps of ESPN. The unveiling took place Saturday during a special episode of ESPN’s “NBA Today” held at “NBA Con” in Las Vegas.

The groups were determined in a draw similar to what is used in soccer’s World Cup. There are six groups — three each from the Eastern Conference and Western Conference — and each conference was split into five pots based on last season’s standings. One team was randomly selected from each of the pots to determine the opening-round matchups.

The results are:

Group 1: Sixers, Cavaliers, Hawks, Pacers and Pistons.
Group 2: Bucks, Knicks, Heat, Wizards and Hornets.
Group 3: Celtics, Nets, Raptors, Bulls and Magic.
Group 4: Grizzlies, Suns, Lakers, Jazz and Trail Blazers.
Group 5: Nuggets, Clippers, Pelicans, Mavericks and Rockets.
Group 6: Kings, Warriors, Timberwolves, Thunder and Spurs.

The tournament will start with group play, which will match each team with the other four in its grouping. Those games will take place on Nov. 3, 10, 14, 17, 21, 24 and 28.

The winner of each group will advance to a knockout round, joined by the team with the best record in each conference among those who didn’t win a group. Quarterfinal games will be played Dec. 4 and 5, hosted by the higher-seeded teams. The four winners in that round will move on to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for the Dec. 7 semifinals and the Dec. 9 championship game.

Bontemps points out that all teams will play within their conference until the last game, which guarantees an East vs. West matchup, just like the NBA Finals.

“Everybody’s not going to buy in right away,” admitted Joe Dumars, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball operations. “So that can’t be the goal that everybody’s going to buy in from day one. These things take time. And I think, as time goes on, I think you can build this up and people can really get into it.”

The championship trophy will be called the NBA Cup, and players will receive $500K each for winning it. Other prize money includes $200K for second place, $100K for losing in the semifinals and $50K for losing in the quarterfinals. The league opted not to provide other incentives, such as a guaranteed playoff spot, for the tournament winner.

We passed along more details on the in-season tournament right here.

And-Ones: Howard, Team USA, F. Jackson, Zikarsky

July 7th, 2023 at 4:01pm CST by Luke Adams

Longtime NBA center Dwight Howard was out of the league during the 2022/23 season, which he spent in Taiwan. However, he still believes he can be a productive player in an NBA rotation, he said during a wide-ranging interview with Zion Olojede of Complex.com.

“I know that there’s at least 15 to 20 teams that I could play for,” Howard said. “And I know there’s teams that got great starting centers, but I know I could be a great backup center. I know I can provide a team with 25 minutes of dominant basketball. And that’s not even scoring, that’s just playing defense, locking people up, protecting the paint, rebounding, and finishing around the basket. I’ve had my fun in the game. I just want to go out like a champ like I’m supposed to.”

Referencing a June interview in which Howard said he’d love to join the Kings, Olojede asked the three-time Defensive Player of the Year which five teams he believes would be good matches for him.

“Okay, you got Miami Heat. You got obviously, the Lakers. The Warriors,” Howard said. “The Kings. But the Kings, I would say the Kings got a couple centers so they probably wouldn’t. But the Kings. The Hawks. I’m from Atlanta, go back home with the Hawks.”

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

Discussing his roster for the upcoming FIBA World Cup for the first time on Friday, Team USA head coach Steve Kerr said he plans to lean heavily on Knicks guard Jalen Brunson and Nets forward Mikal Bridges. As Joe Vardon of The Athletic writes, Kerr envisions Brunson having “a pretty big role” and intends to rely on Bridges defensively to match up against opponents’ high-scoring wings.
Veteran NBA guard Frank Jackson, who had a brief stint with the Jazz this past season, will continue his career overseas, having signed a deal with French team ASVEL, per a press release. Jackson had appeared in 214 career regular season NBA games since being drafted in 2017.
Rocco Zikarsky, a 7’3″ Australian big man, has decided to forgo a move to the NCAA in favor of joining the Brisbane Bullets as part of the National Basketball League’s Next Stars program, he tells Jonathan Givony of ESPN. Zikarsky, who will turn 17 next week, won’t be draft-eligible until at least 2025, but is considered one of the world’s best basketball prospects, per Givony.
John Hollinger of The Athletic doesn’t want to go so far as to call them the “losers” of free agency, but has questions about the offseason moves made so far by the Raptors, Pelicans, Kings, Trail Blazers, and Nuggets.

Rockets Sign Jeff Green To Two-Year Contract

July 7th, 2023 at 12:07pm CST by Luke Adams

JULY 7: The Rockets have officially signed Green, the team announced today in a press release.

As we relayed in a separate story, the terms of Green’s deal have reportedly been amended — it’s now a two-year, $16MM contract, with a non-guaranteed second year. He was signed into Houston’s cap room.

JULY 1: The Rockets and free agent forward Jeff Green have agreed to a one-year, $6MM contract, league sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link).

Green, who will turn 37 in August, is entering his 16th NBA season, but showed with the Nuggets in 2022/23 that he still has a little left in the tank. He averaged 7.8 points and 2.6 rebounds in 19.5 minutes per game across 56 appearances.

Green’s three-point percentage dipped to 28.8% last season, but he has a career 33.7% rate and can defend multiple frontcourt positions. He played rotation minutes during Denver’s championship run, appearing in all 20 playoff games and averaging 17.2 minutes per night.

The Nuggets were open to a reunion with Green, but not at the salary he’s getting from Houston, tweets Mike Singer of The Denver Post.

It has been a busy day for the Rockets, who have agreed to a series of moves that will eat up most of their cap room, including a free agent deal with Jock Landale, a sign-and-trade for Dillon Brooks, and a trade for Patty Mills, who will be rerouted as part of the Brooks sign-and-trade. Depending on how Houston structures its transactions, Green could either be signed into cap space or the room exception.

The Rockets likely envision Green as a player who can be a leader in the locker room and provide some veteran savvy on the court.