Gary Forbes Has One-Year Anniversary With Nuggets

Gary Forbes wasn’t your regular rookie last season.

In fact he was far from it. At 25-years-old, Forbes journey to NBA finally came to an end after he caught the Denver Nuggets coaches attention during last season’s training camp.

In three years since he graduated from Massachusetts, Forbes has played for the Orlando Magic summer league team, Italy, the NBDL, Philippines, Venezuela, Italy a second time, Israel, Houston Rockets summer league team and than finally Denver Nuggets training camp.

Forbes came into training camp as a long shot, but his hard work and hustle sealed him a spot on the Nuggets bench.

The former UMass star didn’t receive a lot of playing time last season, but when he did he made the most of it.

Forbes played a little over 12 minutes a game in 63 contests and scored his season best 19 points during the Nuggets home bout with the New York Knicks.

He also caught a lot of fans attention with his defense on Dirk Nowitzki. In only his fourth game of the season and despite being listed at 6-foot-7, Forbes did an admiral job on the Dallas Mavericks perennial All-Star. Nowitzki did get 23 points, but Forbes made him work for it as the Mavericks star also had a season-high seven turnovers in the contest. Forbes on the other hand finished the game with eight points and hit two 3-pointers to help the Nuggets beat the Mavericks.

Forbes is one of the Nuggets eight free agents, but he is a restricted free agent and is expected to return to Denver. Forbes is currently playing for his home country Panama in the FIBA Americas Championship and is doing a diary for Slam Online.