Nuggets Power Rankings: No. 17, Devin Sweetney
The Denver Nuggets’ preseason roster includes 19 players, and the team will try to figure out which 15 of them deserves a shot during the regular season throughout the team’s seven-game exhibition slate.
But, for now, how do these players stack up? We polled our staff writers and editor at Nugg Love to get a consensus power ranking of every player on the roster, and we’ll be releasing one player each day from October 5 to 23, starting from No. 19 and finishing at No. 1.
Devin Sweetney is a 27-year-old wing who joins the Nuggets in training camp after playing around the world for five seasons. Does he have what it takes to make the 15-man roster? Let’s examine him and his game.
Who is Devin Sweetney?
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Standing 6’6″ and weighing 200 pounds, Sweetney is a shooting guard/small forward who wasn’t selected in the 2010 NBA Draft after a solid four-year career at Saint Francis University, also the alma mater of NBA legends Maurice Stokes and Norm Van Lier. The Tulsa 66ers did pick him up in the D-League draft that fall but waived him nine days later.
Following that, the 27-year-old went all over Europe and the Americas. He had stints with teams in Iceland, Latvia, Canada, Switzerland and most recently, the Dominican Republic.
Some highlights of his career include winning the National Basketball League of Canada MVP award in 2013 award after averaging 25.0 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game. The following year, he helped the Lugano Tigers of Ligue Nationale de Basket in Switzerland to the league championship.
He is also a cousin of Michael Sweetney, a 2003 first-round pick of the New York Knicks who played four NBA seasons.
Strengths
Sweetney is a natural scorer who has a nice feel for the game. He’s decently athletic, possessing the burst to get to the rim and finish in a crowd.
His shooting stroke is pretty, as he does a nice job both pulling up and spotting up for threes.
Video footage and scouting reports are very limited on his defense, but Sweetney has been advertised as a solid two-way player, so we’ll consider defense a relative strength.
Weaknesses
The biggest shortcoming on Sweetney’s resume is his competition. None of the international leagues he’s played in are renowned for their high level of talent, so some of his nice stats are a little bit tainted.
Sweetney is also a ball-dominant player who is prone to inefficiency and turnovers. In his 2012-13 NBL MVP season, he shot 38.8 percent from the field and 31.7 percent from three to go with 3.9 cough-ups per game. He did get to the line 8.7 times per contest that season, but that is largely attributed to the athletic advantage he had in Canada. He won’t have that advantage in the NBA.
By all accounts, Sweetney is more of a straight-line slasher who finds a crease in the defense and hits it. He doesn’t have the ball-handling skills to consistently break down his man in half-court situations.
Also, his in-between game seems to be lacking. If he would occasionally pull up for an unexpected mid-range shot, he would keep defenses honest on his drives.
2015-16 Outlook
Of the guys just signed for training camp (Matt Janning, Oleksiy Pecherov and Sweetney) Sweetney should have the best shot at the roster. At the very best, he could turn into a microwave off the bench, sort of in the Gary Neal mold. Remember, Neal was a training-camp guy for the San Antonio Spurs in 2010 before becoming a significant contributor in the following three seasons for them.
However, considering proven reserve shooters such as Jameer Nelson and Randy Foye are already on the roster with plenty of other high-potential players, it’s doubtful the 27-year-old Sweetney makes the cut.
His transition from being a star in obscure international leagues to being a capable role player in the NBA probably won’t be one the Nuggets are willing to wait on.
Note: All statistics are from RealGM unless otherwise indicated.