The Nuggets have one last two-way contract to hand out, and after watching the team’s five summer league games, it’s clear that the final spot should go to Curtis Jones. The undrafted rookie out of Iowa State has put on a show at the Las Vegas Summer League, gaining confidence with each game and looking more and more comfortable out there.
Jones moved around in college but ended his career as a Cyclone, where he won the 6th Man of the Year Award and made first-team All-Big 12 in 2025. Despite that, Jones went undrafted and was added to Denver’s summer league roster.
He showed his shooting chops from the get-go, but took a couple of games to truly get going. He exploded in the Nuggets’ third summer league game, with 20 points and 7 rebounds on 8/10 shooting from the field.
Jones followed up that showing with 13 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists in the team’s next game, and closed out summer league with 22 points, 5 rebounds, and 8 assists on 9/16 shooting in the Nuggets’ summer finale on Friday night.
Jones can provide much-needed shooting and scoring in spades
At this point, the Nuggets’ roster is just about set, and they should enter the season as one of the deepest teams in the league. But if there’s anything the roster is lacking, it’s three-point shooting, which has plagued Denver for years.
They should be using their two-way spots on guys who they think may be able to develop in the G-League and possibly contribute to the big league team eventually. Jones seems like the perfect kind of player to take that chance on.
He was a successful college player and kept proving it during summer league. He has a proclivity for scoring and is very comfortable playing with or without the ball on offense, showing a smooth stroke from outside as well.
The Nuggets have players on the roster with similar skillsets, but Julian Strawther is still unproven, and Tim Hardaway Jr. is getting a bit long in the tooth. There’s no reason not to take a flyer on a young kid who has already proven he can shoot the rock at an NBA level.
Hopefully, everything goes right in Denver this season, and we never have to hear a peep about any of the two-way players. But things rarely go perfectly, and I’d love to have an ace shooting guard lying in wait down in the G-League in case anything goes wrong.