The good, the bad, and the ugly from Denver Nuggets Summer League

The Ugly: DaRon Holmes II tears achilles, out for the season

The biggest thing to come from Summer League for the Nuggets was one of the biggest stories and saddest stories across the entire league. In just the first game, rookie DaRon Holmes tore his achilles and will miss the entire season.

This is just a devastating blow for the team as they traded up in the draft to take Holmes out of Dayton and they were hoping he could step right in and play a meaningful frontcourt role in the frontcourt. The Nuggets were very high on him as they dealt three 2nd-round picks to move up and take Holmes and thought he could make an immediate impact.

He looked good in his debut before going down with the injury. It didn’t look terrible, but the extent was quickly reported and now the Nuggets will be even more shorthanded. This was essentially the worst possible outcome for the team, losing a meaningful player to injury for the entire season.

Holmes has already undergone successful surgery and is expected to make a full recovery ahead of the 2025-26 season, but this is just a terrible hit for a team that needed all of their young players to step up this season.