Denver Nuggets face home test in Brandon Knight, Phoenix Suns

 

The Rundown

The Denver Nuggets sit at 3-1 with just three games left in the preseason. Tonight’s contest will be the first, and last, game at Pepsi Center before the first regular season home game against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Oct. 30th. Viewers at “The Can” will get the first looks at the revamped pregame introductions (the Avalanche have turned the ice into a giant screen and more), the new hardwood floor and reporters will get their first look inside the new locker room.

On the other side, the Phoenix Suns are 2-1 in the preseason and are coming off an old school ABA style game as they lost in overtime to the Houston Rockets 135-129 on Oct. 13th. In that game, the Suns started: Brandon Knight, former Nugget Sonny Weems, P.J. Tucker, Markieff Morris and Jon Leuer. Eric Bledsoe (stomach illness), Tyson Chandler (back spasms) and Alex Len (sprained right ankle) all took the night off for Phoenix. We’ll find out who is available in this one, as Bledsoe appears to be out, according to Paul Coro.

When

Friday, Oct. 16 at 7:00 p.m. MST

Where

Pepsi Center – Denver, CO

Who to Watch

Suns:

Weems is back in the NBA for the first time since 2011. The Nuggets swung a draft day deal for the 39th pick of the 2008 draft, but Weems appeared in just 12 games for the team in his rookie season, 2008-09, and was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks, along with Walter Sharpe and cash, for beloved forward Malik “Tacos” Allen (the guy delivered when it matter most!) on July 31, 2009. Players don’t often get a second crack at the NBA after they leave for multiple years, but the Suns are giving Sonny another shot at 29-years-old. Weems signed a two-year deal for roughly $5.8 million with the Suns this summer, after enjoying a fine career in Lithuania and Russia from 2011 to 2015. After tallying just 28 combined minutes in two games in the preseason, Weems took advantage of his start against the Rockets, logging 31 minutes and putting up 11 points on 5-8 shooting.

Knight is entering his first full season with the Suns after the team acquired him in three team deal that saw five players change teams, with the headliners being Knight going from Milwaukee to Phoenix and Michael Carter-Williams going from Philadelphia (where he won Rookie of the Year in 2014) to Milwaukee. Phoenix highly valued Knight as they gave up their precious Lakers draft pick (top-5 protected in 2015 and top-3 protected in 2016 & 2017) to the 76ers to get him. Knight inked a five-year, $70 million deal with the Suns in the offseason and is their guard of the future – he can play point or shooting guard.

Bledsoe was thought to be the team’s point guard of the future, and will share the backcourt with Knight as head coach Jeff Hornacek has been deploying a lot of two point guard lineups during his tenure with the team. The Suns put down a little insurance on Bledsoe and Knight when they spent the 13th pick of the draft on 18-year-old Kentucky shooting guard Devin Booker. Booker had a breakout game at home versus the Rockets as he tallied 20 points on 6-14 shooting (3-6 from 3-point land) to go along with 3 assists and 3 rebounds. Booker has a sweet stroke and saw his stock rise leading up to the NBA draft, even working out for the Nuggets.

Nuggets Narrative

Michael Malone said not to pay any attention to his lineups and rotations through the first few preseason games. He has stayed true to his word on giving Randy Foye and Gary Harris each nods at the starting shooting guard spot. Foye missed the Golden State Warriors game with a tweaked hamstring, suffered in the team scrimmage at South High School, and we’ll see if he’s good to go tonight and how Malone uses him. Harris has looked pretty good thus far and could earn the starting job coming out of training camp. He has shot 5-11 from 3-point range or 45.4 percent, and that’s much improved in a very small sample size. In Las Vegas at summer league, Harris showed an incredible will to attack the basket and he has had success doing the same so far in preseason action.

My hope is that Malone turns the shooting guard minutes over to Harris and Will Barton, using Foye for emergency purposes. Both Harris and Barton need minutes and the Nuggets need to figure out how much they can rely on the two and if they can become part of the team’s new core.

A player that looks to be on the outside looking in on Malone’s rotation is veteran J.J. Hickson. He looked atrocious in his start agains the Clippers, tallying just 2 points on 1-7 shooting in 19 minutes. Hickson saw just six minutes against the Mavericks in the next game, didn’t play against the Bulls in Boulder and was quickly pulled from the Warriors game after just four ineffective minutes. This is good news for the team. With Joffrey Lauvergne and Nikola Jokic looking more than capable, and Darrell Arthur close to returning from a bothersome bone bruise in his knee, Hickson may very well be the odd man out.

The best guess from most in the Denver media has been guards Erick Green and Nick Johnson battling for the final roster spot, but I’ll maintain that Foye or Hickson could be just as likely battling for their roster lives. Neither Green or Johnson have received a long look from Malone yet, but we could see the coach start to rest some guys and turn these final games over to the players the staff needs to take a serious look at. And it appears Malone will be turning things over to Green and Johnson to some degree tonight with this update from Harrison Wind at Nuggets shoot around:

Here at #Nuggets shootaround. Mudiay, Gallinari, Arthur and Foye are all OUT for tonight’s game. — Harrison Wind (@NBAWind) October 16, 2015

 

We should have the starters for the Nuggets later on as Malone has been mixing things up and inserted Wilson Chandler into the starting lineup in Oakland, sliding Danilo Gallinari and Kenneth Faried down a spot each and he brought Lauvergne off the bench.

Tipoff, again, is at 7:00 pm MT with no TV for tonight’s game.