Nuggets' Tyler Lydon looking to rebound at Summer League after tough rookie season

Tyler Lydon was sporting some fresh ink Monday. About a month ago, he got an owl’s head and a mountain landscape tattooed on his left arm. Lydon, who grew up in Elizaville, New York, had both of them done as a way to remind himself of his rural upbringing.

“I just grew up in the outdoors,” he said. “I just wanted to get a bunch of stuff to kind of remind me of home.”

Lydon lives in the city now, but he still gets opportunities to sneak away with the Rocky Mountains so close. He likes fishing for trout. When his dad came to visit earlier this summer, the two of them went coyote hunting.

“I know a guy out in Jefferson,” he said.

Lydon is adapting well to his new environment off the court. On the court, the forward the Nuggets took 24th overall in the 2017 draft is trying to get back on track after a knee injury derailed his rookie season. Lydon tore the meniscus in his left knee during a game with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the G League in January. He needed arthroscopic surgery to repair it.

Before the injury, Lydon appeared in 15 G League matchups and averaged 12.8 points and 8.3 rebounds per game. He only logged two minutes with the Nuggets last season. After months of rehab, doctors have finally cleared him to play 5 on 5 basketball once again.

Lydon is one of the players, along with Malik Beasley and Monte Morris, the Nuggets will lean heavily on at Summer League, which begins Friday for Denver against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

“I’ve been playing for the last three weeks or so,” Lydon said. “Each day it gets better and better. I feel even more and more comfortable with it. Mentally, I know my knee is good. I know it’s 100 percent, so it’s ready to go.”

The transition to the pro game wasn’t easy for him. When Denver was fighting for its playoff lives in the spring, Lydon could only watch from the bench in a blazer.

“It feels really good (to be back) especially after having everything taken away so fast,” Lydon said. “I never thought I’d get injured. I don’t think any basketball player thinks that. For it to happen so fast and everything, you step back and feel grateful to even be playing. Just being at practice and everything feels really good.”

Lydon is focused on getting stronger and speeding up his jump shot this offseason. He was an excellent three-point shooter at Syracuse, going 40 percent on 3.5 attempts per game. He wants to release the ball quicker moving forward.

“I think he’s doing great,” Nuggets Summer League coach Jordi Fernandez said. “If you’ve ever had one of those injuries, you’re always tentative. Even though your body is ready to go, your mind sometimes is just … you need to feel how your body moves. To me he looks really good, but he still needs a little more confidence. Yesterday I felt like he passed up a couple of shots. Today he’s been good.”

Lydon has a lot to prove in year two. Breaking into Denver’s rotation will be a difficult task with Paul Millsap, Trey Lyles and Juancho Hernangomez ahead of him in the pecking order at power forward. But the regular season is still a long ways away. Right now he’s most concerned with how he’ll perform on his surgically repaired left knee.

“For me the biggest thing to me is just to show myself I can get out there and play at 100 percent,” Lydon said. “And obviously I want to win. I just want to go out and shoot the ball really well, defend, and do what I’m meant to do.”