Per Shams Charania of ESPN, The Denver Nuggets will be giving Summer League star and former Iowa State guard Curtis Jones their final available two-way contract.
The best story of Summer League has been the healthy return and success of 2024 first-round draftee DaRon Holmes II, but after Deuce the next-best story has been the pro debut of Curtis Jones, so it’s great to see Denver lock him up. He averaged 15 points and around 4 rebounds and 4 assists during the Summer League, but he showed in the final game that he could be an on-ball creator with 8 assists including some nifty inside passes to bigs – a skill that would serve him well with Denver.
Curtis Jones has shooting as his calling card, putting up 17+ ppg in college for the Cyclones, where he was both a first-team All-Big 12 and the Big 12 Sixth Man Award winner. His career college three-point percentage doesn’t jump off the page at 36.2% career, but his willingness to shoot it from anywhere at any time trumps the percentage of makes. He is fearless as a scorer and looks like he’ll be a good emergency option in that regard if Denver’s bench needs a lift due to injury or ineffectiveness, but they other key to this is getting Jones into Denver’s system and helping him develop as that on-ball creator to truly open up some combo guard options for him in his career. Improvements there could lead to a full-time roster spot in the future.
Welcome to the Nuggets, Curtis!
