Like many Denverites, the basketball guys up in the Grading The Week (GTW) offices still have a handful of family and friends who call Iowa home.
Much as we love our Buc-ee’s brisket, that smiling beaver will never make a pizza as good as the ones you can grab from a Casey’s General Store. (Of which there are none within 180 miles of downtown Denver. More’s the pity.)
At any rate, our Midwest peeps still drop a line now and again. Especially when a local fave hits our fair shores.
“Watch out for Curtis Jones,” somebody wrote us two weeks ago.
“Enjoy Curtis Jones,” wrote another.
“You’re going to love Curtis Jones,” wrote yet another.
You know what?
They were right. On all counts.
Curtis Jones Fever — A
Jones is a 6-foot-6 guard out of Iowa State who the Nuggets added to their Summer League roster.
Long story short, he tore it up in Las Vegas.
On Friday night, Jones put the capper on an excellent week in Sin City by dropping 22 points, five rebounds and eight assists on the Lakers in a 106-84 Denver win.
From July 12-18, the ex-Cyclones star averaged 16.3 points, 5.3 boards and 4.3 assists over four Summer League games. Through five Vegas appearances, his assist-to-turnover ratio was 19 to nine and he shot 46.7% (14 for 30) from beyond the 3-point arc.
Our hoops wonks want to fall in love with the guy. Honest, they do.
It’s just that they’ve also been fooled before. One GTW staffer still keeps a Bones Hyland shirt hanging via thumb tacks at his cubicle, and Heaven only knows when he last washed the thing.
Although unlike our man Bones, Jones can play a little defense when he has to. Add it all up, and this much is becoming crystal clear: If the Nuggets don’t offer the former Cyclone a two-way contract, then some other NBA team sure as heck will.
All-Star swing-off — C
Would you want an NBA All-Star Game decided by a 3-point shooting contest?
That’s what Major League Baseball gave us this past Tuesday night, as a bonkers American League rally forced a 6-6 tie after nine innings at the midsummer classic in Atlanta.
And cue the history. In the latest wrinkle to prevent a repeat of that running-out-of-pitchers debacle from 2002, a mini home-run derby, or “swing-off,” was held to determine the winner. A batting-practice pitcher served up pitches to three hitters — the National League only wound up having to send up two — from each roster, as chosen by their respective managers.
On one hand, it was a complete sideshow. On the other, it was also captivating to see play out in real time.
A few days later, Team GTW is still kind of torn.
It’s just not — well, baseball. Shouldn’t there be a winning pitcher and a losing one? A swing-off should never, ever be used to decide a meaningful contest, let alone a playoff one. Never give commissioner Rob Manfred any leeway to blow up more traditional laws of the game than he already has. Full disclosure: Most of Team GTW still hates the extra-inning ghost runner, much as we also “get” it.
Still, it’s not a meaningful game, is it? It’s an exhibition. Knowing pitchers are done after nine innings means managers can try to get more of them in over the course of the game, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Although we’d also wager that the next AL skipper is going to be more inclined to ask Aaron Judge to stick around after he’s pulled from the game. Just in case.
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