The original invitation offering a couple of NBA teams to tune up for the season in Boulder was also supposed to be an invitation for a couple of Buffaloes to come back home.
Instead, there will be no former Buffs on the floor when the Denver Nuggets conclude their week of training in Boulder with a preseason matchup against Utah on Sunday at the CU Events Center.
On Wednesday, after working out on his old floor, guard KJ Simpson was waived to make room on Denver’s roster for Ryan Nembhard, who agreed to a two-way contract with the Nuggets after playing in 60 games as a rookie last year at Dallas.
When Utah and the Nuggets agreed to play in Boulder, the hope was for Simpson to be joined on the floor by a former teammate from CU’s 2023-24 NCAA Tournament team, Cody Williams. But Utah traded Williams to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Aug. 29.
While it hasn’t been quite the reunion CU men’s basketball coach Tad Boyle expected with his former players, the trade of Williams and Simpson’s abrupt departure — while working out at the gym that helped turn Simpson into one of the CU program’s all-time NCAA Tournament heroes — offered a different sort of life lesson for Boyle’s current Buffs.
“When they become professional basketball players, their chances of getting cut are usually pretty high. Or traded,” Boyle said. “Traded is not cut, but traded, there’s a whole level of emotions that goes with that if you talk to anybody that’s been traded. Especially guys like KJ and Cody, who really care and have big hearts and are about the right things.
“From our players’ standpoint in terms of the basketball business, let’s learn from what happened to Cody getting traded. Let’s learn from KJ yesterday. Because that’s part of the basketball business. You’re going to be there someday, so let’s make you aware of it.”
Boyle and his staff, including a former Simpson teammate in assistant coach Evan Battey, didn’t get the planned reunion with former CU players. But plenty of figures in the Nuggets’ inner circle have deep Buffs ties.
Austin Dufault, a key player on Boyle’s Pac-12 tournament championship team of 2012, is the Nuggets’ vice president of player development. Denver assistant Rodney Billups spent four seasons as an assistant on Boyle’s staff. And the Nuggets’ head video coordinator, Ben Potts, is a former CU manager.
“Our guys get to see pros. See what they look like, see what they act like, see what they work like,” Boyle said. “Having KJ here (Wednesday), I got a chance to see him practice. He had a great practice. It’s an unforgiving business sometimes, but that’s a lesson for the kids that are in our program. KJ’s going to be fine. He’s a hell of a player. Somebody’s going to pay him a lot of money to play basketball. I don’t worry about KJ. I feel awful for him because I know where his heart is, and I know how excited he was to be back in Colorado.
“It’s just so fun to see these guys when they leave here have success and go through different stages of their lives in their 20s. And then some guys like Alec (Burks) in their 30s and Spencer (Dinwiddie). Once you’re a Buff, especially in the Colorado basketball family, you’re a Buff for life.”