Julian Strawther’s preseason was starting to look like an argument for more minutes. Then, in Wednesday’s game in Los Angeles, it turned into a much bigger concern. Strawther was helped off the court after his left leg got caught under his body and bent awkwardly, and the Nuggets ruled him out a few minutes later.
That is a difficult moment for any player, but it carries extra weight for Strawther because of where he stood going into the night. He had been one of Denver’s standouts off the bench in the preseason, and this month he has been competing for the last spot in Adelman’s bench unit. The injury interrupts a stretch in which he had been making a real case for himself.
The production had backed up the eye test. Through Denver’s first three exhibitions, Strawther had 14 points in 24 minutes and was scoring at a rate of 27.5 points per 36 minutes. In the preseason game on Wednesday, he added 11 points and went 3-for-7 before leaving in the third quarter. For a player trying to carve out a role, those numbers mattered because they showed he was doing more than just surviving minutes. He was helping create offense.
Why this matters for Denver
The Nuggets have been leaning on Strawther for shot creation off the dribble alongside DeMar DeRozan, and that makes his injury about more than one preseason box score. Denver’s second unit had found a degree of use around that pairing, which gave the offense a way to function when the starters were off the floor. Losing Strawther, even temporarily, takes away one of the few clear tests Denver had gotten of that bench configuration.
There is also a longer-term layer here. Strawther was drafted 29th overall in 2023, and his first three years with the Nuggets are now part of a bigger evaluation window. Through Oct. 19, he is eligible to sign an extension with the Nuggets. If he does not, he will become a restricted free agent next offseason. That does not make every preseason possession a referendum on his future, but it does explain why this month mattered so much.
The injury does not erase the fact that Strawther had been trending in the right direction. But it does pause the conversation at a time when Denver was trying to figure out whether he could be more than a useful bench scorer. In preseason, that is often how opportunity starts: with a player earning trust before the games count. For Strawther, the interruption is unfortunate because the case was just getting interesting.
