Alonzo Gee has made the Nuggets roster, a move set in stone when the Nuggets released forward Quincy Miller after Tuesday night’s preseason game against Portland at the Coors Events Center.
Alonzo Gee, right, goes up for a shot over Portland’s Damian Lillard during their pre-season game Tuesday at the University of Colorado in Boulder. (BOULDER DAILY CAMERA/ Mark Leffingwell)
Miller occupied the only roster spot available for competition on the team, and had hoped to hold onto it. But the play of Gee, a free agent signee who had been traded a number of times during the summer in salary cap moves, was too much for the young player to overcome. The Nuggets trimmed Miller from the roster with one game remaining in the preseason.
Marcus Williams and Jerrelle Benimon also will be waived from the Nuggets roster, bringing it down to the mandated 15 ahead of the Oct. 27 deadline.
Miller took to Twitter to thank fans who wished him well late Tuesday night. He’d become something of a cult fan favorite, an enormously athletic and skilled package in a 6-foot-11 body. Miller spent the first couple of seasons with the Nuggets just trying to get fully healthy from an ACL tear his senior year of high school.
The injury lingered during his only season in college, his freshman season at Baylor. He entered the 2012 NBA draft and was selected early in the second round by the Nuggets.
Last season, he told The Post it was the first time he’d felt fully healthy, and Nuggets coach Brian Shaw took a liking to him from a potential standpoint. Shaw said Miller reminded him of a player he used to coach, Indiana Pacers star Paul George.
And he flashed that kind of scoring and defending ability a few times during the course of last season.
But he could not carry the momentum over to this training camp, and his unguaranteed contract made him vulnerable. Gee, who had four steals in the Nuggets game on Tuesday, displayed the kind of defense Shaw has been looking for. Miller, Williams and Benimon all barely played in the game as Shaw honed in on the players that will be in the regular rotation when the regular season begins next week.
Follow Chris Dempsey on Twitter @dempseypost or email him at cdempsey@denverpost.com
