After three productive years as a Flyer, it’s time for DaRon Holmes II’s pro career to take off.
“His best basketball is still ahead of him,” University of Dayton coach Anthony Grant told the Denver Gazette on Friday. “He’s 21 years old. He’s not going to be the best version of himself as a basketball player for a few more years. … I think it’s a great fit for him in Denver.”
General manager Calvin Booth and the Nuggets were big enough fans of the former Flyer to trade three future second-round picks to Phoenix in order to get the 22nd overall pick. Denver’s interest in the 6-foot-10 big man who finished his college career as an All-American, Atlantic 10 Defensive Player of the Year and A-10 co-Player of the Year was no secret in the leadup to the draft.
“He’s been a pretty prominent prospect for the last couple of years,” Booth said after the Nuggets picked Holmes on Wednesday.
“I just like guys that have to carry the load for their team. They won a lot. He played many different defenses that tried to shut him down. He has a lot of experience under pressure situations. He can play both sides of the ball.”
Getting to that point was a process even though Holmes started all 102 games of his college career. Flyers coach Anthony Grant remembered his first impressions of the 21-year-old coming from afar. Most of the recruitment – which ended with Holmes picking the Flyers over offers from Arizona, Arizona State, California, Marquette, Tennessee, Virginia, UCLA and others – happened during the pandemic.
After winning Arizona Gatorade Player of the Year as a junior in 2020, Holmes transferred to Florida’s Montverde Academy for the start of his senior year only to return to his home state and play for AZ Compass Prep for the second half of his final prep season. As a senior in high school, he was listed as a 6-foot-8, 195-pound power forward who earned a four-star rating from 247Sports. He measured just under 6-foot-9 without shoes at this year’s NBA draft combine.
When he showed up on campus, Grant challenged his prized recruit to soak up everything he could on and off the court.
“The thing that we asked him to do was come in and just be a sponge and try to take things in,” Grant said.
“Obviously, early in his career, he got a chance to play and gain those experiences as a freshman.”
It didn’t take long for the early playing time to pay off. The Flyers won just one of their first four games to start his freshman season. Then, Dayton beat Miami behind a 15-point performance on 5-of-6 shooting from the field from Holmes. Dayton beat Kansas, 74-73, in the next game behind 16 points on nine shots with three rebounds and two blocks from Holmes.
“That first year, he went through those experiences of being a college basketball player. (He was) figuring out how to play through that, what he needed to add to his game,” Grant said.
“As he’s going through that process, he’s still putting the work in, working on different parts of his game even though other people may not have been seeing it manifest in games. He was putting the time in.”
Christian Braun, Holmes’s new teammate, and the Jayhawks went on to win the national championship that season. Holmes finished the year averaging 12.8 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.3 blocks, and the Flyers finished the season in the National Invitational Tournament.
“That second year, he came back and became a featured guy, so to speak, and a guy that was on the top of everybody’s scouting report,” Grant said. “So, he started to see some defenses that were kind of built at stopping him or trying to limit his effectiveness whether it was (more) physicality or double teams or just being the focus.”
Despite the increased focus from opposing defenses, Holmes production jumped to 18.4 points and 8.1 rebounds per game. He started to expand his shooting range to the 3-point arc and narrowly led the Flyers to the NCAA Tournament. In the Atlantic 10 conference championship game against Virginia Commonwealth, Holmes dropped 28 points on 16 shots, grabbed 16 rebounds and blocked five shots.
Dayton got back to the big dance last season thanks to an even better season from Holmes. The work never waned even though he declared for the draft following his sophomore season. He came back a much more comfortable shooter. After taking .6 3-pointers per game as a sophomore Holmes averaged 2.5 attempts as a junior and improved his percentage to 38.9, making him even more appealing to NBA teams.
“DaRon – at 19, 20 years old – he was mature enough to understand his process. He didn’t allow the expectations or the noise or anything else to kind of get in the way of that,” Grant said.
“It paid off for him in a big way.”
In his first NCAA Tournament game, Holmes helped Dayton beat Nevada with 18 points, nine rebounds and three steals. That set up a second-round meeting with Arizona. The Flyers put a scare into the Wildcats behind another balanced showing from their star but came up short. Holmes produced 23 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, three steals and a block in his collegiate finale. Now, the Nuggets are looking at him as a player who can make an immediate impact at a position of need behind Nikola Jokic and Aaron Gordon, two players Holmes said he admired at the combine.
“Offensively, he just has so many outs as a player. He can pass. He can shoot. He can catch in tight spaces and make plays and make the little touch shots that Joker makes. The guy just has a lot of game,” Booth said.
“He has a high IQ, knows how to play in different styles and different scenarios. I think he has a very good chance of being a plug-and-play guy.”
Denver’s general manager believes Holmes can be an even better defender at the NBA level when he’s not so concerned about carrying the load offensively and worrying about fouling out. On the flipside of that is a smaller role than he’s become accustomed to in college, but his coach for the last three seasons has few concerns the former big man on campus can settle into a role player as a rookie.
“Calvin and the people there in Denver are getting someone that has a great work ethic and great values. That’s going to continue with the people that he’s around there. He’s in a great organization that will help him become the best version of himself,” Grant said.
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The DaRon Holmes II file
Drafted: No. 22 overall by Nuggets
Height/weight: 6-foot-8 3/4, 236.2 pounds (NBA draft combine)
Hometown: Goodyear, Ariz.
High school: AZ Compass Prep/Montverde/Millenium (2020 Arizona Gatorade State Player of the Year)
College: University of Dayton (2024 Atlantic 10 Co-Player of the Year, 2024 Atlantic 10 Defensive Player of the Year, 2024 Karl Malone Award finalist, 2024 Naismith Trophy finalist)
Parents: DaRon and Tomika Holmes
