Nuggets forward Juan Hernangomez could be out “a couple of weeks” with mononucleosis, according to Christopher Dempsey of NBA.com.
The second-year player out of Spain had a productive rookie season, averaging 4.9 points and 3.0 rebounds in 62 games. However, he has managed just seven minutes in two games this year.
“We were talking as coaches and as a staff that Juancho hadn’t looked like Juancho from last year,” said coach Mike Malone. “The first reaction was: Well, he had a very busy summer. He played summer league with us, then he goes right back to Spain and plays a very long and demanding schedule with the national team. But we were waiting for Juancho to come back – the activity, the energy, and he just wasn’t looking like himself.”
The team did blood work when Hernangomez contracted a cold, and the results showed mononucleosis. He will be held out to give him a chance to recover and to keep the contagious disease away from the rest of the team.
“Hopefully when he is healthy, we’ll see that Juancho that we all came to love last year, who was just boundless energy,” Malone added. “We haven’t seen that guy yet because of this disease and how hard he worked the whole summer.”