Grading the Week: The Hunter Tyson Era of Nuggets basketball is here

The future has arrived, and his name is Hunter Tyson.

Yes, we’re just four Summer League games into his Nuggets career, but consider Grading the Week the lead conductor of the Hunter Tyson hype train.

Hunter Tyson — A

OK, let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat:

Just because some guy lights it up at NBA Summer League doesn’t necessarily mean he is going to do the same in the Association. There are countless examples of players who set Las Vegas ablaze, only to flame out once the games actually count. (We’re looking at you, Nikoloz Tskitishvili.)

That being said, we love what we’ve seen thus far.

This is a man with the spiciness of a Bruce Brown, the confidence of a Jamal Murray and the leaping ability of a Jokic brother. Oh, and he can also shoot the lights out.

On Friday night alone, the 6-foot-8 Clemson product scored 31 points on just 13 shots (11 of 13) and sank a ridiculous 7 of 9 from 3-point range. Through four games, he was the No. 4 scorer in Vegas at 21.8 points/game, which also happened to be the top scoring average of anyone who played at least four games over the past week. That he did it on 58.3% shooting (51.7% from 3) only underscores the point that our man Tyson can cook.

Will the 23-year-old forward turn into an actual useful piece of a Nuggets championship defense? Or just a human victory cigar inserted into the waning moments of blowouts? Sign us up for either.

We just want this insatiable gunner to be a part of Mile High basketball for a long time to come.

Alex Galchenyuk — F-

The Colorado Avalanche sure picked the right time to get out of the Alex Galchenyuk business.

If a Scottsdale Police Department report is to be believed, the 29-year-old former Avs forward will have a hard time finding a spot on an NHL roster anytime soon.

It’s not just that Galchenyuk was allegedly involved in a one-vehicle crash in which he attempted to leave the scene. It’s that police say he followed that up by repeatedly hurling racial slurs and threats at responding officers. That included Galchenyuk allegedly telling the officers “One phone call and you’re all dead, your whole family, your blood line is dead,” according to an Associated Press report.

In the wake of the news, the Arizona Coyotes released him from a $775,000, one-year deal he signed with the club 13 days earlier, and that just might be the last time he gets an offer like that.

Elias Diaz — A+

Go ahead and pack up the rest of the Rockies’ season. It’s all downhill from here.

Because there’s no topping what Colorado catcher Elias Diaz did in the All-Star Game this week, blasting a two-run, pinch-hit home run to deliver the National League a victory more than a decade in the making.

The All-Star Game may not be what it once was, before interleague play was introduced in the 1990s: a game the Grading the Week staff watched every second of with rapt attention. But watching the American League lose will never grow old. And getting to watch an affable journeyman like Diaz get his time in the spotlight is a nice cherry on top.

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