Nuggets vs Jazz Preseason Game in Boulder with KJ Simpson
The NBA is coming back to Boulder, and this time it arrives with a familiar face at center stage.
The University of Colorado will host a preseason matchup between the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz on Sunday, Oct. 4, at 5 p.m. at the CU Events Center, turning the campus into a temporary outpost of the league’s Western Conference grind.
For Colorado fans, the draw isn’t just NBA basketball in their own building. It’s the return of KJ Simpson.
Simpson, who electrified Boulder from 2021 to 2024, will walk back onto the same floor where he became one of the program’s modern stars. A two-time All-Pac-12 selection, he helped drive the Buffaloes to a memorable run in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, carving out a legacy as one of the most dynamic guards to come through the program in recent years.
Now he comes back wearing Nuggets colors.
Drafted in the second round of the 2024 NBA Draft by the Charlotte Hornets, Simpson eventually landed in Denver on a two-way contract midway through the 2025-26 season. Since then he has quietly built a solid foothold in the league: 56 NBA games, 17 starts, and averages of 6.7 points, 2.8 assists and 2.6 rebounds per game across two seasons. Not superstar numbers, but the kind that tell the story of a young guard earning trust, minute by minute.
On Oct. 4, those numbers will meet nostalgia. The same fan base that watched him rise in black and gold will see him test himself in Nuggets navy and gold against a Jazz team built on length, tempo, and youth.
This isn’t Boulder’s first taste of NBA preseason basketball, but it has been a while. The Nuggets last made the short trip up US36 in 2015, when they faced the Chicago Bulls on the Russell “Sox” Walseth Court. Before that, the CU Events Center hosted Denver’s preseason meetings with the Portland Trail Blazers in 2007 and 2014.
Now the building gets another big-stage night, and it comes at the start of Denver’s entire tune-up slate.
The matchup with Utah in Boulder opens the Nuggets’ five-game preseason schedule. Once they leave CU, Denver heads straight into a rematch with the Jazz in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Oct. 6, a quick home-and-home that should sharpen rotations and roles before the real grind begins.
From there, the Nuggets’ attention turns back to Ball Arena. Chicago comes to Denver on Sunday, Oct. 11, a familiar preseason opponent and another chance for fringe players and young pieces to stake their claim.
Then comes a Southern California swing that feels almost like a dress rehearsal for the West’s playoff chase. Denver travels to Los Angeles to face the Clippers at Intuit Dome on Wednesday, Oct. 14, before closing the preseason against the Lakers at Crypto Arena on Friday, Oct. 16.
Five games. Two against Utah, two in L.A., one special stop in Boulder.
For the Nuggets, it’s about rhythm, rotations, and health. For Simpson, Oct. 4 is something more personal: a return to the court where he built his name, now as a professional guard trying to solidify his spot in a championship-chasing organization.
Tickets for the Nuggets–Jazz preseason game at the CU Events Center go on sale to the general public on Thursday, Sept. 10.
On that night in October, when the lights go down and the Nuggets jog out onto a college court that still knows his game by heart, how loud will Boulder roar for KJ Simpson’s next chapter?
