Some time soon, I hope to chat with both John Beckett and Corsley Edwards. They are the Nuggets‘ newest additions to their player development staff that already includes the excellent and high-energy Chris Farr. Farr is known for his willingness to workout with players well before and after practice, and helping those players hone their skills. What can we glean about Beckett and Edwards with help from the old trusty interwebs?

John Beckett:

He played college ball at Georgia State University and Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL where he graduated in 2001. Beckett played professional ball in Germany for the Bergheim Bandits. After his playing days, he worked as a video coordinator and assisted in player development with the Atlanta Hawks from 2004-2013. Most recently he was an assistant coach with the Delaware 87ers where he helped with player development, put together scouting reports on opponents, and various in-game charting. He also worked for The Skills Factory, a basketball training facility in Georgia.

A lot of NBA players have worked out at The Skills Factory, including: James Harden, John Wall, Shelvin Mack, and our old friend Dahntay Jones.

During his time with the 87ers, Beckett was highlighted a few times in Corban Goble's Grantland piece: Meet the Dela-weird 87ers. Here are three snippets:

"One quick move, none of that other shit," assistant coach John Beckett barks at Antetokounmpo, who is whirling around in the lane, not necessarily moving toward the bucket.

And …

Two hours before that Friday night game against the Canton Charge, I sit on the sidelines with Pelle, a 6-foot-10 prospect Delaware selected with its first pick in the D-League draft. He’d been having a hard time earning extended minutes in Baker’s rotation. Before we sit down, I overhear a scorekeeper ask Baker if Norvel had played in the last game. “DNP,” Baker barks back. “Coach’s decision.”

Some hip-hop comes over the arena sound system, and Pelle starts explaining his views on hip-hop rather than his basketball career. “I like Drake, he gets to your soft side,” Pelle says. “He’s more of a soft rapper. I still respect him. Drake is Kevin Durant and Kendrick is LeBron James.” Thanks to life in sleepy Newark, it’s something he’s had ample downtime to consider.

“Fuck that!” Beckett, the assistant coach, screams from the court. “You got work to do!” He’s sweating more than all the players, and apparently he believes Pelle could be doing more with his warm-up time. Pelle gives Beckett a long look and keeps talking.

Here are a few Tweets featuring Beckett:

He’s second in on the far left, it goes Chris Farr, Beckett, then Erick Green …

And other one with Chris Paul and Isaiah Thomas. Beckett is pictured next to Thomas.

**

Corsley Edwards:

Our colleague Andrew Feinstein should be pretty happy with the addition of Edwards. He's a big man! Edwards goes 6'9" and 275 pounds, according to his Wikipedia page. He hails from Baltimore, Maryland and is 35 years-old. He's still listed as an active player on Wiki and he's well traveled … check out all the stops he's made in his career:

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He had a few stops in the NBA along the way (Kings, Magic, Hornets), including being teammates with Chris “Birdman” Andersen with the New Orleans Hornets back during the 2004-05 season (saw a picture of the two on the court together on Getty Images). And here is some video of Edwards from his time with the Hornets:

I like the international experience and NBA experience that Edwards will bring to the team. He will be able to relate with Timofey Mozgov, Jusuf Nurkic (Edwards played in Bosnia), and even Erick Green and Danilo Gallinari with the Italian connection. It will be good for the Nuggets centers (a great preview coming today from Jeff Morton) to get a true big guy to help them, to go along with Melvin Hunt and some instruction from Jared Jeffries (a front office member).

We'll get to know more about these coaches soon, but it's good to see the Nuggets add some additional guys to the big staff.

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