The NBA Draft has played a foundational role in the Denver Nuggets' ascension. It's largely how the franchise captured its first-ever championship in June.
After all, Denver houses what should be widely regarded as the greatest draft pick in NBA history. A two-time regular season MVP and one-time Finals MVP drafted in the second round. I mean, we're talking about a player who's on track to become, conservatively, one of the 20 greatest players ever selected in the 40s. It's tough to find better value than that during the draft process. In all honesty, that aspect of Nikola Jokić's legend isn't talked about enough.
Beside Jokić sits two other homegrown talents, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr.
Jamal was a mid-lottery 2016 selection. MPJ, meanwhile, fell all the way to spot No. 14 in the 2018 NBA Draft because of an unexpected back surgery that cut his freshman season at the University of Missouri short. Neither player was a sure thing, yet both of them have panned out, to put it lightly, and played key roles in a starting lineup that stampeded its way to the 2023 championship.
The Nuggets have become the gold standard for why the draft matters, especially for teams like Denver that operate in a smaller market. Free agency has largely been done away with; the last major superstar free agent signing was, what, in 2019? When Kawhi Leonard became an LA Clipper? Or when Kevin Durant inked a contract with the Brooklyn Nets? Top-10 players just don't become free agents these days. The best way to come across a player of that stature is to, well, draft them. The Nuggets are the shining example of that with Jokić, who casually posts triple-doubles like they're Instagram Stories.
Denver's got their five Infinity Stones. The best starting lineup the sport has to offer: Murray, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon, and Jokić.
That hasn't stopped them from prioritizing the draft. This year, they entered the season with a very unique game plan: they wanted to prioritize contention in the present while building for the future. That's what boasting the sport's best starting lineup can do for you; it gives you breathing room to take calculated risks.
“When you're a good team like we are, we're not looking for picks to be immediate difference makers. If you can add to the rotation of the team, give quality minutes, defend, and know who you are. I mean, that's three-quarters of the battle right there," Nuggets Vice President of Player Personnel, Jim Clibanoff, told Nuggets.com.
The Nuggets have used the last two drafts to discover players that precisely fit that billing: immediate contributors with upside to become something more. 2022 yielded Christian Braun and Peyton Watson, and 2023 resulted in Julian Strawther, Jalen Pickett, and Hunter Tyson.
That's a difficult player to forecast. There are very few prospects that overlap on the Venn Diagram of NBA readiness and long-term upside. It takes a rigorous scouting program to spot that type of archetype. One that goes beyond endlessly watching film and pouring through stats. There's a personality aspect to this, too. It's how Denver has cultivated such a successful culture. Guys want to play for each other, go to war with each other. Shoot, they just flat-out like each other. That stuff matters a lot more than any fan, analyst, or really anyone outside of the locker room realizes. That includes the author of this very article.
Interviews, for example, are a big component of evaluation in the draft cycle. It's like any hiring process, really. You want to find guys who align, personality-wise, with the rest of the group. To do so, you need to talk with them. Get to know them. Hunter Tyson, selected 37th in this June's draft, spoke glowingly about that aspect of Denver's draft proceedings.
"I think I had 17 interviews with 17 different teams within 24 hours. A lot of it is very repetitive," Tyson told Nuggets.com. "But I do remember talking to my agent and my parents after the Nuggets interview and saying, ‘Wow, that one really stuck out. That was probably my favorite interview yet.'"
What did Tyson like about Denver's interview?
"Just the personalities in the room. The people," Tyson said. "It was not as repetitive as every other team. For a lot of teams, they’re just in there to check the boxes. It didn't feel like that with the Nuggets."
Denver's front office can wield their communication skills with prospective free agents, as well. Justin Holiday was wowed in his conversations before signing with the Nuggets in July. He noted that the team's honesty from top to bottom played a major role in his decision.
"It was exciting to have them contact me, and then the conversations were great," Holiday said on Media Day about his free agency discussions. "Talking about how I can fit in, mostly about what they do here, which is important to me. They have a culture of winning. No egos. Have a good mix of vets and younger players. I think all of those things are very, very important in winning, but as well as just going to work and actually enjoying work. When you have to deal with certain other little things, it makes work hard.
"I just believe, coming here, work's going to be a lot easier to go into each day, day-in and day-out, playing 82 games. Conversations were great. Conversations were real, which is again something I feel is important. It allows me to really understand what I'm getting into."
Holiday was asked to expand on that last point.
"What was real about it? Nothing being promised," Holiday continued. "That I’m gonna have to work for whatever it is I get. Things can be different this night, that night. We don't really know what's going to happen, which is the way it’s supposed to be. I mean, you haven’t had me in front of you. You've only seen me play against you. You don’t know how I mesh with this team. I appreciate that more than someone being like, 'Yeah, you can come in and do this, this, this and this,' and that not be the case.
"I've been in this league 11 years. I’m honest with myself. I know how this works. I've been traded. I've been signed a good amount of times, so I know what that conversation is supposed to look like. Dude, Coach came to me and straight-up was like, ‘I don't know exactly how it's gonna look. I know you're a person that fits well on a team and will fit with our team. Exactly what that looks like, we're not sure yet.'"
The Nuggets operate on a human level, and it's why they're such an attractive franchise to players, both internally and externally. But Denver's front office is also extremely detail-oriented; that's how they unearthed a rookie picked 21st overall in 2022 who played meaningful minutes in an NBA Finals.
Christian Braun had moments all throughout last spring's playoffs as a key member of head coach Michael Malone's rotation. Still, his shining moment might've been in Game 3 against the Miami HEAT when he became the fourth rookie of the last 20 years to drop at least 15 points in a Finals game. What allowed him to reach such lofty heights as a 21-year-old on the biggest stage? He kept it simple. He didn't play above his head and filled a role.
"Christian Braun is not being looked at as someone who's gotta star every game for the Denver Nuggets. But what he does is he stars in his specific role. Let's hope he trends upwards towards being a star,' Clibanoff explained to Nuggets.com. "A player like that helped us win an NBA title because he was self-aware enough to know what he doesn't have to do out there."
"Sometimes when a player goes to a lesser team, they just take the blinders off," Clibanoff continued. "I'm going to go do everything possible that I can to show these guys I can play and I’m valued. Instead of saying, how am I going to fit in around here with the best player in the world on our team? I don't have to do this. I don't have to do that. I can just keep it simple."
This season, a different sophomore has leaped off the page for Denver, both figuratively and literally. Peyton Watson, a toolsy athlete selected with pick No. 30 in the 2022 draft, has been one of the biggest storylines of Denver's season.
Watson's emerged as a true lockdown defender with serious offensive upside. At the time of this writing, Watson leads all NBA players in defensive field goal percentage. He's also posting the best defensive field goal percentage at the rim among all wings and guards. He's protecting the basket like a top-tier center. Think, the Rudy Gobert's or the Anthony Davis' of the world.
"The slots where you pick when you're a good team, you're not going to have high lottery picks. So, you've got to pick and choose. Calvin (Booth) showed great foresight last year, using a late first on Peyton, who has made tremendous strides. We've got a very good blend of young with more seasoned," said Clibanoff. "Just to see what Peyton does in the weight room and the energy with which he brings, just his passion to the floor. You need that piece in your young core. So, if he's challenging guys who are probably older than he is but have less NBA experience, I think that’ll stir the pot quite well."
Of course, in order for Watson to stir the pot productively, he'd need to be in an ecosystem where that type of competitiveness is actually appreciated. One that's selfless and free of jealousy. With no one looking over their shoulder. And that's where Denver's veterans come into the picture. They've taken players, like Watson, under their wing and groomed them to become integral parts of the franchise, both in the short-term future and the long term.
“You know you've got a good organization when the older players are essentially teaching younger players how to eventually take their job," Clibanoff explained to Nuggets.com. "That's not going to happen anytime soon. But when you see, I don't know, Aaron Gordon at 27 or 28 teaching a 21-year-old certain tricks, which eventually seven years down the road, maybe that younger player’s like, ‘Yeah, AG taught me that stuff.’ I think our players are built that way.”
None of this would've been possible without that very same 41st-overall pick, Jokić, whose uniquely unselfish attitude as a superstar player sets the tone for the rest of the group. For as accomplished as Jokić is, he's also an egoless empath; he's always looking out for the best interests of those around him, especially those who don those same Flatiron Red, Cobalt Blue, and Nuggets Gold threads. He's the Nuggets' quiet, measured, and benevolent leader. With a talent so supreme and so expansive that it's just about filling the gaps around his vast skillset.
"I'm just going to trace it all back to Jokić. When you've got the best player like that, who sets that example, who is so entirely selfless, it just makes it that much more prominent for everybody else in the organization. It makes our job as evaluators and front office people that much easier when that's your pillar," said Clibanoff. "A guy who makes a comment that you get an assist, it makes two people happy. And he believes that, man. It's not just some lip service for the media...
"That's who Nikola Jokić is.”