The 2023 National Basketball Association Draft is tonight at Barclays Center in Brooklyn—the same place the 2014 draft was held.
And the burning question, at least in Denver, is not who will be chosen No. 1, but rather who will be Nos. 37 and 40 in the second round.
Nine years ago in Brooklyn, it was No. 41, and the answer, as Nuggets fans everywhere now know, was Nikola Jokic.
Not even Nuggets scouts could have imagined that their raw 41st pick that night would develop into a two-time league most valuable player, NBA champion and Finals MVP.
Tonight (barring a trade), the Nuggets are without a first-round pick but have—not one but two—picks in the second round (No. 37 because of a trade with Oklahoma City during the NBA Finals).
The 2014 draft that improbably produced one of the sport’s greatest players was significant for Denver in another, albeit convoluted, way, too:
Aaron Gordon, one of Jokic’s key teammates on this year’s NBA Champions, was the fourth player chosen, by Orlando.
Seven picks later, Doug McDermott of Creighton was Denver’s first choice.
Jusuf Nurkic, from Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Gary Harris (Michigan State) were both chosen by Chicago (16th and 19th, respectively).
McDermott never donned a Nuggets uniform, and neither Nurkic nor Harris ever wore the red and black made famous by Michael Jordan. The day they were drafted, McDermott, the nation’s leading scorer and College Player of the Year for the 2013-14 season, was traded to Chicago for Nurkic and Harris.
Harris started 325 games for Denver, then the Nuggets and Magic agreed to a multi-player swap that sent Harris to Florida and brought Gordon to Colorado.
And the 6-11 Nurkic started ahead of Jokic until December 15, 2016, when Nuggets coach Mike Malone made a fateful switch. Unhappy with his demotion, Nurkic requested a trade.
The Nuggets obliged, sending Nurkic to Portland, where he has remained as Jokic blossomed.
Since 2014, the 41st player drafted each year has been, at best, a journeyman, which is what you’d expect. (One played in Israel and Greece; another has yet to make it out of G League.)
Pat Connaughton, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Notre Dame, was taken by the Brooklyn Nets at 41 the year after Jokic. He has had the best career of all the post-Jokic 41s. Traded on Draft Day to Portland, Connaughton played three seasons with the Trailblazers then signed as a free agent with Milwaukee. This season was his fifth with the Bucks.
In succeeding years, the 41st pick has included:
2016—Stephen Zimmerman, a 7-foot center from UNLV, by Orlando;
2017—Tyler Dorsey, a 6-5 shooting guard from Oregon, by Atlanta (Jamaal Murray was the Nuggets’ choice with the seventh pick.);
2018—Jarred Vanderbilt, a 6-8 forward from Kentucky who started his NBA career with Denver after being traded by Orlando; he played against the Nuggets last month as a member of the Lakers (Denver selected Michael J. Porter Jr. 14th in this draft.);
2019—Eric Paschall, a 6-6 power forward from UConn, by Golden State;
2020—Tre Jones, a 6-1 point guard from Duke, by San Antonio;
2021—Joe Wieskamp, a 6-6 small forward from Iowa, also by San Antonio; and
2022—E.J. Liddell, a 6-7 power forward from Ohio State by New Orleans. (With the 21st pick, Denver added Christian Braun of Kansas, who became the fifth player in history to play on an NBA champion the year after being a member of an NCAA champion.)
Denver picked seventh the year AFTER Jokic was chosen. That draft is proof that a team can’t always count on Joker-like good fortune, even in the first round.
The Nuggets chose guard Emmanuel Mudiay, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Six slots later, the Phoenix Suns hit on Devin Booker from Kentucky.
Booker has become a dynamic scorer—27.8 points per game this season and 23.9 over eight years in the league. Mudiay was traded by the Nuggets during his third season and last played in the NBA in ‘21-22—a total of 11 minutes for Sacramento, his fourth team.
Because the new NBA champs have not only The Joker but also the rest of the starting five under contract, Nos. 37 and 40 can be long-range prospects (as Jokich was) or spare parts that strengthen the bench (as Braun last year).
Food for thought as the draft unfolds tonight.
Denny Dressman is a veteran of 43 years in the newspaper business, including 25 at the Rocky Mountain News, where he began as executive sports editor. He is the author of 15 books, nine of them sports-related. You can write to Denny at dennydressman@comcast.net.