Risk And Reward: Denver Nuggets Draft Lottery History
By Chris Kirby
Tomorrow night, the Denver Nuggets will meet up with the Sacramento Kings in a game that will have some meaning for both teams moving forward. The only downside is that both teams could benefit more from a loss than a win.
Denver has a 29-50 overall record with three games remaining in the season. On the other side, the Kings are possess a 27-52 record, and they also have three games remaining on their schedule. Why does this matter? The Nuggets have the seventh-best odds of winning the number-one overall pick in this summer’s NBA Draft, while the Kings have the sixth-best chance of winning themselves. If the Nuggets manage to pull this game out, they will lock themselves into either the seventh or eighth spot (the Detroit Pistons are 30-49 with three games to go) in the lottery. The loss could end costing Denver a 2.0-percent chance of winning that first selection (from 6.3-percent to 4.3-percent). There’s a good possibility that Melvin Hunt gets the call from upstairs saying that they would rather see Erick Green and Joffrey Lauvergne play tomorrow night.
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Even if the Nuggets do manage to screw themselves out of the number-one pick tomorrow night, that doesn’t really mean too much in the grand scheme of things. Sure, it is nice to win the first pick and you give yourself a much better chance of landing a franchise-altering superstar, but if you don’t do your due diligence, you can still make the wrong selection. The NBA Draft is always a risk, and there will be some players that are considered ‘can’t miss stars’ but they won’t pan out.
Denver has had mixed results throughout their history of the lottery since the year it was implemented in 1985. They have been participants in the yearly event on 10 occasions, and they have dropped down from their original position during eight of those years.
The team made its first trip to the NBA lottery in 1991, when they possessed the best odds of winning the first-overall pick (16.67-percent). Unfortunately, the Nuggets ended up falling back three spots, to the fourth pick. Larry Johnson was the big name coming out of UNLV that summer. He was a man among boys, but despite missing out on ‘Grandmama’™, they still landed one of their best players in franchise history – Dikembe Mutombo. In retrospect, Deke may have been the best player in the draft when you consider that he just got elected into the Hall of Fame, while Johnson’s injuries limited him late in his career.
The team remained a mainstay in the lottery throughout the 1990’s and early-2000’s, with the Nuggets missing on more picks than they would have liked. Rodney Rogers, Tony Battie, Raef LaFrentz and Nikoloz Tskitishvili were all huge disappointments for the franchise. They passed on players such as Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Tracy McGrady, Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter, Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, Richard Jefferson, Zach Randolph and Gilbert Arenas over that time span.
Jun 26, 2014; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Gary Harris (Michigan State) reacts after being selected as the number nineteen overall pick to the Chicago Bulls in the 2014 NBA Draft at the Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
Their luck finally turned around in 2003, when they fell back one spot, and drafted Carmelo Anthony with the third-overall pick. Anthony became Denver’s go-to scoring option right from the get-go, and the Nuggets were back in the Playoffs the very next season. They remained a Playoff team for the next eleven years after that franchise-altering draft choice, avoiding the lottery until 2014 (they landed the 11th selection, drafted Doug McDermott, and flipped him for Gary Harris and Jusuf Nurkic).
The lottery will only end up taking the team so far. Hopefully, luck is on their side and they manage to move up to one of the top three selections, but it will be up to general manager Tim Connelly, and the rest of the upper-management, to find a player that can contribute to the team’s success. Is the potential of a higher draft pick worth tanking tomorrow night’s game against Sacramento? It certainly couldn’t hurt — you might as well get an extended look at your younger players and let them gain experience, but who says Sacramento isn’t going to do the same thing?