Denver Nuggets got the best value in the 2019 NBA Draft: Bol Bol with the 44th pick

Denver Nuggets President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly made the best move of the night, trading for the 44th overall pick, Oregon center Bol Bol.

The 2019 NBA Draft was a hectic night for the league, with a flurry of movement leading right up to the start and even more trades throughout. Denver Nuggets President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly made the best transaction of the night—a deal similar to one we had mocked up days before—at Nugg Love grabbing a player the Nuggets seemed to have rated as a first-round talent for pennies on the dollar: Oregon center Bol Bol.

Connelly patiently waited through most of the draft order—43 picks to be exact—until he saw a value that was worth making a move for. The Miami Heat are a team with very little financial wiggle room, so it is in no way shocking to see them sell a second rounder for cash and a future second round pick. What is shocking is that the Heat didn’t see Bol Bol as a project worth investing in, even as a team that is going to likely be a luxury tax team for the second year in a row.

Bol only played nine games but he showed off plenty of tantalizing potential over those 268 minutes.

https://twitter.com/espn/status/1141917419541164032

At Oregon, Bol averaged 21 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game, with shooting splits of 56.1 percent /52.0 percent / 75.7 percent (FG/ 3PT/ FT). Bol’s 52 percent 3-point shooting is a result of the small sample size, but his shooting touch is very, very real. He has shown the ability to knock down 3-pointers off of catch-and-shoot attempts and in pick-and-pop situations, with a bit of off the dribble shooting ability that will admittedly need tons of work before being relied on at the NBA level.

If Bol Bol truly is 100 percent healthy, it will be fun to see how he develops under an excellent Denver Nuggets coaching staff. He needs to get much stronger, but can’t afford to move slower than he already does on the defensive end on the floor, so it will be a delicate balance for him to strike. All the long-term planning for Bol’s role on a title-contending Nuggets team starts with his foot being healed.

Bol Bol maintains that he is 100 percent healthy and ready to come back, mentioning that he recently has started to do some on-court work. As Nuggets fans know from the Michael Porter Jr. experience, these young talents are dying to get back on the court and can show overconfidence in their ability to do so.

This is by no means a bad thing—in fact, that hunger to get back on the court is great thing—but it does mean that similar to MPJ, the Nuggets front office needs to handle the Bol situation with kid gloves.

Connelly and the Nuggets are in a great spot as a franchise. Denver is coming off a season in which they were the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, advanced within a game of the Western Conference Finals and saw their franchise player named First Team All-NBA center. Things are trending ridiculously upwards for Denver.

What to look for in Michael Porter Jr.’s NBA Summer League performance

Matching up against some of the top players from the 2018 and 2019 draft classes will give us a chance to evaluate Michael Porter against real NBA talent.

Now, with Porter set to play in the NBA Summer League, the basketball world will be waiting to see if Bol Bol will do the same.

Whether or not we see much of Bol Bol on the court anytime soon, it is tough to argue against the thought that the Denver Nuggets nailed the 2019 NBA Draft, making easily the best low-risk, [Editor’s note: Incredibly] high-reward move of the night.