While all of the extra added depth for the Nuggets this year is great news for the team, one potential unexpected consequence could be losing a good young player to an expansion draft. There has been talk of NBA expansion for years, and it appears the league is getting closer and closer.
Assuming the league follows precedent, every team is allowed to protect eight players on their roster, while the rest are eligible to be drafted by the expansion team(s). The last couple of years, that really wouldn’t have been an issue for Denver as they struggled to find eight players that belonged on an NBA court.
But everything has changed this offseason, and the Nuggets now boast as many as 12 solid rotation players. The team would basically have to play chicken with a few of their role players and hope the potential new expansion teams don’t come trying to poach away too much talent.
Yossi Gozlan, Keith Smith, and Sam Quinn did a mock expansion draft on a recent episode of the Third Apron podcast, and for Denver, they protected Nikola Jokic, Aaron Gordon, Cam Johnson, Christian Braun, Jamal Murray, Peyton Watson, DaRon Holmes, and Jalen Pickett.
Julian Strawther taken third in mock expansion draft
That means that the Nuggets had to leave players such as Tim Hardaway Jr., Bruce Brown, Jonas Valanciunas, Julian Strawther, Zeke Nnaji, and Hunter Tyson unprotected. THJ, Brown, and Jonas are all veterans on short contracts, so they may not hold great appeal to expansion teams.
But in the mock exercise, Smith selected Strawther third overall off the Nuggets’ roster. Gozlan, operating on behalf of Denver, tried to negotiate a trade for Smith to take Nnaji instead, but in this fake scenario, Yossi and the Nuggets didn’t have the draft capital to get it done.
Getting a promising young scorer and shooter like Strawther poached off the roster would be a major bummer, especially after developing and investing in him for several years. But for an expansion team, it makes a ton of sense, and Strawther would likely be one of the hottest commodities available in this kind of setting.
Nuggets should protect Strawther instead of Pickett
There’s certainly an argument to be made that they should have chosen to protect Strawther instead of Pickett. Julian is younger and has shown more promise, while Pickett has mostly been unable to crack the rotation, and Strawther has played when healthy.
But even losing Pickett for nothing would be disappointing and hardly a much better alternative. Even in a world where the Nuggets could somehow save both, losing one of their newly signed veterans would be a blow to the rotation. On the surface, Brown and THJ may not make sense on expansion teams, but those teams will still need competent players to fill minutes, and ready-to-win vets to trade at the deadline.
Ultimately, these are champagne problems, and this discussion may not even be relevant for a few years, if ever. But if there is one negative side effect of vastly improving the roster this offseason, a future expansion trade may be it.