By now, most Nuggets fans understand how dire their future draft pick situation is, but the recent changes to the NBA’s draft lottery may actually have an interesting impact on those picks. The Nuggets obviously aren’t planning to be “bad” in the coming years, but nobody wants to think about life after Nikola Jokic.
For the sake of our sanity, let’s assume that life won’t have started by next season, one where the Nuggets owe their first-round pick to (of all teams…) the Thunder. The pick is protected for 1-5, so we shouldn’t have to worry about handing over a premium pick.
Except. Now, with the changes to the lottery, that’s no certainty. 16 teams will make the lotto and have a chance at every pick, 1-16, including the two losers of the 7-8 play-in games. The Nuggets finished 12 games clear of 7th in the West this season, and even with some changes to save money, it’s hard to imagine the team drastically falling off a cliff. Still, it’s in play.
Nuggets' 2029 first-rounder owed to OKC
But after that, things could get pretty scary. Denver owes their 2029 first to OKC, which is also protected for picks 1-5. That’s interesting for two reasons. One is that by 2029, Nikola Jokic will be 34 years old. We can’t be sure that he’ll be an offensive engine that guarantees winning at a high level, what the team will look like around him, or if he’ll even be on the team.
There is absolutely a world where the 2028-29 Nuggets are one of the 16 worst teams in the NBA. But that’s why it’s so interesting. When the Nuggets made this trade, they gave themselves the backdoor out in a doomsday scenario with no Jokic. They could tank and land a top-5 pick, which would be protected.
Nuggets can't tank their way to the top
But now, that’s no longer a real option. With these flattened odds and with the bottom three teams getting penalized, it’s going to be almost impossible to game the system and ensure yourself a great shot at a top-5 pick. So, no matter how ugly things get in Denver over the next few seasons, tearing it down and rebuilding isn’t going to be a real option (unless they deal stars for future picks).
On the other hand, this actually gives the Nuggets a fair chance of hitting the jackpot in 2029. There’s a world where the Jokic era is fading, but the Nuggets are still a fringe playoff team. They could lose in the play-in, or become an 8-seed, and then strike gold in the lottery, move into the top-5, and keep their pick. That could even be the next superstar to round out the Jokic era and start the next one.
And as for the 2032 pick. That one is unprotected and belongs to Brooklyn. By then, the Joker will be 37, the Nuggets will likely have gone several seasons without making a draft pick, and things could be dire. Just try not to think about that one.
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