The Denver Nuggets didn't have a first-round draft pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. Their 2024 pick, DaRon Holmes II, missed his rookie season due to injury after the Nuggets traded up for him. The Nuggets didn't need the flashiest player at number 26, but apparently, thinking Zuby Ejiofor would fall to them was the wrong idea.
The Nuggets didn't trade up a few spots like the rumor was mere days ago, allowing Ejiofor to slip away, and the Nuggets to miss out on a first-rounder for essentially the third season in a row.
Why was Zuby so perfect for the Nuggets? Probably for the same reasons that the Atlanta Hawks selected him much earlier than most were anticipating. Based on all of the mock drafts leading up to the draft, Ejiofor was pegged as a late-first-rounder at best, right in the Nuggets range. But he had a great combine, and the Big East Player of the Year showcased a developing offensive game to go with his high-motor, nonstop, physical, elite rim-protection play, and the Hawks noticed.
Ejiofor, while undersized as a big man, has an elite paint presence like Isaiah Stewart of the Detroit Pistons. The Nuggets could have had a much cheaper alternative with a better offensive game, but because they didn't move up, Ejiofor went to the Hawks at pick 23 of the first round. He would have been the perfect fit in the Nuggets paint.
All of the Nuggets top prospects were gone by pick 23
Everyone who has been predicting the mock drafts has had the Nuggets eyeing players with their specific needs in mind, but the expectation was that one of them was going to fall to the Nuggets. It's too bad the Nuggets lacked the proper draft capital in the future to allow them to move up easily.
Morez Johnson Jr. went very early, but he was a pipe dream even if the Nuggets traded up to the fringe of the lottery. Dailyn Swain was gone at 15 to the Bulls. Bennett Stirtz went to the Thunder at 16 after they traded up a spot for him. And then Ebuka Okorie and Christian Anderson went back-to-back.
Once the Spurs had taken Jayden Quaintance off the board at 20, there was only Ejiofor left on the Nuggets' big board. At that point, the Nuggets should have traded up a couple of spots to get their guy. But they probably lacked the proper capital to do it.
The Nuggets traded out of the first round instead
In the end, Tarris Reed Jr. will go down in the books as the Nuggets' first-round pick of the 2026 NBA Draft, but he was traded to the San Antonio Spurs for the 35th pick of the draft and two future second-round picks in a no-brainer move when only Koa Peat was left for the Nuggets.
The Nuggets had worked out Peat recently, but it would appear they didn't like what they saw for the fit and made the smart move. However, Reed would have been a stealthy option for the Nuggets as well. Reed's a 6-foot-10 big man who blocked 2.0 shots for UConn in his senior season, who plays a physical brand of basketball that would have worked as a backup center.
The focus now turns to picks 35 and 49 of the second round.
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