NBA: Ranking every team based off draft success over the last 20 years

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NBA Denver Nuggets Jamal Murray (Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images) /

11. Denver Nuggets: 38.5 points

2002: Nene : 0.5
2003: Carmelo Anthony: 24 (10x all-star, 2x 2nd team, 4x 3rd team)
2009: Ty Lawson: 0.5
2011: Kenneth Faried: 0.5
2014: Gary Harris: 0.5
2014: Nikola Jokic: 12 (2x all-star, 1x 1st team, double points for 2nd round pick)
2016: Jamal Murray: 0.5

Before I get started, here’s some sports bar trivia for you – Did you know Ty Lawson finished tied for 12th in MVP voting in 2012-13? He was named to zero All-NBA teams and wasn’t selected to a single All-Star team in his career but has a top 12 MVP finish. How is that possible? Did somebody send in the wrong form? Did one of the voters owe Lawson a large gambling debt and they mutually agreed that the MVP vote would suffice? I have so many questions.

Anywho, at first glance, the Nuggets’ draft history is great. And it’s still pretty great after a second glance. They drafted two All-NBA caliber players 11 years apart and have supplemented those picks with some strong supporting characters (including a 12th place MVP candidate). But at a third glance, you start to see some holes. Not for the picks they made, but for the ones they gave away.

To keep it brief, they should just hang up the phone every time the Jazz calls them. It never ends well for the Nuggets. In 2013 they traded the draft rights to Rudy Gobert for Erick Green and cash. And again in 2017 they traded the draft rights to Donovan Mitchell for Tyler Lydon and Trey Lyles, whose names I had to re-read three times to make sure they weren’t identical.

Let this serve as a lesson to all 30 teams – never trade out of the first round if you’re getting back a 10th man and cash. After going through the last 20 drafts it doesn’t seem like enough teams really understand that. No one in the history of the NBA has ever been one Erick Green away from being a real contender.