Why don’t the Denver Nuggets have a 1st-round pick in the 2023 NBA Draft?
By Ian Levy
The Denver Nuggets assembled one of the best rosters in the league but gave up their 2023 NBA Draft pick along the way. Here’s why they won’t be picking this year.
It took years of shrewd moves for the Denver Nuggets to build themselves a juggernaut — nailing the picks of Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic. The luck of having Michael Porter Jr. slide into their laps. Gambling on the trades for Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, winning with the signing of Bruce Brown.
Putting all those moves together sometimes means sending out future assets and in the case of the Nuggets, building this roster meant giving up their 2023 first-round pick.
Why don’t the Denver Nuggets have a first-round pick in the 2023 NBA Draft?
The Charlotte Hornets hold the rights to the Nuggets’ first-round pick in this draft, the No. 27 pick. But the rights to that pick have passed through several hands before it ended up with the Hornets. The Nuggets initially sent it to the Thunder in 2020 as part of the four-team trade that brought Jrue Holiday to the Milwaukee Bucks. The Nuggets received the No. 24 pick in the 2020 draft which they used to select R.J. Hampton.
The pick was then moved to the Hornets in a pair of draft-night trades last year, first to the Knicks and then to the Hornets in the deals that moved Ousmane Dieng to Oklahoma City and Jalen Duren to Detroit.
The Nuggets have the rights to the Mavericks’ second-round pick (No. 40), also acquired in that Jrue Holiday trade. Their own second-round pick is owed to the Bulls.
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