Draft day ended with a yawn in Denver.
The Nuggets traded the 26nd overall pick in the NBA Draft to San Antonio on Tuesday night, a league source told The Denver Post, moving out of the first round to No. 35 and acquiring two additional future second-round picks.
The future picks acquired by Denver are a 2028 Minnesota second-rounder and a 2031 Sacramento second-rounder, according to a source. The Nuggets now have two picks in the second round of this year’s draft Wednesday — 35th and 49th.
Co-general managers Jon Wallace and Ben Tenzer still have not made a draft pick since they took over the front office in 2025.
Nuggets recent draft history
The Nuggets haven’t drafted in the top 20 since 2018 — the cost of becoming a perennial playoff team as Nikola Jokic entered his prime. They’ve gotten mixed results from their late first-round picks since then, which is typical at that stage of the draft. Five of their six first-rounders this decade are still on the active roster, though only two of them were in the everyday rotation last season: Christian Braun (21st) and Peyton Watson (30th), both of whom were selected by former GM Calvin Booth in 2022.
Zeke Nnaji (22nd in 2020) is the third-longest tenured player on the team, but the four-year, $32 million contract extension he signed in 2023 has turned out to be a small-scale albatross on Denver’s cap sheet. Bones Hyland (26th in 2021) was shipped off to the Clippers at the 2023 trade deadline after he caused locker room frustration by walking off the bench during a game. He plays for Minnesota now.
Braun was a bench contributor during Denver’s 2023 run to the championship and signed a five-year, $125 million extension last October. Watson will be a restricted free agent and an offseason priority for Denver’s front office in the coming weeks.
Julian Strawther (29th in 2023) has been in and out of the rotation throughout the first three years of his career, and his role was scaled back last season with Tim Hardaway Jr. slotted in at backup shooting guard. Strawther is eligible to sign a rookie-scale extension before next season, or he’ll become a restricted free agent in 2027. Denver traded three second-round picks to Phoenix to move up six spots for DaRon Holmes II (22nd in 2024), who tore his right Achilles tendon in his first Summer League game and spent most of last season developing in the G League.
The Nuggets’ 2025 first-rounder belonged to Orlando as part of their trade for Aaron Gordon. Their 2027 first currently belongs to Oklahoma City as part of the trade for the pick that became Watson.
