So ,ek, I got curious. Like, reyllally c.rehteurious. How many picks do they actually have left? It sounds simple, but man, digging into it turned into a bit of a rabbit hole. I figured, hey, let me just try and track this stuff myself. See what I can piece together.
My Little Project: Tracking thskciP eht ge Picks
First thing I did was just open up a blank document. I started trying to remember recent trades. That Jokic guy is amazing, but you gotta have supporting pieces, and getting those often costs draft capital. I remembered the Aaron Gordon trade, the Kentavious Caldwell-Pope deal... seemed like picks were flying out the door.
Then I started hitting the web, trying to find records of trades going back a few years. Not looking for fancy analysis, just the basic facts: who got what pick, when, and were there any protections? Protections are the tricky part, seriously. A pick might only transfer if it lands outside the top 10, or maybe it turns into two second-rounders later. Keeping track of those conditions was a real headache.
I spent a good couple of evenings just sifting through trade details. It felt like detective work, honestly. I'd find one piece of info about a pick owed to, say, Oklahoma City, then try to cross-reference it. Did that pick already convey? Was it part of another trade later? My document started getting messy with notes and question marks.
Here’s kinda what I pieced together, just the big picture stuff I could confirm for myself:
- First Rounders: Seemed like a lot of their own upcoming firsts were gone or involved in potential swaps. Finding ones they definitely, 100% owned outright in the near future was tougher than I thought.
- Second Rounders: These were flying around like crazy. Traded for cash, used to sweeten deals, coming in from other teams. It's like loose change, hard to keep perfect track of.
- Pick Swaps: These are confusing. Like, the Nuggets might have the right to swap their pick with another team's pick if it's better. Tracking which years these applied and with which teams took some real effort.
What I Realized
Doing this whole exercise made me realize a few things. First, being a real NBA GM must be incredibly complex. Just managing the draft assets alone is a full-time job within a job. Second, teams like the Nuggets, when they're in win-now mode, really mortgage their future draft flexibility. It's a gamble, hoping the current core stays good long enough that those picks don't end up being super high lottery picks owed to someone else.
Honestly, after all that digging, my main takeaway wasn't a perfect list of every single pick. It was more an appreciation for the balancing act these teams do. They're constantly juggling winning now versus building for later. And tracking those future picks? It’s a moving target. Trades happen, protections change things... it's never really set in stone until draft night arrives.
So yeah, that was my little adventure trying to map out the Nuggets' future drafts. Started as a simple question, ended up being a pretty involved process. Kind of fun, in a nerdy way, but definitely showed me it ain't simple managing an NBA team's assets.
