Denver Nuggets NBA 2023 winning team: Which year was each player drafted in?
The Denver Nuggets have won the 2023 NBA finals defeating the Miami Heat in five games. With five players on the Nuggets scoring in double figures, it took a team effort to overcome the Heat.
Here we look at the Nuggets team to see which year each player was drafted in:
1) Bruce Brown: 2018 (Round: 2 / Pick: 42)
2) Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: 2013 (Round: 1 / Pick: 8)
3) Christian Braun: 2022 (Round: 1 / Pick: 21)
4) Nikola Jokic: 2014 (Round: 2 / Pick: 41)
5) Aaron Gordon: 2014 (Round: 1 / Pick: 4)
6) Jamal Murray: 2016 (Round: 1 / Pick: 7)
7) Michael Porter Jr.: 2018 (Round: 1 / Pick: 14)
8) Vlatko Cancar: 2017 (Round: 2 / Pick: 49)
9) Jeff Green: 2007 (Round: 1 / Pick: 5)
10) Zeke Nnaji: 2020 (Round: 1 / Pick: 22)
11) Ish Smith: 2010 (Undrafted)
12) DeAndre Jordan: 2008 (Round: 2 / Pick: 35)
13) Peyton Watson: 2022 (Round: 1 / Pick: 30)
14) Thomas Bryant: 2017 (Round: 2 / Pick: 42)
15) Jack White: 2020 (Undrafted)
16) Reggie Jackson: 2011 (Round: 1 / Pick: 24)
17) Collin Gillespie: 2022 (Undrafted)
The Denver Nuggets have a diverse team. They have everyone from lottery picks to undrafted players. The most notable perhaps, is Nikola Jokic, who was the 41st pick in the Round 2 of the 2014 NBA draft.
Why was Nikola Jokic a second-round pick?
After winning his first NBA championship and the NBA Finals MVP, Nikola Jokic is arguably the best player in the league. However, Jokic's NBA career is not the fairytale that one would imagine it to be.
Jokic was the 41st pick in Round 2 of the 2014 NBA draft. One of the prominent concerns for Jokic coming into the NBA was his athletic ability. Teams questioned whether he could handle the pace of the NBA, but the Nuggets chose to take a chance on him anyway.
How Nikola Jokic went from unknown & overweight to MVP 🏆
A thread: https://t.co/Ab3XDD1gF7
Nikola Jokic's agent Misko Raznatovic shared that he found the Serbian while reading about him in a newspaper. He thought the numbers were impressive and so he signed Jokic. Raznatovic, however, did not see Jokic play before the signing, so no one knew if Jokic could compete in the NBA.
Nuggets president Josh Kroenke said:
"I think back to the training camp that first fall when Nikola arrived in Denver. I remember Mike Miller was a part of our group at that time and he texted me after the first practice, and it was along the lines of 'I'm not really sure what's going to happen, but this guy is really, really good.'"
While Jokic might not have been a lottery pick, his talent was apparent from day one. It still took a lot of years and work for the Nuggets to build slowly and now after all the years to win the 2023 NBA Finals.