The NBA Draft is Thursday and the Nuggets own the seventh overall pick, but don’t be surprised if they land somewhere else on the draft board and the roster looks completely different before the night is through.
“We are exploring everything leading up to the draft,” said Jim Clibanoff, Nuggets director of scouting, who joined Afternoon Drive with Eric Goodman and Les Shaprio on Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7.
The Nuggets currently have five draft picks this year with three in the first round and two in the second round. That begs the question, are the Nuggets going to keep all the draft picks or are they going to package some of the picks and their young stars together to trade for a solidified veteran?
Clibanoff was asked on a scale of one to 10 how open he was to trading some of their best players to either move up in the draft or get a superstar player. “8.134,” he joked. But it looks like the Nuggets are open for business.
With the breakthrough of young players like Nikola Jokić and Emmanuel Mudiay, the front office may want to tell teams that players like that are a absolute no-go for trade, but that may not even be the case this year.
“I don’t think anyone is untouchable,” said Clibanoff. “It’s hard to actually go down a hard line and say we are not going to trade this guy, there are some crazy scenarios that have been thrown out there with top-five, top-10 players.”
So is it possible that we could be seeing a big name like DeMarcus Cousins in a Nuggets uniform? It may not be such a far-fetched idea.
Listen to the full conversation with Clinbanoff in the podcast below…
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