As Tuesday’s NBA Draft Lottery approaches, fans across the Mile High City are holding out hope that for the first time in the team’s history the Denver Nuggets will see their draft position improve.
Since its inception in 1985, the Nuggets have been lottery participants on 12 occasions. In those 12 years they have never improved their draft position and on four occasions, including 2014, they have held their position with no movement.
The Nuggets enter Tuesday’s draft lottery at the No. 7 position with a mere 4.3 percent chance at landing the No. 1 overall pick.
Twice they have entered the lottery with the best odds of landing the first overall pick, only to see their position drop – first in 1991 when they moved from No. 1 to No. 4 and selected Dikembe Mutombo and again in 1998 when they dropped from first to third and took Raef LaFrentz.
Given the Nuggets’ history of holding pat or dropping positions, the research team at Mile High Sports did some digging into the best No. 7 draft picks in the history of Denver sports. It’s a short list that features zero Nuggets, Broncos or Avs.
Only the Rockies, Rapids, Mammoth and Outlaws have made selections at the seventh spot in their respective drafts.
Here are the most noteworthy seven…
No. 7 – Matt Harrington (Rockies, 2000): Harrington holds the unique distinction of being the only player in baseball history to be drafted for five consecutive years and never sign a contract. Colorado selected the right-handed pitcher from West Valley, California in 2000 but the two sides failed to come to terms. Harrington turned down four more MLB teams in the draft and finally inked a minor league deal with the Cubs in 2006. He was released in 2007.
No. 7 – Dan Carey (Mammoth, 2005): Selected in the 2005 NLL Entry Draft, Carey played five seasons for the Mammoth, including a championship campaign in his rookie season in 2006. Carey received the NLL Sportsmanship Award in 2008 and retired in 2012 due to multiple concussions.
No. 7 – Hunter Freeman (Rapids, 2005): Freeman spent his first two years with the Rapids, appearing in 47 MLS matches, including 38 starts, during that time. He played for three other MLS clubs and Norway’s IK Start between 2007 and 2011 before returning to Colorado in 2012. The Rapids declined his contract option in 2013 and he currently plays for the New York Cosmos of the NASL, winning a championship in his first year with the club.
No. 7 – Brian Megill (Outlaws, 2013): At Syracuse, Megill finished his college career with 190 ground balls and 103 caused turnovers, good for best in school history. That led to 9 appearances with the Outlaws in 2013, a year in which the team completed MLL’s first-ever perfect season. Megill was traded to Chesapeake in 2014 in exchange for midfielder Dom Sebastiani and the 8th overall pick in the 2014 MLL Collegiate Draft.
No. 7 – Doug Million (Rockies, 1994): The potential was through the roof with Million, the 1994 Gatorade High School Player of the Year, whom the Rockies selected with their first pick of their third-ever first-year player draft. Million met a tragic end, however, four years into his minor league career when he died shortly after suffering an asthma attack. He struggled in his final season, posting a combined 5-14 record with a 6.32 ERA in 28 games at Salem (A+) and New Haven (AA).
No. 7 – Matt Danowski (Mammoth, 2008): Danowski left Duke as the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer and a two-time winner of the Jack Turnbull Award for the nation’s most outstanding attackman (2005, ’07), two-time winner of the USILA’s Lt. Raymond Enners Award (2007, ’08) and the 2007 Tewaaraton Trophy, awarded to the nation’s most outstanding collegiate lacrosse player. The highly-awarded collegiate star played just one season for Colorado and left indoor lacrosse entirely after four games with Philadelphia in 2012. He currently plays for the Charlotte Hounds of the MLL.
No. 7 – Troy Tulowitzki (Rockies, 2005): Easily the most-identifiable name on this list, Tulowitzki has anchored the Rockies infield and middle of the batting order since his Major League debut in 2007. Tulo spent less than two years in the minors before making the jump to the bigs. Since that time he’s racked up more than 1100 hits and 178 home runs with a career .298 batting average and .886 OPS, not to mention four All-Star selections, two Gold Glove and two Silver Slugger awards.