Welcome to the 2026 NBA draft! The Denver Nuggets, and the rest of the NBA, will be looking to add some key young pieces to their championship contending core to not only bolster their chances of winning a title this year, but for many years beyond. Draft night is also one of the most active nights on the trade market with several teams looking to move up, move back or parlay picks and players to land their next big piece. Those festivities got kicked off a day early with the Milwaukee Bucks making a blockbuster trade sending superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat in exchange for a package of players and picks, including the thirteenth overall pick in tonight’s draft. What will the Nuggets end up doing? Only time will tell (but we’ve got some ideas).
The Basics
What: The 2026 NBA Draft
When: 6PM MDT
Where: The house that Mikhail built (on funds gained from profiteering during the collapse of the USSR), Brooklyn, NY.
How to watch: ABC & ESPN
Nuggets picks: #26 (1st round) & #49 (2nd round)
The Three Ways this can go
Good: The Nuggets are sitting in a weird spot for the draft. They are still chasing an elusive second title for Nikola Jokic and as he heads into his age 32 season, time is of the essence. While the #26 overall pick can certainly produce some outstanding players (Vlade Divac comes to mind) the chances of it producing a player who can help the Nuggets win now is less likely. However, they have had success picking late in the first round and getting a guy who can help immediately. Christian Braun was taken 21st overall in the 2022 draft and became a key role player during Denver’s title run. Still, recent history tells us a Nuggets late 1st rounder is more likely to take time to develop a la Peyton Watson and Daron Holmes. While snagging a contributor at 26 is possible, a best case scenario for the Nuggets probably ends up as a two birds, one stone type of maneuver where they simultaneously move up in the draft while also shedding some salary.
All eyes should be on Cam Johnson tonight from the Nuggets standpoint. Johnson, who shot 43% from three last season and is on an expiring $23 million contract, is likely Denver’s most tradeable player outside of Jokic. A number of teams could be interested in adding him to their roster in exchange for moving back in the draft. The tricky part is finding a team who wants to add him to the roster while moving back and is willing to take on extra salary. There is unfortunately not a lot of teams that are going to fit that description plus there’s the complication that any team that takes back more salary than they send out in a trade hard caps themselves at the first luxury tax apron. Most teams with cap space aren’t sitting in that sweet spot of 5-10 picks in front of Denver. You’ve got the Los Angeles Lakers who draft right in front of the Nuggets, or teams like the Washington Wizards who, even with Trae Young’s new deal, have ample space but also hold the #1 overall pick which they are definitely not trading to Denver. The Detroit Pistons are interesting, they’ve got enough space to take on about $8 million of Johnson’s but with Jalen Duren in restricted free agency, hard capping themselves could make things complicated.
The best case scenario? The Nuggets entice the Chicago Bulls, who have ample cap space, to trade them the 15th overall pick. Eleven spots is no easy jump, particularly when it requires the team trading back to take on added salary, so Denver’s deal will need to be a sweet one given Johnson is likely a one year rental for the Bulls. Something like the trade below (check out fanspo.com to try your hand at making trades in salary cap apron NBA era). Denver would free up the salary needed to re-sign Peyton Watson while also allowing themselves to release Jonas Valanciunas and save $8 million on the non-guaranteed portion of his contract given they’d have Jalen Smith as a ready replacement for the backup five spot. The Nuggets also would be selecting a player at #15 where their chances of landing an impact player are much higher. Still, you have to ask yourself, is moving up 11 spots and getting $13 million of breathing room enough of a return for Johnson and another pick? Tough call but one that might be the best the Nuggets can do tonight to put themselves in position to win in ’26/’27.
Bad: The second option for the Nuggets, which is less effective but still not terrible, is to simply stand pat tonight and take someone with the 26th overall pick. It’s not the worst option but it won’t do much to move the needle. The Nuggets do have some holes to fill in their second unit rotation, particularly at the bookends, and they could look to fill those holes with a rookie. Valanciunas seems likely to be a one year only player with the Nuggets. While Big Val wasn’t terrible as the backup five, he saw his rotation minutes get cut at the end of the year and in the playoffs. The way his contract is structured for next season ($10 million overall but only $2 million guaranteed) makes releasing him the easiest way for the Nuggets to find some of the money they need to re-sign Watson. Despite having two younger bigs already (Holmes and Zeke Nnaji) Denver could look to the draft to find a replacement for Jonas. Players like Henri Veesar or Taris Reed Jr. could be there at 26 and fit the bill as more high floor, low ceiling guys who could contribute sooner rather than later. Likewise, the Nuggets could be interested in more of a project big with Nnaji and Holmes already on board and take a chance on a guy like Chris Cenac Jr. or Jayden Quaintance who are more raw and need time to develop (or potentially just heal in the case of Quaintance).
On the opposite end, the Nuggets also are looking a bit thin at the guards. They have Jalen Pickett & Julian Strawther who showed flashes of being a competent backups last year, but lacked consistency. Otherwise, the veterans they leaned on the most off the bench, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bruce Brown, are free agents as is late season pickup Tyus Jones. There’s a cluster of point/combo guards in the late teens to early 20s pick range and it’s not unlikely that one could fall to the 26th pick whether that be Christian Anderson, Bennet Stirtz, Ebuka Okorie or Labaron Philon Jr. Anderson falling to 26 would be the most shocking while Stirtz probably fits best as a “can play now” type of guy, but also has regularly been projected to go in the top 20. Okorie and Philon are the more likely bets to slip to Denver’s spot but they also are more raw and potentially wouldn’t be able to help much in the upcoming season. Still, like is the case with Denver’s bigs, they have some guys they can turn to immediately in Pickett and Strawther and maybe someone like Philon can end up being a surprise and help the team sooner than they anticipated.
Ugly: Another option for Denver tonight, one that will surely draw jeers from Nuggets faithful, is to use the 26th overall pick to dump salary. This is where a team like the Wizards or Brooklyn Nets might come more into play. Both have two second round picks in this year’s draft, including Washington having the very last pick at #60. Both teams also have the cap space to absorb a player’s salary outright. Michael Scotto of Hoops Hype recently reported Denver’s signaled willingness to part with their first round pick if a team is willing to take on Nnaji’s salary. His $7.4 million owed this upcoming year isn’t a ton, unless your squeezed as tight to the second apron as Denver is, so Brooklyn or Washington could take him in a salary dump and still have money to play with (though it’s a bit tighter for the Nets).
It’s definitely an option that no one loves, but offloading Nnaji while moving back to the late second round does help Denver accomplish what appears to be their number one goal this Summer: retain Peyton Watson. Trading Nnaji in a pure salary dump where the Nuggets don’t take any players back in the trade frees up that $7.4 million, add in the $8 million from releasing Valanciunas (or potentially $9 million if they stretch the $2 million owed over the next two seasons with the stretch provision) and the Nuggets start getting really close to having the money to bring back Watson without having to give up Johnson, which may in fact be their best bet for competing next season. If Watson’s free agent market is a little flatter than anticipated or if the Nuggets deal Pickett or Holmes in another salary dump deal they could get there. Johnson or Watson is going to be a better player next season than anyone the Nuggets can draft outside of moving into the high lottery so in terms of maximizing talent on the roster it’s arguably the best move to accomplish that. It would be ugly though and yet another example of the Nuggets having to use draft picks to offload contracts, a practice that has rarely yielded positive results for them.
Good, bad or ugly, it should be a fun night with Denver having a pick available to them as well as quiet a bit of trade buzz. There’s always a chance too that they go nuclear and trade a member of their big three in a huge shakeup. I’m not anticipating that but crazier things have happened. Stay tuned on Denverstiffs.com all day to talk with your fellow Nuggets fans about what you’d like them to do during the draft and get everyone’s thoughts in real time as the draft plays out. Make sure to check out out some of our player/round profiles while you wait for 6PM to arrive and check in here after the draft for a full summary of Denver’s moves and the players they’ve added.
