The Denver Nuggets draft picks in the 2023 NFL Draft helped the best get better. After winning the first NBA championship in franchise history, the Nuggets kept the good time rolling by crushing the NBA draft. The team took three players who will help keep the team at the top of the Western Conference in 2023-24 and beyond, including Julian Strawther from Gonzaga, Jalen Pickett from Penn State, and Hunter Tyson from Clemson. But the best move of the draft was taking Pickett in the second round.

Jalen Pickett was the best Nuggets draft pick in the 2023 NBA Draft

There is no question the Nuggets' draft picks are some of the best in the league in recent years. The core of the 2022-23 championship team is made from players the team selected in the NBA draft over the years.

Denver already boasts one of the best draft picks in league history. In 2014, the team took a chubby Serbian named Nikola Jokic at pick No. 41 in the second round. The pick seemed so inconsequential at the time, it happened during a Taco Bell commercial on the ESPN broadcast.

However, that second-round pick became a five-time All-Star, two-time NBA MVP, and now a world champ.

It doesn’t stop there, though. The team got another star in 2016, taking Kentucky’s Jamal Murray, and they took a risk on Missouri’s Michael Porter Jr., who played just three games in college, at No. 14 in 2018.

In the 2023 NBA Playoffs, even the team’s 2022 first-round pick, Kansas’ Christian Braun (No. 22) played a major role.

At the 2023 NBA draft, general manager Calvin Booth made several deals to move up and down the draft board, including a massive four-team deal that netted Denver all the players they took home during the draft. That trade looked like this:

  • Nuggets get: Julian Strawther (No. 29 pick), Jalen Pickett (No. 32 pick), Hunter Tyson (No. 37 pick), 2024 second-round pick
  • Pacers get: Mojave King (No. 47 pick), 2024 first-round pick (Oklahoma City via Denver), cash considerations
  • Lakers get: Maxwell Lewis (No. 40 pick)
  • Thunder get: 2029 first-round pick

Of that group, the player in the middle, Jalen Pickett, is the most intriguing of all the Nuggets draft picks.

Pickett played his high school ball at the Aquinas Institute in Rochester, NY (Go Lil’ Irish!), before heading to the low Division I program of Sienna College. The 6-foot-4 point guard dominated the competition at that level, winning the MAAC Player of the Year Award in 2020.

That led to a transfer to Penn State in the Big 10, where Pickett continued his upward trajectory. In just two seasons with the Nittany Lions, he became just the fourth player in program history to score over 2,000 points.

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Pickett isn’t your traditional modern NBA PG. His game is much more of a throwback to the 1990s than almost any lead guard in the league. He’s also 23 years old and didn’t put up great 3-point numbers until shooting 38.1% in his final year of college.

For these reasons, Pickett slipped to the second round of the 2023 NBA Draft. He simply isn’t a fit in most NBA offenses. That is, except for the Denver Nuggets.

The Nuggets have — in the most positive way possible — the most unorthodox offense in the league. No other team revolves around a slick-passing point-center like Jokic.

And with the team’s big man running the show, there is a great opportunity for a guard who plays like a big to get into the rotation. While Pickett can shoot and pass, he also excels posting up smaller guards or backing them down into the paint, like the old man at the YMCA (again, in the most positive ways). He’s also a phenomenal rebounder for a guard, pulling down 7.4 rebounds a game last season.

This opens up all types of possibilities for the Nuggets' offense, from putting Pickett down on the block to running an inverted pick-and-roll with Jokic on the ball and Pickett as the screener.

Coach Michael Malone showed with Braun this postseason that he’s not afraid to play rookies in crucial moments of the season or the playoffs. So, if Pickett’s game fits as well with Jokic as it seems it might, the former Penn State guard could see a lot of time next season.

It looks like, once again, Denver found a perfect Nuggets draft pick later than most expected. And Jalen Pickett could immediately play a role on the team that could grow into more as the season and years go along.

It's NBA draft picks like this that help champions like the Nuggets stay on top.