It seems the only real consensus there is about what the Denver Nuggets should do with their first pick in the 2017 NBA Draft is that they need to pick an athletic, defensive-minded big man. There’s little consensus who that is, even in the Nuggets war room, says director of scouting Jim Clibanoff.
Clibanoff joined Eric Goodmand and Les Shapiro on Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7 in advance of Thursday night’s draft to offer his insight on where things stand for Denver.
When asked who he believes to be the best defender/athlete combo, Clibanoff wouldn’t tip his hand, but did suggest that the opinions vary inside the Nuggets front office.
“I think in this era of positionless basketball, we don’t even call them combos, they’re just bigs,” he told Goodman and Shapiro. “The way we run our offense you don’t have to really have to slot a guy in and say is he a center, is he a power forward. Each one of those guys has strengths and weaknesses to his profile and we really feel that let’s say eleven or twelve, down to twenty-one or twenty-two in this draft there is very little separation between those guys. So we have no consensus yet.
At pick No. 13, Denver will have plenty of options. There is sure to be experienced college players, as well as one-and-done types still on the board. However, according to Clibanoff, there aren’t necessarily any prospects that Denver would consider a perfect fit.
“Some of those guys, you have more seasoning to them but each one addresses some needs that we have and each one of them also has his own holes and that’s what happens as you descend in the first round. You’re not going to find that ideal prospect that checks every box,” he said.
Denver has plenty of young talent on the roster, and whoever they choose can expect to see only limited minutes, barring special circumstances.
“I’ll just say that over the last few seasons we did not expect Jusuf Nurkić to help us a great deal. We did not expect Nikola Jokic to help us a great deal. We didn’t expect Juan Hernangomez to help us last year a great deal.” Clibanoff said. “You know, injuries, guys will get moved, this and that. So from the outset we don’t expect that guy’s going to be getting thirty minutes per game. You know, if this guys has the right attitude, and that’s something we’ve also focused on quite a bit is making sure we have good culture people and I would hope that everyone out there can realize and recognize that the Denver Nuggets 2017 addition is a bunch of good dudes. So if that guy can accept eight, nine minutes of playing time to start the season, then for whatever reason or another he is launched into a eighteen-, nineteen-minute stint.”
Clibanoff did suggest that Denver is keeping its options open, and that they could find someone even as late as the early 20s in this draft to find a player who could factor into things more significantly this season.
“If [our draft pick] ends up being a rotation seventh man, we can’t place our expectations too high but at the same time there is an element of NBA readiness with a lot of these guys again in that eleven to twenty-one or twenty-two or twenty-three range that we feel can step in if needed.”
Listen to the full conversation with Clibanoff, including his thoughts on whether or not Denver might move up in the draft, in the podcast below.
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