With the Denver Nuggets offseason in full effect, the front office has now set out to dissect the upcoming NBA Draft and the vast amount of players that are set to hit the market as free agents this year.
And as the Nuggets go, so do all of us here at Mile High Sports.
So over the next month we will be going position-by-position and breaking down the top five draft choices and potential free agents and their fit in Denver.
Today we will be breaking down the best shooting guards in the upcoming NBA Draft. It is arguably the most talent-rich position available this draft, so when it comes to the Nuggets purposes we will be looking at these five prospects ceiling, fit with Nuggets, and potential range they will fall into.
Timothè Luwawu, Mega Leks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmqHutlsgOI
Age: 21 years old Size: 6’7, 205 pounds
Last Season’s Stats: 14.6 points; 4.8 rebounds; 2.8 assists per game
Shooting Percentages: 39.8% from the field; 37.2% from three-point; 69% from the free throw line
Luwawu is the shooting guard for Nikola Jokic’s former team, Mega Leks of the Adriatic League. He is an explosive athlete who brings three-point shooting and a wingspan that is an engulfing seven feet. His defensive potential is up there with the best in the draft class and has a solid foundation on his jump shot. He is sure to have been scouted by the Nuggets already, being that they have one of the premier international scouting teams and signed Jokic out of Mega Leks just last year. He is a fiery and intense player on the court and that is something the Nuggets have lacked for the past decade.
Luwawu is slated to go somewhere between 14-24 and could rise higher than that. He is as enigmatic of a prospect as you get but could have a ceiling among those being taken in the high lottery. He has a crisp jump shot already and hit 37.2 percent of his three-point shots this year. Luwawu has shown great body control going to the rim. He consistently plays above the rim in the Adriatic league, and that creates the biggest question mark surrounding him: Will his athletic ability be able to translate to the NBA? He played in the pick-and-roll quite often with Mega Leks, which is a good sign for his development.
Out of all of the shooting guards in the 2016 NBA Draft class Timothè Luwawu has the best fit with the Nuggets. He already has the defensive versatility to guard 1-3 giving the Nuggets a potential lock down perimeter defender. He is a solid three point shooter and already has shown the smarts to take good cuts to the rim, as Gary Harris did all this season. A lineup of Mudiay, Luwawu, Chandler, Arthur, Nurkic is a defensive force that could switch everything 1-4. You can pencil me in as a huge believer in Timothè Luwawu and his fit in the Mile High City.
Jaylen Brown, California
Age: 20 years old Size: 6’7, 225 pounds
Last Season’s Stats: 14.6 points; 5.4 rebounds; 2.0 assists per game
Shooting Percentages: 43.1% from the field; 29.4% from three-point; 65.4% from the free throw line
Jaylen Brown is your typical “insane-upside, big-question-mark” prospect. He has a sure-fire NBA body and athletic ability. Defensively he is already a plus on whatever team drafts him. He is still only 20 years old and carries with him a California-Berkley level of intelligence off the basketball court.
He somehow averaged 14.6 point per game without any semblance of a jump shot. Brown shot 29.4 percent from the three-point line and struggled offensively outside of straight line drives to the hoop and transition opportunities. He does not have NBA-ready handles quite yet, which has led to trouble creating for himself, as well as others.
The issue isn’t the talent or ceiling with Brown. He has every ounce of ability a team could ever want in a prospect, but that has been his biggest downfall: It’s all been too easy. If he is going to reach his ceiling, than it is going to take time, as well as endless hours in the gym cleaning up basically every aspect of his game.
If he can fine-tune and buff out his game, he could be a defensive stopper on the perimeter who will tear teams to pieces in transition and stretch out to the three point line. He could potentially guard 1-4, and with an added jump shot, the lane would be his for the taking. That is a lot of ifs but I am not sure if taking him between three and five is worth the risk.
If he is available at the seventh slot when the Nuggets most likely pick, I am hoping they find a trade partner that wants him. He fits decently in the long term, but I personally would not want to put two non-shooters together in Emmanuel Mudiay and Jaylen Brown.
Jamal Murray, Kentucky
Age: 19 years old Size: 6’4, 207 pounds
Last Season’s Stats: 20 points; 5.2 rebounds; 2.2 assists per game
Percentages: 45.4% from the field; 40.8% from three-point; 78.3% from the free throw line
Jamal Murray’s game has thoroughly been dissected. He is an absolute score-first guard, who has physical limitations offensively and defensively. His intangibles are through the roof and he brings with him a gym-rat mentality and a purely basketball focused mindset. He has extreme issues defensively, not because of effort but because of his lack of quickness, strength and size.
His fit next to Mudiay is undeniable. He can score in a variety of ways and is as pure from behind the three-point arc, 40.8 percent, as anyone in this draft class. He brings spacing and a score first mentality that would greatly benefit the offense. He needs to get slightly better in the pick and roll but that will come over time.
To me he will never be a difference maker for the Nuggets, especially as someone who is slated to go from third to sixth in the draft. Murray, in time, could win two or three Sixth Man of the Year awards and that is nothing to scoff at, but as the player that would fit with the Nuggets long-term plans he is not the player to trade up to get.
Buddy Hield, Oklahoma
Age: 22 years old Size: 6’4, 214 pounds
Last Season’s Stats: 25 points; 5.7 rebounds; 2.0 assists per game
Shooting Percentages: 50.1% from the field; 45.7% from three-point; 88% from the free throw line
Buddy Hield brings a definite elite skill with him to the NBA: shooting. He was just two free throw percentage points from joining the “180” club (50 percent from the field, 40 percent from three-point, 90 percent from free throw) and hit 45.7 percent of his three point shots.
Averaging 25 points and carrying the Oklahoma Sooners on his back for the majority of the year is not an easy task, buy Hield passed with flying colors. He has improved his game every single year in his four-year career at Oklahoma and is arguably the most NBA-ready player in the draft. Add a better slashing and penetration game and he has evolved himself into a versatile scorer
The only big things holding him back are his age and his physical limitations. With Hield being a senior, he has played a lot of basketball and will be in his “peak” years sooner rather than later. Only standing six foot four, with a wingspan of six foot eight inches he may have issues creating his shot, either at the rim or beyond the three-point line.
With Hield being shown as high as the third pick in different mock drafts and his limited upside, I do not see him as a likely pick of the Nuggets. He does provide shooting, but outside of that, he does not have any other big aspects to his game. The Nuggets would have to trade up to get him, and that would take quite a few assets to pull off. I do not see them as a match this year.
Denzel Valentine, Michigan State
Age: 22 years old Size: 6’5, 220 pounds
Last Season’s Stats: 19.2 points; 7.5 rebounds; 7.8 assists per game
Shooting Percentages: 46.2% from the field; 44.4% from three-point; 85.3 % from the free throw line
Denzel Valentine is as hard of a prospect to decide on as there is. He is as offensively versatile as any player coming out of college. He shot 44.4 percent from the three-point line, was used as a point-forward, was the leading defensive rebounder by wings per Draft Express at 8.5 defensive rebounds per 40 minutes, and was as efficient as they come with a 61.5 true shooting percentage.
He does not come without his own set of issues. Valentine, like Hield, is a senior and is 22 years old. He is already three to five years out from his best years as a pro. He also has issues athletically. For someone who is 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, he uses it awfully bad. Valentine has not been able to score at the rim very efficiently and that is just going to get magnified once he makes the leap to the NBA. Couple that with issues defensively and you have some real concerns. If I were in Tim Connelly’s shoes I would be staying away from Valentine.