This might take a while but please take the time to hear me out.

Waking up on draft day with a lottery pick it's hard to imagine the Nuggets ending the day in a worse position, unless they're run by GarPax. Fortunately we're not, unfortunately the day still ended up incredibly disappointing for all Nuggets fans and people involved (evidenced by the clear look of dejection on Connelly's face.)

I just wanted to start on the trades. We've been harping on for what feels like 5 years now that the Nuggets roster was far too overcrowded. We tried the 12 Deep thing highlighted by the hype up video preseason for the now infamous Brian Shaw led Nuggets team that failed miserably. This last season, it really looked as if the team turned a corner, led mostly due to the fact that Nikola Jokic is arguably the greatest human ever. But bubbly away under the surface was a variety of issues faced due in part to the roster construction. Wilson Chandler grumbled about his role and likely will be moved on before this seasons trade deadline, Nurkic forced his way out of Denver in what looks worse by the day (i'll touch on this shortly), Faried went from role player to DNP to Starter, Mudiay lost his starting position and his spot in the rotation and for the large part Murray and Juancho saw less minutes than they deserved. This all happened because there was 10 or so players who deserved to play 15+ minutes but not that many minutes to be had.

It's clear as day that the Nuggets FO knew they had to clear up this roster, the development of the young players relies on it. The hot topic was always going to be Jimmy Butler, i'm not overly concerned by missing out on him, he's a star who's almost 28 and probably isn't on the Nuggets timeline and it would be hard to swallow giving up a lot of young talent without knowing how long he'd be in town. The Bledsoe trade was a lot more realistic and the one i believe TC was so disappointed about. It's a good starting point by shedding two players (Mudiay + 13) for Bledsoe while effectively losing a third player (doubt Jameer stays on as the 3rd PG). Could this have turned into a bigger deal? Would Phoenix have entertained an offer including Bender? We'll never know. But something had to be done to cut down the numbers of this roster and once again the front office showed they weren't capable of getting it done. Leading in to the actual drafting, I wanted to touch on the Nurkic trade. I was all for Nurkic being traded, he didn't work with Jokic and was never going to be happy. But throwing in the first round pick was unjustifiable then, and it looks worse now! The logic we were fed at the time was there's no way this roster has room for 2 first rounders next season so just throw it in?! A first has more value than that. So you lose the better player as well as a first. Terrible. Then come draft night, you trade down from 13 to receive Trey fricken Lyles and 24 meaning you are now bringing in 2 players anyway when there supposedly was no room?! Important to note; Entirely possible you're bringing in 2 worse players. Add onto the top of this terrible icing is are we even certain Plumlee is re-signed? I'll go over that later.

Moving on to the actual drafting, i'm not a big College guy, being from Aus it's a bit harder to keep track but going in to the day I had my heart set on OG. The Nuggets needed to come away from this draft with defense and OG provided that to the highest degree. His delayed start to the season was not a huge factor because it just means the Nuggets bring back Chandler, let him start the season at SF and move him at the deadline with OG healthy and hopefully start Juancho at the 3 for the remainder of the season. I figured we go for a 3 or 4 and could've also been talked into John Collins even though he's undersized and not a great defender. But the Nuggets got too cute, they overcomplicated things and drafted Lydon, a stretch 4 who looks overweight and can't defend. Didn't we get him by also taking on Lyles, a stretch 4 who can't defend? To go with Darell Arthur a shooting 4 who kinda can defend. We also have a range of other 4's. This just made no sense to me. Why draft another Power Forward who you can't start alongside Jokic?! It wouldn't surprise me if Nuggets thought they'd still be able to get OG at 24 butttt they didn't and now they have egg on their face. Masai wins again . As for Cankar, he'll never play an NBA minute. Monte Morris had an impressive enough college career and seems he could carve out a nichè as an NBA backup, but at the PG position with Murray, Nelson, Mudiay at the moment, it's tough to see where he fits. Yet, this pick was the one Nuggets fans were most happy with. That's concerning. So how do you really get yourself excited off this haul? I can't. So let's look at the roster.

You want something that concerns me, yesterday Connelly said it would be hard for anyone we draft to have a significant role next season." In other words, don't expect playing time for anyone we draft. Do you know who should say that? Championship caliber teams, not a young core who's missed the playoffs for 4 years in a row and is picking in the lottery. That's such a problem to me that a team, with clearly enough holes to miss a postseason and finished sub .500 can't carve out room for a lottery pick to see minutes. Yes, i agree this team needs to lose players and quick. Let's take a quick look at where the team is at as of right now.

PG: Murray, Nelson, Mudiay, Morris

SG: Harris, Barton, Beasley, Miller

SF: Gallinari (UFA), Chandler, Hernangomez

PF: Faried, Arthur, Lyles, Lydon

C: Jokic, Plumlee (RFA), Hibbert (UFA).

That's 18 names. Now logically speaking, you can cut Hibbert out of that group because he wont be re-signed. But other than that, who knows. That's 17 players before free agency even starts! So you can't even begin to look at bringing in players with that kind of mess. Personally, i think Gallinari is gone which is a shame but understandable. He's amazing and i wish him all the best in the future. We're down to 16. Does Plumlee re-sign? I think he does and by god they better not overpay him. I think the Nuggets FO does everything they can to keep him purely for the fact that you didn't just trade Nurkic and picks 13 & 25 for Trey Lyles and Tyler Lydon. Please do not vomit. What's that? You're vomiting at that even if we keep Plumlee? Oh ok carry on.

I’ve been advocating heavily on twitter for the Nuggets to make a strong run at Millsap and i expect they will. But it's hard to see that happening with the depth chart as is. Luckily for the Hawks, they want to sign and trade for Millsap and the Nuggets have no choice but to give in to that as they have no damn room to sign him outright. Millsap would work great next to Jokic, brings great defense and all star talent to the team and that's badly needed. He's a true pro and would be a great fit. I suspect Millsap and a pick for Faried, Mudiay probably gets it done. Might seem like a lot to give for a free agent but as Adam Mares mentioned on his pod, the Nuggets are now dealing from a position of weakness. I'm not a GM so i'm not going to throw up names of players we could trade for because it all depends on package and willingness to come to Denver, but ideally, my Nuggets base depth chart looks like this into next season, you can fill in the blanks of who we get for trading out the players from above. For the sake of me having no idea what it will take to S&T for Millsap, i'm keeping Mudiay in this.

Starters:

Murray

Harris

Chandler

Millsap

Jokic

Backups:

PG: Mudiay, Morris

SG: Beasley, Miller

SF: Hernangomez

PF: Lyles, Lydon

C: Plumlee, Arthur.

So now we're down to 14 as i've removed Barton, Gallo & Nelson from this list. As i mentioned, feel free to trade away more pieces and fill in who we get in return. As you can see, this is still clogged up, i really don't have the answer right now. This roster probably needs two trades to get somewhere where we can have clearly defined roles for all players. It's going to be a full on few weeks with free agency opening in a week. But it's safe to say draft night was a disaster for the Nuggets and somehow, we ended the night without improving. On the bright side, the F.O have time to turn this around and consolidate their assets. The team needs a direction and I hope we find it. Going young might lead to a step back in the W-L column but i'm sure it'll be worth it. The core is just about there.

The Nuggets have our superstar in Nikola Jokic. That's the hardest bit. Have a guy called Jamal Murray who could be anything. Gary Harris, well he's pretty damn good as well. We're almost there, just a bit more hard work to go. The path got cloudier tonight, but it's still going the right way. Let's hope it clears up.

Please let me know your thoughts and feel free to engage me on twitter @itsadrizzle Thanks for sticking around if you're still here.