The draft order is locked. The Denver Nuggets will be on the clock at No. 26, if they keep their pick.
Sunday’s NBA Draft Lottery gave Washington the No. 1 pick — the Wizards’ first since John Wall in 2010 — followed by Utah, Memphis and Chicago.
The Nuggets are looking for something fresh after a first-round exit, and having picks in the draft is different than last offseason when they had none. Meaning it will be co-GMs Jonathan Wallace and Ben Tenzer’s first draft.
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Denver will hope to do what it did back in 2022, when they added a rookie with a late first that helped the team right away. Then it was Christian Braun. Thanks to Braun’s ballooning salary and the rest of the roster’s price tag, Denver is riding a razor-thin margin, meaning they need to hit on this pick.
Ownership will likely want to duck the luxury tax, despite saying they would pay last week. Meaning, Peyton Watson restricted free agency could add up to the salary dump of another starter. Aaron Gordon’s name is floating in trade talks. Jonas Valanciunas has a partially guaranteed deal and could be waived by July 8.
All of this is going to put even more pressure on the Nuggets front office to hit on their soon-to-be rookie.
Here’s who the national mock drafts are projecting for Denver:
ESPN: Dailyn Swain, SG/SF, Texas (junior) — The most obvious Watson-replacement pick on the board. Swain is a physical, switchable wing — 17.3 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.6 steals per game — with legitimate defensive versatility and positional size. The shooting needs work (34.8% from deep), but 81.3% from the line suggests he can get there. If Watson walks, Swain slots right into the role Denver would need to fill.
The Athletic: Bennett Stirtz, G, Iowa (senior) — An entirely different approach. Stirtz is a 6-4 guard who went nuclear down the stretch, averaging 21.5 points with a 47.2% field goal clip and 87.2% from the line over Iowa’s final 25 games en route to the Elite Eight. Elite shooter, elite feel. The concern is rim pressure and defensive limitations. Denver could use the ball handling, something targeted in the team’s postseason news conference.
NBC Sports: Tarris Reed Jr., C, UConn — A defense-first big man who helped UConn make a tournament run. Reed projects as a bench center who could contribute as a rookie — not a sexy pick, but a practical one if Valanciunas is gone and the team needs a warm body behind Nikola Jokic. Denver still has former first rounder DaRon Holmes II, who has barely played, but he likely projects as a power forward more than a center — giving room for Reed.
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CBS Sports: Joshua Jefferson, PF, Iowa State (senior) — he went from role player at Saint Mary’s to a consensus All-American at Iowa State, averaging 16.4 points, 7.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists while helping the Cyclones win 29 games. He’s a big forward who does a little of everything and could slide in between Murray and Jokic. Ranked 37th on CBS’s board, which means he could be a slight reach at 26 but a solid fit — especially for a team who spent much of the 2025-26 season down at least one power forward.
USA Today: Cameron Carr, G, Baylor (junior) — An athletic wing and shooting combo. Carr was the only player in the country to record at least 40 dunks and 60 made 3-pointers this season, per Bart Torvik. He could be a solid gunning, scoring threat for the Nuggets bench.
And as I wrote last week, there’s the Zuby Ejiofor angle. The St. John’s star — BIG EAST Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Abdul-Jabbar Award finalist — has a workout scheduled with Denver following the combine. Ejiofor is 6-9, 245 with a 7-1 wingspan, defends everything, finishes at the rim and led the Red Storm in assists as a senior.
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The theme across the mocks is clear: wing or big, someone who defends and fits the Jokic ecosystem. Whether it’s Swain filling Watson’s shoes, Jefferson sliding in at the four or Ejiofor doing the dirty work Gordon used to own, pick No. 26 has to hit. The Nuggets can’t afford for it not to, unless they trade it to help dump one of those big-name guys covered above.
The NBA Draft is in late June.