NBA draft: Nuggets lack 1st-round pick, but willing to deal

DENVER — The Denver Nuggets lack a first-round pick in the NBA draft for the fourth straight year. That doesn't mean they'll simply be spectators Thursday night.

With the 34th overall pick in the second round, the Nuggets are willing to move up into the latter part of the first round if the right player falls to them and the right trade partner comes along.

"We're more up on our toes, looking to be aggressive, than back on our heels and in a defensive posture," said Mark Warkentien, the Nuggets' vice president of basketball operation and reigning NBA executive of the year.

"That wouldn't be a major upset, but the right guy has to show up."

That right guy would likely be a point guard.

The Nuggets, who won a franchise-best 54 games and nearly beat the league champion Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals, have three point guards who will be in their 30s next season: Chauncey Billups, Anthony Carter and Jason Hart.

They'd love nothing more than to come out of this draft with a young point guard who can take some of Billups' minutes and keep him fresh deeper into the postseason.

Billups tired out toward the end of the conference championship after leading the Nuggets within a whisker of their first trip to the NBA finals.

The good thing for Denver is that this year's draft is deepest at point guard.

The last time the Nuggets had a first-round pick was 2005, before the current front office regime took over.

In '06, they picked Leon Powe with the 49th overall selection and sent him to Boston. They had no picks in '07 or '08. But it's a misnomer to say they didn't do well on draft day those years when you consider who they ended up with on their roster.

Under Warkentien, who made a name for himself on draft day in Portland, the Nuggets have built one of the league's best teams in the most unconventional of ways.

In '06, they traded for J.R. Smith, who has emerged as one of the league's best and most exciting sixth men and who is certain to get starter's minutes next season.

In '07, they had two first-round picks going into the season and traded them to Philadelphia for Allen Iverson, who in turn was dealt to Detroit last November for Billups in the biggest trade in franchise history. They also acquired Von Wafer, who was a starter in the playoffs for Houston last season.