You had to forfeit your first round pick to make a territorial pick. So effectively speaking he was still picked 10th and two teams just decided that so and so local prospect was worth jumping the line for.

All 9 teams in the league skipped over him as the first player they wanted, that’s the important part.

You’re right, Basketball Reference includes territorial picks and I got his resume from there. Should really be how it’s done since they cost a first to make.

I agree. You can argue for him to be technically in but you can also argue the reverse and being 8th or 10th picked overall is radically different from someone like Jokic picked past pick 40 or even Ginobili who was legit picked 57 albeit partly for the reason he wasn’t going to come over to the US straight away. 

I would say he also fits for what it intends in that he was overlooked since every team willingly passed on him once. It’s a weird gray area where he makes sense and also doesn’t.

I think contextualizing it is important.

Jokic is easily 1st place and Reed is easily 2nd place on this list. The conversation starts after that.

Absolutely jokic at 1, nobody is arguing that at all

If your argument for Manu or Draymond over Brunson is “Brunson has only been a star for 4 years”, I think that’s fair. If your argument is Manu or Draymond over Brunson because Brunson is a bad defender I feel like you’re taking the defensive weakness argument way overboard. At the end of the day we’re talking about a superstar All-NBA player that has consistently had his team in contention for years and led them to a championship.

I’m an ENORMOUS Draymond hater and I still feel like it’s disingenuous to say he’s not one of the most versatile, complete, and high IQ defenders in history. 

You can hate Draymond, and I believe Rodman is better but I don’t get why haters have to always be irrational. He’s a great defender, good passer, with ridiculous bball iq

Your fiery green gown sneers at the grassy ground

draymond is better at everything rodman did but rebound lmao your hatred of draymond is blinding you of his greatness, amazing passer, great screen setter. before he fucked his back he was a good scorer and not to mention could guard 1-5 at an elite level in his prime

This is one of the lowest iq takes I’ve read in a while. Statistically greater impact on defense by draymond without any shadow of a doubt. More versatile, covered a weaker defensive roster, played legit centre minutes (don’t even start with rodman vs shaq).

Rodman is objectively the best/one of the best ever at something in the sport.

Multiple somethings, he’s got an argument for being the best defensive player of the modern era as well as being the indisputable best rebounder of the modern era.

In addition to what others have said about Draymond’s defensive prowess, he was also the fulcrum of GSW’s historic offense. I still rank Rodman higher, but we’re talking about two all-time greats here.

Rodman is not objectively the best at anything. I assume you mean rebounding, and Rodman is at 24th on the all-time list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NBA_career_rebounding_leaders

Rodman won the most rebounds per season in a row at 7, but those were his only 7 and Wilt won it 11 times. Moses Malone won it 6 times, almost in a row but for one year. Kevin Garnett won it 4 times in a row and Dwight Howard won it 5 times with just one year breaking that streak. And all of those players were more well-rounded and better scorers than Rodman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NBA_annual_rebounding_leaders

I’m not the biggest Draymond fan, but he is imo a far better and more well-rounded player overall than Rodman.

Draymond vs. Brunson is interesting if Brunson wins another championship. Best player on 2x championship teams vs. generational role player on 4x championship teams.

it’s not even fanboying, realistically when building a team there are a lot of people that would take Rodman over Manu. No slight to Manu, but the fact that Rodman could lock up Manu, cause certainly wouldn’t be vice versa. Rodman was an absolute menace. Did all the dirty work with intensity. Imo, Bulls wouldn’t have won what they did without Rodman.

DJ was a fucking stud, it’s a shame modern fans aren’t really familiar with him.

I’m an admittedly biased Spurs fan as well, BUT highly recommend everyone with some time to spare watch this piece by the great minds at Thinking Basketball that delves into both the tape and data behind how underappreciated Manu is for the Spurs dynasty and how his accolades and box score stats grossly under represent his imapct and value. He’s in my top 5.
https://youtu.be/o9XbDCXLE94?is=qK3FB7czKBK5pvn7

Haha, for real. Low standards there i guess. The Middleton at #3 was a bit of a giveaway I suppose

They didn’t mention Dennis Johnson either

Woah, they didn’t even mention him? Wild.

It seems like there’s a bunch of Hall of Famers missing if I’m reading your post correctly. 

Tiny Archibald (top 75 all time) was a second round pick. That’s an even bigger snub than Maurice Cheeks. 

He was the 19th pick with fewer teams but if Willis Reed is listed as a second rounder as the 8th pick, then I think having Tiny is fair since he literally was a second round pick at his time. 

I saw the article said Willis is 1st, he is definitely not still over Jokic. Willis had a very short career. The only argument you could really still have for Willis is that he has that second ring. But Willis was not still a bonafide superstar in 73, he was splitting minutes heavily with Jerry Lucas by that point because of all the injuries. Jokic has more top 2 MVP finishes than Willis has All-NBA appearances at this point.

Reed won league MVP in 1970 and he had a very good argument for winning it in 1969 too over Unseld. Gave Russell’s Celtics a real run for their money in Russell’s final season, lost Game 6 in Boston by 1 point in Boston with a chance to take it back to MSG but Clyde Frazier was hurt that series. Came back the next year in 1970 with the best record in the league and won it all. The reason Reed isn’t higher up on all time rankings or talked about more often is because his prime was really short due to a ton of injuries. Prime for prime though it’s highly unlikely there’s 50 players with a better resume.

If you want more ABA info Loose Balls in an incredible book

Edit: the 3pt shot was invented by the ABL in the early 60s before the ABA used it.

In what way? In what possible way is a career sixth man, who averaged 13 points a game, somehow in the same universe as the all time leading scorer for a franchise? An 8 time all-star, and right now, the second greatest player in Denver Nuggets history?

What are you basing any of this on? Because you like Manu? Where is Ginobili on the all time Spurs list of players? Are you putting him above Gervin? Tony Parker?

By the way. You not only missed English in your initial post. You missed he’s in the Hall of Fame in your revised post.

why do u hurt me Spurs fan? I’ve always been loyale to you, what is this?

Who pays for the front office, coaching and development staff that doesn’t count against the cap? Ownership.
The whole reason things have gone downhill for the Nuggets stems from Stan Kroenke being cheap and proud. He could’ve paid Connelly who was the lowest paid GM at the time but got his feeling hurt and let him go. Then instead of finding a top GM he just took Tim’s assistant Calvin and made him GM and we all know how the story goes from there.
Stan Kroenke is to blame for Jokic’s legacy, whatever it turns out to be.

The Nuggets have never been over the equivalent of the second apron in the history of their team. They have paid a total of \(79M in taxes since that's been a thing, and \)58M of that has been paid since 2022. The CBA and the second apron are not the reason the Nuggets aren’t spending more. Teams are businesses and outside of a few notable exceptions, they will not outspend revenue.

How many years have the Nuggets been tax payers? Reevaluate.