Nuggets select Emmanuel Mudiay 7th overall
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The Denver Nuggets took advantage of some disarray at the top of the lottery, selecting point guard Emmanuel Mudiay with the No. 7 overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft on Thursday night.
Thanks to spending this past season playing with the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association, Mudiay was one of the more unknown quantities at the top of the draft, and the Nuggets didn't even manage to bring him in for a workout. Still, his gamble hasn't hurt him too badly.
After entering the year as the No. 2 prospect in the class, Mudiay opted to forgo a season at SMU in favor of signing a $1.2-million deal in China, and later an endorsement deal with Under Armour. Now the seventh pick and the second point guard taken in the draft, Mudiay's lost over $2 million in potential rookie-scale income, but he'd surely say a year spent helping provide for his family was worth the short slide on draft night.
It also stands as a potential boon for the Nuggets, who land an elite talent a few slots later than he may have gone, and can now seemingly move ahead with their plan to deal incumbent point guard Ty Lawson. Mudiay was more highly regarded than fellow point guard and No. 2 overall pick D'Angelo Russell before the season, and while the unfamiliarity an injury-shortened season in China created is real for decision-makers, it shouldn't have changed the book on Mudiay much.
He remains an elite physical specimen, big and strong enough to carve through NBA defenses and to the rim, where he can help create for teammates. He's not yet much of a shooter - he has the size to play the two, though may not have the jumper to survive off-ball - but he should prove a terrific slasher. He has the body and athleticism of a good defender, too, but it's tough to judge that part of his game with so little film and without the benefit of reports from head-to-head workouts.