NBA Draft
Chicago Bulls select Gary Harris at No. 19
Jeff Hawkins is an award-winning sportswriter with more than four decades in the industry (print and digital media). A freelance writer/stay-at-home dad since 2008, Hawkins started his career with newspaper stints in Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, Upstate New York and Illinois, where he earned the 2004 APSE first-place award for column writing (under 40,000 circulation). As a beat writer, he covered NASCAR Winston Cup events at NHIS (1999-2003), the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks (2003-06) and the NFL's Carolina Panthers (2011-12). Hawkins penned four youth sports books, including a Michael Jordan biography. Hawkins' main hobbies include mountain bike riding, 5k trail runs at the Whitewater Center in Charlotte, N.C., and live music.
All posts by Jeff HawkinsUpdated15 Oct 2021
As part of their trade with the Chicago Bulls, the Denver Nuggets also received the #19 selection in the draft, which they used on Michigan State shooting guard Gary Harris.
Harris at #19 was one of the better values of the night, as he was someone who many experts had pegged for the latter portion of the lottery. Specifically, several mock drafts actually had Denver taking Harris at #11, so adding #16 pick Jusef Nurkic in the trade and getting Harris at the #19 pick’s salary proved to be a pretty savvy move.
As for Harris, he’s a little bit undersized to play shooting guard in the NBA at only 6’4”, but his incredible success in the NCAA should make him a solid scorer for the Nuggets. Scoring is obviously his forte, and he does have NBA range, so combined with Arron Afflalo the shooting guard rotation in Denver looks a lot stronger than it did when the day started.
It also could signal the end for Randy Foye in Denver, but that’s a problem for further down the road. On daft night, the Nuggets turn one decent draft pick into two of them, and that’s a big enough win to call their evening a success.
