DENVER — Here’s what I could hear in the background when Niko Medved called from someone’s living room in Minneapolis late Thursday night, sitting a few feet away from NBA first-round draft pick David Roddy.

Laughs, screaming, crying, slappy hugs (the kind you can hear), “YEAH, BABY!” I heard one of the best kinds of joy. Dream-realized joy.

“I can’t even tell you what it’s like here,” said Medved, the Colorado State coach who signed a 3-star basketball recruit and four years later Roddy went to the Memphis Grizzlies at No. 23 overall in the draft. “It doesn’t get better than this. We’re so thrilled for David. It’s unbelievable.”

Hey, kids. Mute the Rivals and Scout rankings on Twitter and try this new dance all the cool kids are doing. Do “The Roddy”: Throw every ounce of your being into a passion and hit the big time.

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CSU hoops secured its highest draft pick since Bill Green in 1963 when the Grizzlies cashed in on Roddy betting on himself. Gosh, Memphis is going to love this guy. Ja Morant, Brandon Clarke and Roddy are either going to be BFF or mortal enemies because they all play so dang hard. Roddy plays like tomorrow’s cut day.

Roddy was a junior this year when he was named Mountain West player of the year and led CSU to the NCAA tournament. So he could have returned for another sure-fire NCAA repeat.

Nope. Our guy knows his value. A whole bunch of folks said he wasn’t ready (maybe two or three rookies are ready for the NBA, if we’re being honest), wouldn’t be drafted, yada, yada, yada, and what do you know? An NBA championship contender for the next 10 years believed in David Roddy. He’ll make over $2.3 million next season alone. That’s real belief.

“So freaking cool. It’s so freaking cool,” Medved told me, and that was a man on Cloud Nine. “You just have this overwhelming joy for David. When you know him, and he’s an incredible player, but he’s an even better person. And you know how much work he’s put in. Every day this dude was all-in for the program and the university. To see it manifest it’s just so special.”

This column was supposed to be about Calvin Booth in his first NBA draft as Nuggets general manager, by the way, how Booth, a smart man, should take notes from Ball Arena roommate Joe Sakic on how Sakic positioned the Avalanche one win away from a Stanley Cup title. Game 5 is Friday night in LoDo, if you haven’t heard.

That’s still all true. Booth should hook up with Sakic. (Sakic once job-shadowed John Elway at Broncos HQ, and look how that’s turned out for the awesome Avs, who can clinch the Cup Friday in Game 5.) Then David Roddy happened, and that’s a heckuva lot cooler story than the Nuggets taking Kansas forward Christian Braun at No. 21 and UCLA wing Peyton Watson at 30.

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A couple weeks out from Nuggets governor Josh Kroenke saying “it’s championship or bust” for the Nuggets, the Nuggets are no closer to a championship Friday morning than they were Thursday morning. No one knows if they’ll turn out to be good long-term picks, but the Nuggets themselves said they’re not long-termers any more. Braun’s a fighter. Nuggets coach Michael Malone will like him, and Braun will play more minutes his rookie season than anyone expects. Good or bad, he will. Watson’s a project. The Nuggets graduated (with honors) from the project phase.

You know what? That’s not fair. Give the Braun and Watson picks a couple years and see if they turn out better than my preferences: Ohio State’s EJ Liddell and Gonzaga’s Andrew Nembard. But this was not a “championship or bust” moment for the Nuggets. This was mixed messages.

But Roddy happened, and it’s been over 60 years since a Roddy happened for CSU basketball. It was “so awesome,” Medved said from a draft party in Roddy’s hometown in Minnesota. It’s no surprise Medved flew out there for this exact moment. Truth is, Medved had every reason to lure Roddy back to CSU, to tell him he’s a year away from guaranteed money as a first-round pick. That’s what sticks with me: Medved encouraged Roddy to pursue his dream.

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The coach supported what’s best for the man, not for his program and new contract, and that’s love. After an NCAA Tournament loss to Michigan, I asked Medved in Indianapolis if there was a possibility Roddy would leave CSU early. Medved supported the idea: “David can play at the next level,” he said back in March Madness.

“After his sophomore year I told every (NBA) guy who would listen: David’s going to play in your league,” Medved said. “Then the work he put in from his sophomore to junior year, it was incredible. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

And that’s a coach who’s got your back.

“What does this say for us? I think it just says you’ve got a young man who’s always bet on himself and believed in us and the vision we had for him,” Medved said late Thursday. “He came in and gave everything he had. It goes to show you that you can do that and you can do it at CSU and in our program. You can do that at Colorado State.”

Do The Roddy.