Denver acquired Tom Workman from the Utah Stars on January 5, 1971 for a draft choice. Workman played 39 games for the Rockets, averaging 6.1 points, 3.4 rebounds and 0.9 assists in 12.5 minutes per game before Denver waived him the following September. The surviving reliable transaction ledgers do not identify the draft choice's round, year or eventual player, so Utah's realized return cannot be traced with enough confidence for a fair grade. The trade remains intentionally ungraded.
No separate canonical grade is recorded for Denver Nuggets, LOS Angeles Stars.
Basketball-Reference's Denver, Utah and league transaction logs agree on the core exchange: Utah sent Tom Workman to Denver on January 5, 1971 for a draft choice. The verdict reflects only verified transaction terms and realized team value. That means the existence of draft compensation is verified while the exact asset chain remains unresolved.
Workman supplied short-term frontcourt depth. Basketball-Reference credits him with 39 Denver games in 1970-71, averaging 6.1 points, 3.4 rebounds and 0.9 assists in 12.5 minutes while shooting 44.7 percent from the field. He had already played 17 games for Utah that season, so Denver was acquiring a known veteran rather than an untested prospect. His stay did not extend into the next season: the ABA transaction log records Denver waiving him on September 25, 1971.
Utah's return is the unresolved side of the trade. The Stars definitely received a draft choice, but none of the transaction records used here links that choice to a specific selection. Utah's January 1971 transaction history contains several other draft-choice moves around the same period, which makes inference especially risky. Assigning one of those later selections to the Workman deal without a direct source would create a false asset chain.
Denver received measurable but limited value: 39 regular-season games from a reserve forward-center, followed by a preseason waiver before 1971-72. Utah received an asset whose eventual value cannot currently be identified. That is not enough to declare the draft choice worthless, and it is not enough to claim Utah won simply because Denver's return was brief. A defensible comparison requires the missing pick outcome.
Insufficient Evidence. The January 5 transaction and Workman's Denver production are verified, but the draft choice's round, year and eventual player remain unresolved. The record therefore stays ungraded rather than converting an unknown draft asset into a guessed value. Confidence is high on the exchange itself and Workman's short Denver stint, but low on any winner determination until the compensation chain can be closed. The verdict reflects only verified transaction terms and realized team value.