The NBA Draft Lottery no one expected
The NBA Draft Lottery finished tonight before Warriors-Blazers started and the New Orleans Pelicans jumped up from six percent odds to get the top-pick in the draft. The Memphis Grizzlies and Los Angeles Lakers also jumped into the top four with the second and fourth picks respectively while the New York Knicks got the third pick.
The are many questions to be answered after the draft lottery. Most notably what the Pelicans will do with Anthony Davis now that they have the first pick. Also to be answered is how sad Knicks fans are after not winning the Zion-sweepstakes (hint: I am one and we are all sad).
The Pelicans are likely to take Zion Williamson in the draft, immensely helped out are their motives of keeping Anthony Davis in New Orleans. Davis reportedly still wants to be traded even with the team owning the top pick. Will the Pelicans trade him to the Lakers for their pick? What about to New York? David Griffin, their general manager, has a tough task ahead with Davis’ trade request — but Zion Williamson is a pretty good consolation prize if you absolutely have to move Davis.
Memphis is going to be picking second where Ja Morant is currently slated as a prospect according to almost every NBA big board. The Grizzlies still have Mike Conley under contract, but teams will be interested in trading for him should they decide to move on from him, which might be the idea if they pick Morant second.
New York’s third pick is likely going to be RJ Barrett who is the third prospect on most draft boards. Knicks fans are devastated by the third pick, I know from personal experience. RJ Barrett is a good — maybe great — player but he’s just not as awesome as Zion. Priests, witches and a rabbi were outside of the iconic Knicks arena today, the Madison Square Garden, praying for the first pick but it didn’t happen. Oh well. At least we’ll get Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant on July 1.
After the top three, the Lakers have the fourth pick, jumping up with only a 9.4% change of having a top-four pick. After the top three prospects, there isn’t much of a consensus on who should be taken. ESPN has the Lakers picking Darius Garland, a point guard from Vanderbilt. De’Andre Hunter (Virginia), Jarrett Culver (Texas Tech), Coby White (North Carolina) and Cam Reddish (Duke) will likely be options as well. Those five players will be in play for Los Angeles (fourth pick), Cleveland (fifth pick), Phoenix (sixth pick), Chicago (seventh pick) and Atlanta (eighth pick).
Later in the draft, Washington got the 9th pick, Atlanta snagged the 10th pick after the Luka Doncic-Trae Young trade in last years draft, Minnesota got the 11th pick, Charlotte got the 12th pick, Miami will pick 13th and Boston received the 14th pick from a trade with Sacramento. The prospects in this range according to ESPN are Sekou Doumbouya (Limoges), Jaxson Hayes (Texas), Brandon Clarke (Gonzaga), PJ Washington (Kentucky), Bol Bol (Oregon) and Kevin Porter Jr. (USC).
The NBA Draft is set to take place on June 20 in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Twitter: @ajlars13