The NBA draft took place Thursday night, and now everyone will predict with extreme confidence how the careers of those chosen will play out. Just like last year, when everyone knew Bennedict Mathurin would be a scoring machine or that Christian Braun would play pivotal minutes in the Finals. With that in mind, let’s run through some winners and losers!
Winner: Spurs
Whether Victor Wembanyama ends up having a Hall of Fame career or is simply a multiple-time All-Star, I don’t know whether people are properly appreciating how lucky San Antonio is here. Teams will sometimes tank for years (cough, Philly, cough) and not land a No. 1 pick, let alone a No. 1 pick in a draft with the best prospect since LeBron James.
Let me put it this way: Since 2009, the Kings have drafted in the top 10 a whopping 13 times. Here are the players they selected: Tyreke Evans, DeMarcus Cousins, Bismack Biyombo, Thomas Robinson, Ben McLemore, Nik Stauskas, Willie Cauley-Stein, Marquese Chriss, Zach Collins, De’Aaron Fox, Marvin Bagley III, Davion Mitchell and Keegan Murray. Now, some of these players were traded on draft night, but you get the point! Entering the lottery doesn’t guarantee a top pick, and a top pick hardly guarantees a great player!
San Antonio, on the other hand, was in the lottery for only the second time since drafting Tim Duncan and managed to land Wemby. It’s truly incredible fortune for a franchise that’s now drafted Wembanyama, Duncan and David Robinson first. It is hard to get better luck than that.
Loser: College basketball
Only two of the top seven picks in Thursday’s draft played NCAA basketball, or as many picks from Metropolitans 92 in France. I enjoy athletes giving a middle finger to the still largely exploitative NCAA model. At the same time, as somebody who already watches incredibly little basketball outside of pro hoops, my familiarity with international prospects or players from the G League and Overtime Elite is quite small. The NBA is still finding its way for how to market these types of prospects. I’d be curious to know how many more casual fans have watched someone like say, No. 18 pick Jaime Jaquez Jr. compared to the Thompson twins, Amen and Ausar.
Winner: Damian Lillard fake trades
Lillard was not moved Thursday night, and he reportedly will see how the Trail Blazers will do in the early days of free agency before making any decisions about his future. But with Portland taking point guard Scoot Henderson at No. 3, expect the temperature to turn up on Lillard rumors. And you know what that means! Fake trades! It’s a boon for content creators and Twitter Photoshoppers. Personally, I am hoping Lillard makes a decision quickly so we can stop doing this every summer. (That’s a lie. I have the trade machine open in another window.)
Loser: Round tables
The prospects and their families used to be seated at round tables but were moved to rectangular ones this year. We, as a society, need to stop changing things for the sake of change. Like, remember when your TV wasn’t connected to the internet and you could just turn it on and watch it? That’s how I felt seeing the rectangular tables.
Winner: Mavericks
I can’t sit here in good faith and tell you whether Dereck Lively II, who Dallas traded back to 12 from 10 to select, will have a fantastic career. But in the process of making that trade, the Mavs dumped Dāvis Bertāns’s contract onto the Thunder, giving Dallas some breathing room under the tax. Normally I don’t celebrate cost-cutting moves, however, the Mavs now have access to the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, valued around $12.4 million. With a potential squeeze on middle-class free agents in the new CBA, the Mavs may be able to use that exception on a player better than Bertāns in free agency, all for the cost of moving down only two spots and picking someone they liked anyway.
Loser: Draft night fashion
John Minchillo/AP
Gradey Dick should have been forced to push his eligibility a year back after showing up to the draft in some kind of shiny, red monstrosity that I won’t give the respect of calling a suit. Also, did every basketball player’s stylist get together and make a pact everyone is allowed to wear only double-breasted suits with a funky lapel? Everyone from Wemby to LeBron at the Louis Vuitton show in Paris is rocking some variation of that suit. It’s not exactly taking a risk if everyone is doing it.
Winner: People who didn’t watch the draft
Seriously, did anything interesting happen during the show? No real intrigue at the top and all the good trades happened before the draft started. The final pick didn’t take place until close to 1 a.m. ET. I know we live in the everything-is-content era of sports consumption. But sometimes I wish the NBA would just hand out a sheet of paper with who was selected and who was traded Friday morning.
