NBA Draft Lottery Thread
So here we are! After long months of waiting since AD came out with his desire to be traded, the NBA Draft Lottery is here. After tonight, we will be able to stop making speculative comments about what assets each team has for the AD trade, and instead make some equally speculative comments about which teams will be willing to trade the assets they've got. And of course, we will also find out where our pick is going to end up.
Representing the New Orleans Pelicans at the Lottery will be our new GM/POBO/Executive/Leader-man, David Griffin, and also still-standing coach Alvin Gentry. Let's just get a quick reminder of which teams are where in the lottery:
1) New York Knicks - 14% at #1 pick, 52.1% chance at top 4.
2) Cleveland Cavaliers - 14% at #1 pick, 52.1% chance at top 4.
3) Phoenix Suns - 14% at #1 pick, 52.1% chance at top 4.
4) Chicago Bulls - 12.5% at #1 pick, 48% chance at top 4.
5) Atlanta Hawks - 10.5% at #1 pick, 42.1% chance at top 4.
6) Washington Wizards - 9% at #1 pick, 37.2% chance at top 4.
7) New Orleans Pelicans - 6% at #1 pick, 26.3% chance at top 4.
8) Memphis Grizzlies - 6% at #1 pick, 26.3% at top 4.
9) Dallas Mavericks - 6% at #1 pick, 26.3% at top 4.
10) Minnesota Timberwolves - 3% at #1 pick, 13.9% chance at top 4.
So, what's the dream run? To me, it seems fairly obvious. The best possible world has our 6% chance pulling off and giving us the #1 overall pick with our own draft pick. That completely removes the question about whether another team would trade it or not, and guarantees us Zion Williamson. It's a slim chance, unquestionably, but it's there and stranger things have happened. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.
Aside from that, what's the best possible solution? There's debate to be had over this, and to an extent it depends what teams you think would trade what, and which potential trade packages you like best. For me, the best result outside of us getting Zion outright would be for the Knicks to get the #1 overall pick, and for our own pick to capitalise on that 26.3% chance and jump up into the top 4, but not to #2. I would prefer us to get #3, so that we can pick Culver without having to make the choice about Morant, who I believe is going to go at #2. That would provide us with a premium pick of our own, plus still give us a strong likelihood at being able to acquire Zion in the AD trade.
Third best would be for our own pick to at least stay at #7 without dropping, and for the Grizzlies pick to fall within the top 8, which would allow it to convey to Boston giving them another asset for an AD trade. There's always the chance of the Sacramento pick that Boston owns jumping up from #14 to the top ten: damn, there's even a 1% chance for it to come out at #1 overall, although in that scenario I think the pick goes to Philadelphia instead, so we don't want that. If that happens, Boston could have a top ten pick + the Memphis pick to go along with Tatum and Brown in a pretty attractive trade package.
There's a lot of chances for things to go fairly well for us in this lottery, but there's still room for a lot to go wrong and we do have #PelsLife to contend with. That said, I'm pretty hype about this and I'm looking forward to seeing exactly where things fall for us so that we can start to look at the future with a little more clarity.
Let's go and #DoItBig! David Griffin don't fail us now, you were GM when Cleveland got back to back #1 picks, work your magic!
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Originally Posted by 13 - 3
