nbadraftlottery - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights



The Charlotte Hornets are doomed to run the ‘treadmill of mediocrity’
The “treadmill of mediocrity” is a term coined by former Portland Trail Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard in 2011. It’s pro basketball limbo — being good enough to sneak into the playoffs but not good enough to win, yet not quite bad enough to earn a top-5 draft pick and select a serious game-changer. And ...

We Rank the Worst No. 1 Picks in NBA Lottery History
Since the NBA’s first draft lottery in 1985, there have been 11 first-overall picks who did not make an All-NBA team or appear in an All-Star Game. That number is a little inflated because Zion Williamson and DeAndre Ayton are just getting started, so when you’re trying to figure out which is the wo...

Drilling Down on Thursday's NBA Draft Lottery
The moment seemed it would never come because of COVID-19, but the 2020 NBA Draft lottery is here. We’ll finally get this year’s draft order. ...

We Have Exceeded The Recommended Dose Of NBA Excitement
Sometimes there are Deadcasts where Drew and I spend twenty minutes saying, like, “soup is canceled” back and forth to each other. It’s just going to happen sometimes, because even though we enjoy talking about sports and all that, there are also just many more weeks in a year than there are good sp...

What Will Zion Williamson Put Up His Rookie Year?
Barring some unlikely outcomes—an inspiring protest that gets him out of New Orleans, a defiant but ultimately depressing return to the accursed NCAA—Zion Williamson will suit up for the Pelicans this fall. What will he do there?...

Stephen A. Smith Wrings Emmy-Worthy Performance Out Of Knicks' Lottery Agony
The day after the tragicomic New York Knicks were denied the opportunity to draft Zion Williamson, a nation alternately laughing at more Knicks misery and consoling those who got their hopes up turned their eyes to the cranky bard of Knicks angst: Stephen A. Smith....

This Is Boston's Chance To Get Anthony Davis, As Long As They Don't Fuck It Up
Annoyingly, the vile Boston Celtics might get what they wanted after all. While the draft lottery ended in the most frustrating fashion for every team involved except New Orleans, the Boston brain trust had to be ecstatic to see the main Anthony Davis trade asset (Zion Williamson) off the board. Tho...

The Knicks' Woes Have Taken Unexpected Forms
Shockingly, it wasn’t actually worth it in the end. ...

If The Pelicans Don't Deserve Zion Williamson, Every Other Team Deserves Him Less
When the New Orleans Pelicans landed the right to seize the beginning of Zion Williamson’s basketball career, the reaction was swift, predictable and consistent: “What did those people do to deserve such a prize?”...

The NBA Would've Been Better Off Rigging The Draft Lottery
The NBA’s new odds format did the job of scrambling the draft order. Four teams played especially horrendous basketball last season, and of those four teams, three were bounced out of the draft’s top four selections. This was satisfying. The Cavaliers, represented by Nick Gilbert, dropped to fifth,...

Zion Williamson Is The Pelicans' Reward For Wasting Anthony Davis
The Knicks, Pelicans, Grizzlies, and Lakers all had a shot at Zion Williamson heading into the final reveals of the NBA Draft Lottery, and the sensational Duke forward might have gotten stuck in the most disastrous possible situation. The New Orleans Pelicans—who had a six percent chance of winning ...

Maybe, Just Maybe, The Knicks Might Have A Functional Defense
The Knicks did not luck out, which is basically an evergreen sentence. Their lottery pick did not leap into the top three, which had only a six percent chance of occurring last night. It instead landed at nine, as expected. I feel a little good about this. ...
