nba-draft Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Back to school
The Chet Holmgren vs. Paolo Banchero vs. Jabari Smith debate as to who will be the first player taken in tomorrow’s NBA Draft has been the talk of the entire season (and offseason). Three one-and-dones from great schools representing the way it’s been done for decades, two of them not yet 20 years o...

Is Jaden Ivey going to Sacramento or the dentist?
On the list of things NBA players don’t want to do, playing in Sacramento has to be close to No. 1, right? When Ben Simmons presented Philly with his platter of preferred trade destinations, an exec said he wanted to go to one of the three California teams, which was either an oversight because ther...

How the 2022 NBA Draft will go — Lottery Edition
Last year’s draft is already looking like an all-time great. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t gems to be had in the 2022 NBA Draft. Analysts have said this is a four-person draft. But with the league experiencing greater parity than it has in the last two decades, the need for high-impact rol...

Thunder, Magic luck out in a top-heavy NBA draft
After three years of embarrassing tanking, GM Sam Presti and the Oklahoma City Thunder have returned to relevance. They came into the NBA Lottery with the sixth-best odds at the top pick in the 2022 NBA Draft and ended up with the second pick in the draft. The Orlando Magic won the first pick and wi...

A WNBA draft unlike any other
The first HBCU player selected in two decades, first round picks from Northwestern and Florida Gulf Coast, UConn and South Carolina waiting until the second round to hear names from their rosters called — yesterday’s WNBA draft showed us just how shaken up the college basketball world has become. ...

After Kansas and North Carolina’s thriller it’s official: Transfers are in and one-and-dones are out
College basketball is full of rituals, and one of them is that the day after the season ends a host of publications will release their “way-too-early” preseason rankings, as more attention will be focused on mock drafts and the upcoming NBA Draft....

Ryan Turell wants to be the first Orthodox Jew to play basketball in the NBA
It’s not just about him. Yeshiva University’s Ryan Turell clearly gets that, much in the same vein as Brian Flores with his recent lawsuit against the NFL, trying to put a greater focus on equal treatment of minorities in the league knows it’s not just about him. Central to both is the overriding pr...

How to fill out a March Madness bracket and other lies
Welcome to “How to fill out a March Madness bracket and other lies” where I’m going to give you five truths and five lies, and you have to figure out which ones are going to give you the edge in your office pool. If I’m giving away free advice, it’s going to come with a catch. (I am getting paid to ...

NBA Power Tankings: Who's No. 1 (No. 30)?
Oh goodie, misery. The last portion of the NBA season kicked off Thursday, and that means Cancun is in sight for at least 10 franchises. With their seasons already in the blender, they might as well add ice, Cointreau, Casamigos, agave, and an FT of lime juice before kicking back in the training poo...

Wait, I thought the NBA was lowering the age for draft eligibility?
The G League celebrated its 20th season of competition this season but is only on its second of genuine interest to NBA fans. Instead of the occasional player who makes the leap from AAA to a rotation player or a raw draft pick trying to hone their skills, there wasn’t too much to get amped about un...

Evan Mobley and Scottie Barnes: Like… whoa
Saying Evan Mobley and Scottie Barnes are outperforming Cade Cunningham and Jalen Green is accurate. That also makes it seem like Cunningham and Green were somehow mistakes. To be clear, none of the top four picks in the 2021 NBA Draft look like misses, which is awesome for the Pistons, Rockets, Cav...

Sue Bird shouldn’t retire, but WNBA would survive — and thrive — after she's gone
The Phoenix Mercury had just beaten Seattle 85-80 OT in the WNBA playoffs late Sunday afternoon when ESPN’s Holly Rowe brought Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi together on the court for the post-game interview. These two have been teammates and rivals for more than 20 years, and Bird quipped to Rowe that ...

The 2021 NBA Draft could shift the power of the league
If you’re like most sports fans, the 2021 NBA Draft is probably the last thing on your mind right now....

Lots of great players were drafted, then immediately traded — and went on to be All-Stars
The weirdest thing about the NBA draft is the longstanding practice that once draft day comes, there’s no more trading draft picks. It makes some sense within the framework of the league rules and salary cap, but every year, it results in weird situations where a player is drafted by a team that he’...

Finally, a woman is on a cover of an NBA 2K edition, and who better than Candace Parker?
EA Sports made it a hot line; 2K’s making it a hot song...

Who have been the luckiest and unluckiest teams in the NBA draft lottery?
Whenever a team does poorly, many fans of said team will point to luck as a contributing factor....

The 2018 NBA Draft class could rank among best of the decade
It’s time for us to take a good look at the 2018 NBA draft class....

Grizzlies are closer than you think to being a part of the NBA’s upper echelon
The Grizzlies are a front office move away from wrecking the entire NBA....

Ionescu continues to live up to the hype, and it’s exactly what the WNBA needs
Avengers: Infinity War, Machu Picchu, and Flex Tape....

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 ...