NBA draft Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Here Are The Lottery Picks Of The 2019 NBA Draft
The saddest teams in the NBA have gone ahead and taken prospects they hope can lead their franchise into next year’s tank when they race for whoever 2020's best college player will be. Here are the lottery picks of 2019....

All Your Assets Are Belong To The Pelicans
The trade that sent Anthony Davis from the New Orleans Pelicans to the Los Angeles Lakers was a good one. The Lakers got a superstar to pair with LeBron James, and the Pelicans got a hefty package of young players and draft picks to put toward rebuilding their roster. One of the top assets to change...

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....

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 ...

A Reasoned And Correct Ranking Of NBA Teams, By Their Suitability For Zion Williamson
Zion Williamson is going to be the first overall pick of the 2019 NBA Draft. What follows is a reasoned and near-scientific ranking of all NBA teams in order of how cool it would be if they had Williamson as a rookie. Only 14 teams are actually in the running to win the draft lottery for the right t...

Report: NBA Formally Proposes Lowering Draft Age Limit To 18
USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt reported this afternoon that the NBA has submitted a formal proposal to the NBPA to allow 18-year-olds to be eligible for the NBA Draft by 2022. The current rules require players to be 19 before they can be drafted, and lowering the age limit would be the first step towards...

Zion Williamson Laughs And Hides His Face After Being Asked About Maybe Someday Joining The Knicks
The insanely overpowered Duke Blue Devils gave Texas Tech their first loss of the season Thursday night, at Madison Square Garden, in a refreshingly competitive 69–58 game. Among other things, this was humanoid megafauna Zion Williamson’s first career game at the home of the Knicks, and so of course...

Bol Bol Can Apparently Shoot Threes Now, Which Seems Unfair
At this point in basketball history, the idea of a big man shooting three-pointers would shock only the most neolithic 1990s basketball-purist weirdo. The simple fact that three is more than two has radically rearranged the court to prioritize space above all else, and that has upended old norms to...

The NBA's Crappy One-And-Done Rule Is One Big Step Closer To Death
The NBA is steadily laying the foundation for the end of the rule requiring basketball prospects to wait a year after graduating from high school before declaring for the NBA Draft. Adam Silver has been making noise about this for a while, and Condoleezza Rice’s otherwise useless commission recommen...

Draft-Day Trade Was Scuttled After Pick Was Tipped On Twitter
Atlanta Hawks GM Travis Schlenk told San Francisco radio station 95.7 The Game this morning that he had a deal in place with the Milwaukee Bucks to move up from the 19th pick to the 17th. The Hawks knew they wanted one of two players—including Maryland shooting guard Kevin Huerter—and were sufficien...

Here's How The First Round Of The NBA Draft Went Down
Arizona big man Deandre Ayton was the first pick of an NBA Draft filled with sad trades and massive fuck-ups. Here’s the full first round:...

Woj's Synonyms For "Will Draft," Ranked<em></em>
Despite a report from Awful Announcing stating that reporters associated with NBA broadcast partners were asked by the league not to tip picks, the draft-night focus of ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski could not be shaken. But while Yahoo Sports’ Shams Charania appeared to outright ignore the league’s orde...

Mikal Bridges Was The Sixers' Nice Hometown Story For About An Hour<em></em><em></em>
A nice little heartwarming story early in the NBA Draft came when the Philadelphia 76ers picked Villanova’s Mikal Bridges with the 10th overall pick. Not only has Bridges spent his entire life around Philly, but his mom, Tyneeha Rivers, also works for the Sixers as VP of Human Resources. Mikal and T...

The Kings Screwed It Up!
First of all, it’s important to note that making predictions on draft night, or trying to grade teams’ picks, is a fool’s game. None of these guys has played an NBA game yet, and trying to parse the difference between Marvin Bagley III, whom the Kings just drafted at number-two overall, and Luka Don...

Did Woj Just Tip The First Six Picks Of The NBA Draft?
Reporters at ESPN, Turner Sports, and Yahoo will not be tipping picks on Twitter during tonight’s NBA Draft, as reported by intrepid New York Times cub reporter Kevin Draper. The reason is that all three of those media companies are partnering with the NBA on the actual broadcast, which creates ince...

The Entire NBA Draft Depends On Whether The Kings Screw It Up<em></em>
The NBA Draft is tonight! It feels terrible. ...

Let's Speculate Idly About The NBA Draft
The NBA Draft: When is it? What is it? Will you, personally, be selected in this draft? Look, man: I don’t know this shit and honestly I don’t appreciate being asked. That said, the NBA Draft is 1) happening on Thursday evening, 2) effectively random and reliably entertaining, and 3) unless your win...

Michael Porter Jr. Compares Himself To Elite NBA Players, Says He's Glad To Be Compared To Elite NBA Players
Michael Porter Jr., a lottery prospect who may be selected by the brain geniuses of Sacramento at No. 2 or may fall somewhere around the seven-ish range, sure has draft experts mumbling about his Character Issues. Their voices descend to bassy, knowing tones, and their sentences swell into ominous g...

My Weird Son Deandre Ayton Is The Green Goblin
When the Phoenix Suns draft big lanky Arizona lad Deandre Ayton with the No. 1 overall pick on Thursday, as they are expected to do, they will also receive Josh, Eric, and Alejandro. Those aren’t members of Ayton’s entourage or family, but three distinct personalities that inhabit the very large bod...