The Lottery
Tonight is the NBA Draft Lottery and my vote is we pick a winner with vibes, not ping-pong balls
If you found yourself wondering where all the NBA-ready talent was in college last season, the answer was overseas, the G-League or in hiding.
Right now, there’s a consensus top-five or so of college prospects heading into tonight’s lottery to determine the June draft order. They are, in no particular order:
Brandon Miller and everything that comes with him.
Jarace Walker, a wide-bodied 4 or small-ball 5 from Houston who compares favorably to a fabulously wealthy man’s Carl Landry which I absolutely mean as a compliment.
Cam Whitmore, the lone bright spot on last season’s atrocious Villanova team.
Taylor Hendricks, the leading scorer on a 19-15 UCF team that bombed out in the second round of the NIT. I know I watched him play, but I couldn’t tell you a single thing I remember about the experience.
Anthony Black, a big lead creator from Arkansas with an assist-to-turnover ratio that’s nearly 1-to-1 and clanky shooting mechanics that makes the “without shot-making firepower” stand out in bold on the Bleacher Report pre-combine list housed on NBA.com.
Tonight, the NBA draft lottery will be held at 8 p.m. ET. The winner gets Victor Wembanyama, the 7-4 French kid whose floor appears to be Evolutionary Hakeem Olajuwon and whose ceiling might be Evolutionary Lebron. Everyone 2-14 is going to be talking themselves into some of the above players, and outside of Miller’s talent and Walker’s intrigue, I would not feel confident about any of them becoming more than decent role players if everything breaks right.
Scoot Henderson liable to be good though.
But that’s not why we’re here. You watched college basketball last season, you knew the endeavor was short on explosive athletes. Instead, I’d like to talk about who various NBA teams are sending as representatives to the Lottery tonight, a bright and shining swath of life’s rich pageant.
By virtue of missing the postseason, all these teams and their representatives have a chance at the top overall pick and Wembanyama. But the choice of representative is the last, best pitch a franchise can make to convince the fates to smile upon them. Some teams have done this better than others.