The Sixers, Lakers, Celtics and Nuggets have the picks and assets needed to make Draft night 2016 interesting
When you are in the NBA Draft Lottery, your main hope is that things don't get worse.
"We were preparing as if we wouldn't get the pick," Los Angeles Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak said Friday. "It's hard, from a superstitious point of view, to sit down and plan when it basically comes down to a coin flip. My plan was to plan as if we wouldn't get the pick. But we also got the 32nd pick, and we have a lot of flexibility."
In the end, everyone at the top (or, the bottom, depending on your point of view) of the Draft got something of value out of last Tuesday's Lottery. For the first time in the history of the process, the top three picks went in likely order according to pre-Lottery percentages, with the teams with the best odds of getting one, two or three winding up with those selections.
The 76ers didn't get three of the top 11 picks, as they could have, but they got the top pick. They will not trade it.
Whether they take LSU freshman Ben Simmons or Duke freshman Brandon Ingram is up in the air, but they will, barring some incredible turn, take one of those two. Either will add to the team's incoming talent pool: European star and2014 Draft pick Dario Saric, whom the 76ers expect/hope will come over to the NBA next year, and Joel Embiid, the 2014 first-rounder who has been rehabbing a foot injury for two years and who has not played a minute in the NBA.
The Boston Celtics could have picked as low as five in the first round. But Boston wound up with the No. 3 pick, giving president of basketball operations Danny Ainge a valuable piece of ammunition should he choose to use the pick as enticement for the veteran star he desperately wants.
Even the Phoenix Suns, who didn't get a top-three pick, did okay. With the fourth and 13th picks overall (the latter coming from the Washington Wizards in last February's Markieff Morris deal), the Suns can be creative as they decide the best way to add to their guard-heavy roster.
But Philly, with three first-round picks, Boston (ditto), the Denver Nuggets (ditto ditto) and Phoenix will run the show in the June 23 Draft.
The 76ers are still the worst team in the league, but they are now ready to accelerate "The Process" (HinkieCorp, Inc.) and try to start winning now under new general manager Bryan Colangelo. (In fairness to former GM Sam Hinkie, he also expected to turn the corner this summer.) The uncertainty of last year, when Jahlil Okafor was rumored not to want to go to Philadelphia, is not there this year. Who knows why? But both Simmons and Ingram, according to sources, are fine with going No. 1 to Philly.
Simmons and Ingram, the Sixers believe, are "blue-chip people," one source said, who are both well-known already inside the organization -- Brett Brown coached many years in Australia and knows Simmons' family, and the Colangelo family's ties to Duke through Olympic coach Mike Krzyzewski provide them with all the inside dope they'll ever need on Ingram.
The Sixers will be at Ingram's workout in New York Tuesday, along with other clients of his representative, Excel -- Kentucky guard Jamal Murray, teenage big man Thon Maker, Connecticut wing Daniel Hamilton and California point guard Tyrone Wallace. And, more to the point -- either player could help immediately, depending on how Philly addresses the redundancy on its current roster.
We need a big. Jordan [Clarkson] is a free agent and we'd like to sign him. D'Angelo [Russell], we're very high on, and we have Lou Williams. I think we're more set in the backcourt than the frontcourt. Two days after the Lottery, that's where we are. In six weeks, we'll see.
– Los Angeles Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak
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