Connect with us
(NBA)

(NBA)

The NBA Draft lottery took place on Tuesday night in New York City with no home court advantage in sight for either of the two local teams, as both the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets had evenings to forget. 

As a result of the 2013 trade that sent Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry to Brooklyn, the Nets were forced to swap picks with the Boston Celtics this year.  The Nets, who finished with the worst record in the NBA this season (20-62), will pick 27th.  Meanwhile, the top-seeded Celtics received the top overall selection in June’s draft.

Not only will Brooklyn give up the No. 1 overall pick this year, but they owe Boston their 2018 first round pick to complete the deal.  The Nets’ current regime inherited this mess, but GM Sean Marks acquired an additional first rounder (No. 22 overall) in exchange for Bojan Bogdanovic at the trade deadline.  With the 22nd, 27th and 57th picks in the draft, Brooklyn will have a chance to draft more than one quality player to move forward into the future with.  The unfortunate part for both the Nets and Knicks is how immensely talented and deep this draft is.

New York finished tied with the Minnesota Timberwolves for the 6th-worst record in the league this season, but they lost a ping pong-ball tiebreaker to decide the sixth and seventh seeds in the NBA Draft lottery.

At the lottery, the Knicks then fell back one slot and will pick eighth in the June 22 draft.  They could still get a quality player, but the two-slot fall could cost them the chance to land their next superstar.

It’s a shame for both teams that they will not have a shot at the likes of Lonzo Ball, Markelle Fultz and Kentucky point guard De’Aaron Fox, who all have a shot to be transcendent players in the NBA.

After Boston, the Los Angeles Lakers will pick second and the Philadelphia 76ers round out the top three.

The following two tabs change content below.
Jason Goldstein is a co host of the Baseline Jumper NBA podcast, recording every Tuesday night along Ben McDonald. Jason has also spent time as the Basketball Editor at DoubleGSports.com while also handling the Brooklyn Nets Lead Writer duties since October 2015.
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

More in Basketball