The NBA draft lottery has come and gone, with the entire anticipated pomp and fanfare that was anticipated. After the Detroit Pistons dropped down and the San Antonio Spurs rose to the highest slot alongside the Portland Path Blazers and the Charlotte Hornets, groups began to scramble to reconfigure their respective draft boards and think about a commerce up within the draft.
Until a group is providing a participant like Luka Doncic or Giannis Antetokounmpo, there isn’t a commerce package deal on the market that might entice the Spurs to commerce the highest decide on this yr’s draft and miss out on an opportunity so as to add Victor Wembanyama. As an alternative, each Charlotte and Portland are clumsy suits with Scoot Henderson, a consensus top-three participant who may give a variety of groups a franchise level guard.
Outdoors of Henderson, gamers like Jarace Walker, Brandon Miller, and Amen Thompson might be closely thought-about for the highest slots within the draft. The Hornets, with so many holes on their roster, could really feel that they’re higher served by taking a number of bites on the apple. However, the Blazers are involved with contending within the quick time period, which probably signifies that the third decide is up on the market.
Whereas not each group has the required ammunition to maneuver up within the draft, there are a handful of groups armed with sufficient draft capital to both transfer into the highest rung of the draft or to make another minor strikes to safe a premiere expertise exterior of the higher echelon of prospects.
Commerce Up Candidate #1: Orlando Magic: Picks #6, #11, #36
Total, the Orlando Magic can’t be that mad that they didn’t have extra lottery luck. In spite of everything, they’d the correct bounces final yr to shoot as much as the highest decide within the 2022 NBA draft to pick out Paolo Banchero, who grew to become the NBA rookie of the yr whereas serving to the Magic win twelve extra video games than they did final yr.
With each Banchero and Franz Wagner moving into star roles, Wendell Carter Jr. manning the center, and a gaggle of attention-grabbing guard prospects like Markelle Fultz, Jalen Suggs, and Cole Anthony, the Magic have sufficient of an infrastructure to probably push for the play-in event as quickly as subsequent yr if every thing breaks proper.
If the group desires to contend for a title in the future, nevertheless, they could need to consolidate their property and push their chips in for one more star younger participant. The group was twenty fourth in three-point share and twenty sixth in assists per sport this previous season, which reveals the huge gap that the group has some extent guard:
Though there are some depth points at ahead and on the wing, it’s simpler to fill these holes in than it’s to discover a franchise participant. If the Charlotte Hornets don’t really feel strongly about pairing Scoot Henderson with LaMelo Ball and are extra enamored with including some mixture of Jarace Walker, Cam Whitmore, Taylor Hendricks, Gradey Dick, and Keyonte George, to call a number of prospects in that vary, they may chunk on an all-in package deal from Orlando.
If the Magic commerce up, they might instantly have among the finest younger cores in your entire NBA with Henderson, Banchero, and Wagner. All three gamers may in the future have an all-star ceiling, which few different rebuilding groups may say, whereas additionally being constructed to make the playoffs within the subsequent few years because of the remainder of the position gamers on the roster.
