Luke Walton says Magic Johnson assured him the Lakers will keep their top 3 pick

The Los Angeles Lakers kept their top-three protected pick in this year’s NBA draft. They’ll pick second, avoiding losing the selection to the 76ers.

Did team president Magic Johnson know this would happen? That’s what he told head coach Luke Walton. Walton said as much during an interview on We Need to Talk on CBS Sports.

“Magic’s already ensured me that we’re gonna get our top 3 pick this year, so I’m excited about that,” Walton said We don’t know who the pick is yet, but I was just happy to know that we are getting a pick. That’s good enough for me for now.”

How Magic knew that when the ping pong balls had yet to hit is unclear. In reality, the Lakers didn’t know if they’d have a pick in the upcoming draft. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

The selection was top-three protected, and if it fell to four or lower in the draft lottery, it would have conveyed to Philadelphia as part of the deal that landed Steve Nash in Los Angeles. The Lakers would have lost their 2019 first-round pick to Orlando as part of the Dwight Howard trade if they lost their first-rounder this season. But they didn’t.

Los Angeles finished with the NBA’s third-worst record and, as a result, had the third-best odds at landing the top pick. The Lakers had a 46.9 percent chance at that pick staying in the top three. That gives Philadelphia a 53 percent chance of landing another first-round pick this summer. Luck smiled on the Lakers, again.

Suffice it to say, there’s was a lot riding on the ping pong balls in Los Angeles this year. But it didn’t seem that Magic was worried. Maybe he knew something the rest of the league didn’t.