Ricky O’Donnell did yeoman’s work in listing out eight college basketball players who NBA draftniks should absolutely pay attention to this season, lead by Cole Anthony and Anthony Edwards. There’s an outsized number of top prospects overseas this year, as well.
It’s NBA Draft watch time for these 9 teams
We have that and more in Friday’s NBA newsletter.
Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images
The other piece of looking ahead to the NBA Draft is looking ahead to which teams will actually be picking high.
The Warriors are 3-13 and in line to be among the worst teams in the league after a nightmare start to the season, but Stephen Curry has said he’s coming back, and Golden State will win games when he does. Probably not enough to climb out of the bottom five, but I would not consider the Warriors the favorites to claim the worst record in the league. In the West? Sure, though the Grizzlies should tail off as we move forward. The Thunder might, as well.
The real tank action is, once again, in the East, where the Knicks and Cavaliers are legitimately awful and the Pistons, Hawks, Wizards, and Bulls look quite worse than we assumed coming into the season. The Hornets are at real risk of succumbing to their talent deficit at some point.
The teams you don’t see in this conversation that you would have expected in the preseason: Wolves and Suns. The team with a bad record who you might include in the conversation where Gregg Popovich likely coming up on the end of his NBA career: the Spurs, obviously, why else would I mention Pop? The Blazers have Damian Lillard, and they will not stay this bad all year. The Pelicans have looked better lately and should get a boost when/if Zion Williamson returns.
So here’s a list of the teams in the mix for top picks as of now, from the most tanky to the least: Knicks, Cavaliers, Warriors, Grizzlies, Wizards, Hawks, Bulls, Pistons, Thunder. Of those teams, Memphis loses its pick to Boston if it’s outside the top six (an incentive to be worse) and Cleveland loses its pick to the Pelicans if it’s outside the top 10 (honestly that’s a low risk at this point).
Scores
Blazers 129, Bucks 137
Pelicans 124, Suns 121
Schedule
Here’s the limited national TV schedule for the weekend. All times ET. Check out the full schedule here.
Friday
Spurs at Sixers, 8 p.m., ESPN
Rockets at Clippers, 10:30 p.m., ESPN
Saturday
Heat at Sixers, 7:30 p.m., NBA TV
Sunday
Nada.
Links
Zach Lowe goes long on the Sixers’ new identity after all the years of abnormality.
I wrote about how Chris Paul is playing fine, but so are the two presumed Chris Paul trade suitors, which leaves the Thunder in the lurch.
Behind The Athletic’s paywall, but worth every penny: a sweet Sam Amick conversation with Monty Williams about loss, recovery and honoring who you love.
Arash Markazi on the set of Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson’s show All the Smoke. Welcome to 2019. Barnes says the Warriors smoked with Snoop and Woody Allen in Don Nelson’s apartment after beating the Mavericks in 2007.
Tom Haberstroh on the remodeled Wolves and brand new Andrew Wiggins.
How should the Pacers run Malcolm Brogdon and Victor Oladipo? Caitlin Cooper points out a successful example from the G League’s Fort Wayne Mad Ants.
Haley O’Shaughnessy on the five plays that explain Trae Young’s distinctive skillset.
Good heavens this college volleyball player can jump! I always adore Olympic volleyball and vow to watch more of it and never find the time. What a sport, though.
Jonathan Tjarks writes that the Bucks screwed up by not paying Brogdon, even though Milwaukee is as good or better than last season. I don’t understand the argument around the Kings needing to trade Bogdan Bogdanovic, though — they don’t need to and would be foolish to do so for anything less than a critical piece. Not that I care about the Kings or anything.
How Frank Vogel is using his role players. “Role player roulette” is just great framing.
Have a spectacular weekend and be excellent to each other.
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