The Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers are meeting in the Eastern Conference Finals because both teams are really damn good.
Here’s how the Cavs and Celtics almost both had lottery picks in the 2018 NBA Draft
This was crazy. But the Celtics ultimately will have to wait a year.
Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images
And yet, as they prepare for Tuesday’s Game 2, they will also have one eye on the NBA Draft lottery. Both teams had a chance to have top-10 draft picks. The Cavaliers will pick No. 8, while the Celtics lost out on the Lakers’ selection this year, but will be rewarded with an unprotected Sacramento Kings pick in 2019.
How did the Cavs get a pick?
Celtics general manager Danny Ainge has been the league’s premier wheeler and dealer for years. It’s how he’s stockpiled the deepest treasure chest of trade assets in the league.
If there’s one trade Ainge is known for, it’s the one that hurts my heart the most: when he fleeced ex-Nets GM Billy King out of first-round picks in 2014, 2016, and 2018 — don’t forget the swap rights in 2017! — in a trade that sent an old Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Jason Terry to Brooklyn.
Ainge then flipped that 2018 Brooklyn pick to Cleveland in the trade that brought Kyrie Irving to Boston.
Okay, so how did the Celtics almost get a pick (and get a pick next year)?
The 76ers also somehow own the Lakers’ first-round pick in this year’s draft, and by somehow, I mean I’m going to break it down for you right here.
Remember when Los Angeles wanted to put Steve Nash next to Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard to make one last championship run? Well, they didn’t just get Nash for free. LA had to pony up several draft picks, including a top-five protected pick in 2015. That pick landed in the top-five in 2015 (D’Angelo Russell), so it was pushed to the 2016 draft where it was top-three protected. Well, the Lakers took Brandon Ingram No. 2 overall in 2016, so it didn’t convey then, either, and the trade didn’t include an option for the 2017 NBA Draft.
The Suns realized the Lakers would be bad for a long time, so they traded that pick to the 76ers as part of that Michael Carter-Williams deal. And after the 76ers didn’t get the Lakers’ pick in 2015 or 2016, they waited until 2017 to trade it to Boston, along with their No. 3 pick in last year’s draft — Ainge, you slithering succotash, you — to get Markelle Fultz.
Meanwhile, the Celtics got the guy they wanted all along in Jayson Tatum, and could have added another top-five pick in this year’s draft to show for it, too.
That Lakers’ pick, though, was protected from No. 2 to No. 5 in this year’s draft. Since it didn’t fall within that range, the Celtics get either the Sixers’ or Kings’ first-round pick in 2019.
So how high will each pick be?
There was a remote chance the Cavs and Celtics’ picks could have ended No. 1 and No. 2. In the end, they ended up No. 8 and not conveyed until 2019.
The ping-pong balls are merciless. They have zero respect for you, your franchise, your past struggles, anything. They only show allegiance to the viewership numbers. Everything else falls by the wayside.
The Lakers finished with the 10th-worst record and the Nets finished with the eighth-worst. According to tankathon.com, the premier site for draft lottery odds, that gave the 76ers four-percent odds at a top-three pick — which means Boston had a shot at picks three, four, or five — and the Cavaliers a 9.9 percent shot at a top-three pick with just about a two percent shot at No. 1.
In the end, Boston won’t end up with the Lakers’ pick this year, and the Cavaliers will pick in the lower half of the top-10. But the fact that these two teams even had a chance at picking in the top-five this summer is wild. It’s not even that the rich are getting richer.
OK. Maybe it is.
This piece was updated after the lottery results were finalized.
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