05/10/26 02:31:00
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05/10 14:29 CDT Washington wins NBA draft lottery, chance to pick No. 1 overall
on June 23
Washington wins NBA draft lottery, chance to pick No. 1 overall on June 23
By TIM REYNOLDS
AP Basketball Writer
CHICAGO (AP) --- The league's worst team this season is getting the No. 1 pick
in the NBA draft.
The Washington Wizards won the draft lottery on Sunday and are poised to pick
No. 1 overall for the first time since choosing John Wall in that spot in 2010.
Wall was the Wizards' on-stage representative for the lottery.
Washington had a 14% chance of winning No. 1, tied with Brooklyn and Indiana
for the best odds. The Wizards had basically a 50-50 chance of getting either a
top-four pick or the No. 5 spot.
But three consecutive years of losing --- the three worst seasons in the
franchise's 65-year history --- finally paid off Sunday for the Wizards, who
went 17-65 this season and even allowed Miami's Bam Adebayo to score 83 points
for the league's second-highest single-game total ever.
The Wizards swung deals to land Trae Young and Anthony Davis last season, and
now they have a chance to add an immediate impact player with the No. 1 pick.
Utah will pick No. 2, Memphis will pick No. 3, Chicago will pick No. 4.
The Los Angeles Clippers got the fifth pick, followed by No. 6 Brooklyn, No. 7
Sacramento, No. 8 Atlanta, No. 9 Dallas, No. 10 Milwaukee, No. 11 Golden State,
No. 12 Oklahoma City, No. 13 Miami and No. 14 Charlotte.
The draft begins June 23 in New York. The draft combine in Chicago starts on
Monday.
No. 1 pick possibilities
There are four candidates that generally are considered front-runners to be the
No. 1 pick, all of them entering the draft after their freshman years of
college. They are:
--- BYU's AJ Dybantsa, who led the nation in scoring at 25.5 points per game in
his lone college season.
--- Duke's Cameron Boozer, the AP player of the year who averaged 22.5 points
and 10.1 rebounds.
--- Kansas' Darryn Peterson, who averaged 20.2 points in 24 games for the
Jayhawks.
--- North Carolina's Caleb Wilson, who averaged 19.8 points and 9.4 rebounds on
58% shooting.
All four of those players, and a few other likely first-round selections, were
all among those in the studio for the announcement of the lottery results
Sunday at Chicago's Navy Pier.
"Standing here is kind of crazy," Dybantsa said. "One of these teams is going
to be home."
Last of this format (probably)
This was the eighth, and likely final, year of this version of an NBA draft
lottery, with the worst teams having a 14% chance of winning.
Framework fell into place last month on changes meant to further discourage
tanking, and the league's Board of Governors is expected to ratify that plan in
the next few weeks --- with general managers meeting in Chicago on Tuesday to
discuss them presumably for one last time.
The three worst teams, starting next season, would have a 5.4% chance of
winning --- with the next seven teams all having an 8.1% chance of winning. The
lottery would grow from 14 to 16 teams if the plan, as expected, is approved.
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba
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