at the very bottom...congrats to the Jazz and Danny Ainge..? They'll be one of three teams with the best lottery odds. Somehow, they are ahead of the Wizards. Theoretically, they could end up with a best of the 1st pick and the 14th pick (Minny's).. The Pelicans tanked strategically well, but not quite well enough to be bottom-3 As for Portland, the race for 8th-9th is over. The Spurs are smart enough to stay ahead of the Blazers. Portland had a shot at 8th but blew it out of the water yesterday afternoon. Dark day in the Rose City so, where will the Blazers end up? @ Utah Jazz Golden State Warriors Los Angeles Lakers Utah is no danger of dropping out of the best lottery odd, so maybe they'll give an honest effort Wednesday night. However, the Utah injury report isn't encouraging...if you're rooting for a Blazer loss: as for Portland's final 2 games, it needs a look at the WC playoff race: notice there are 4 teams tied for 5th seed (or 8th seed), and all 4 are just 1/2 game behind the Nuggets for 4th seed and HCA in the 1st round. I'm not going to bother looking at tiebreakers, But right now I'd think the Warriors are motivated to win. That might change a little by Friday night when they visit Portland, but odds are they will be needing a win...good news for the dregs of any tank left The Lakers have a difficult 3 games before the final against Portland: @Oklahoma City Thunder; @ Dallas Mavericks; Houston Rockets. It could be they will need a win against the Blazers. However, it also could be that game will mean nothing and they'll rest everybody The Blazers could solve the puzzle by going 0-3. Even so, they could still end up tied with the Suns for 9th. Miami has an incredibly easy last 4 games. Chicago's final 2 games are against Washington and Philly Portland could go 0-3 and stay in 9th. They could go 1-2 and end up in 10th. But they could actually go 2-1 or 3-0 and drop to 12th. 8th seed has a 1-in-4 chance at a top 4 pick; 9th seed has a 1-in-5 chance; 10th seed a 1-in-9 chance; 11th seed has the same 1-in-9 chance. 12th seed has a 1-in-14 chance
by the way, at RealGM I made a prediction before the season: I guess I should be rooting for 2 more wins to reach prophet status
In all honesty I think the only surprise is that we did better than the Spurs and the 76ers. Rest of the teams you would figure would be a toss up as far as where they fall in the lottery standings. Pelicans are tragically bad. They need to do something, because they’ve had no real identity after AD. Neither CJ, nor Zion are the answer for them. They actually need to just restart by rolling the dice with youth, but I don’t know their future draft situation. I was okay with losing, because I didn’t think we had a chance to win. I don’t generally go that route, but I thought it was a reasonable path to future success. Or that “if there ever was a time”. Like instead of our championship window closing, our being bad and benefiting from it window is closing. This really could have been the chance to be bad when we’re not actually that bad. I’m not pessimistic about the future due to that we (likely) aren’t going to get the #1 pick in a year where that pick is projected by many to become a star. I think we saw the most talented basketball player of the 2020’s being drafted last year. Sometimes that #1 pick really could be the difference between winning a championship, but that has to be proven by winning a championship. Idk that we will be looking back and actually hating the fact that we didn’t full tank the season and stand a better chance at the #1 overall. But I guess the possibility is technically there. There’s also clearly a lot of teams in a worse situation than us, because we did see potential for success from this team - where other teams (like the Suns and 76ers) failed to meet expectations. 76ers are also a disaster nightmare scenario. I wake up in a cold sweat dreaming that I was a 76ers fan. They are most certainly cooked as well, which means we are a step ahead of them as we have already started to transition and go forward in a new era. The 76ers, like the Pelicans, need a complete overhaul - and for them that’s not going to be easy.
As a diehard Hornets hater(Odd I know since I was born and raised in NC and still live here haha) hope they don't get the 1st pick but does seem almost Kismet if you will that they get it and get Flagg. The Duke and Hornet fans I know will explode in ecstasy.
They won in 2007. The Blazers got the first pick in the NBA draft that year, but I’m not sure that drafting Oden would be considered a win.
We drafted Florida's PG Taurean Green in 2007 after winning the Natty. Short-lived NBA career but successful international career. He's assistant coach of the Gators now.
Yup, and you know what they say, history repeats itself. I'm only talking about the winning the lottery part, not drafting a player that would not realize his potential due to injuries
Damn totally forgot about him. Yeah we drafted Greg Oden, Petteri Koponen, Taurean Green, and Josh McRoberts all in that draft. There was actually a lot of excitement for McRoberts at the time. He never became more than a deep bench player, though he played over 4x as many NBA games as Oden. Koponen has been coaching awhile - but he's 3 year younger than CP3! CP3 is somehow on track to play 82 games this year, and was drafted two years before all of those 2007 draft players.
