Being a Sixers fan the past 5 years has been a swift kick to the nards. And with such unabashed tanking, they’ve only gotten the 3rd pick in the lotto the past two seasons, but NO MORE! Those kicked-in nards are falling dropping with the fortune of winning the lottery, which hopefully in this case goes better than the winner in Shirley Jackson’s world…
If you missed the balls dropping last night, the Philadelphia 76ers “won the lottery” by getting the first pick. They had the most balls as well, something rarely said about the Sixers franchise lately. We get the metaphor already! Watch Philly screw it up too… Looking at their 1st-round picks the past few years, their best one was probably Nikola Vucevic… That didn’t end up working out well for Philly! So I expect them to pass on Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram and go, I dunno, the last of the Plumlee clan so they can have Duke twin towers… Big man is a need for them right?! RIGHT?!
Being an ACC fan, I personally think Ingram is a smidge overrated, just insofar as being lumped with Simmons. Bill Simmons’ son is the class of the draft for me, and while both are SF-types, Simmons just seems to fit the Sixers so well. They still are in flux at PG, so Simmons’ passing ability could make him a pretty nasty multi-cat threat on offense. On top of 4.8 dimes averaged at LSU, he also averaged 2.0 STL and 0.8 BLK, so there could be D stats as well. He also isn’t much of a perimeter shooter, which would actually play really nice next to Robert Covington, who might finally have that full-season breakout we’ve all been hoping for.
Rounding out the top 3, the Lakers get the 2nd pick and Boston and their trade-rape of Brooklyn a few years ago get the horribly-run Nets’ pick and go 3rd. The lottery actually went in the exact order it was supposed to. Yet somehow, the Mega Millions and Powerball lotteries never go they way they’re supposed to, by giving me millions of dollars! What’s that about?!
On top of the Celtics having a ton of picks, the Nuggets also have 3 first rounders at 7, 15 and 19. I knew they were in a rebuild and I think knew about their picks in passing, but seeing it finally on paper is pretty interesting. Here’s to hoping they don’t draft big men and muck up our Jusuf Nurkic and Nikola Jokic love!
We’ll be talking the draft extensively over the next month and 5 days, and Slim and I have already started our back-and-forth mock draft. You can check out how we did in 2014 and 2015, or maybe I shouldn’t have linked those as they go a little buckwild! Mmmm, Aaron Gordon on the Hornets though! That would be such an amazing fit! Zach Lavine to the Jazz – he’d be forced to play starting PG! And if Kristaps Porzingis was on the Pistons… Actually, I think that would be just as good a spot as being the Poison Goose on the Knicks! Man, those were fun to peruse through…
Anyway, here’s how the NBA’s First Round will go down, and we’ll be putting up our mock draft sometime next week!
2016 NBA Draft Order
1. Philadelphia 76ers
2. Los Angeles Lakers
3. Boston Celtics
4. Phoenix Suns
5. Minnesota Timberwolves
6. New Orleans Pelicans
7. Denver Nuggets
8. Sacramento Kings
9. Toronto Raptors
10. Milwaukee Bucks
11. Orlando Magic
12. Utah Jazz
13. Phoenix Suns
14. Chicago Bulls
15. Denver Nuggets
16. Boston Celtics
17. Memphis Grizzlies
18. Detroit Pistons
19. Denver Nuggets
20. Indiana Pacers
21. Atlanta Hawks
22. Charlotte Hornets
23. Boston Celtics
24. Philadelphia 76ers
25. Los Angeles Clippers
26. Philadelphia 76ers
27. Toronto Raptors
28. Phoenix Suns
29. San Antonio Spurs
30. Golden State Warriors
