2026 NBA Draft Lottery Primer
The 2026 NBA draft lottery will take place on Sunday afternoon prior to Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals between the Knicks and Sixers. The half-hour event will be broadcast on ABC beginning at 2:00 pm Central time.
Unlike last year, when Cooper Flagg was considered the crown jewel in the draft class, the No. 1 overall pick this year isn’t a foregone conclusion. But that’s a reflection of the strength and depth of the 2026 class, since there’s no shortage of legitimate candidates for that top spot.
While BYU forward AJ Dybantsa is atop most draft boards, Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, Duke big man Cameron Boozer, and North Carolina forward Caleb Wilson are all considered high-level prospects who could have real cases to be drafted first overall.
In other words, it’s not necessarily “No. 1 or bust” this year. Any team that secures a top-four pick on May 10 should leave the lottery pretty happy.
Here’s what you need to know heading into Sunday’s lottery:
Pre-Lottery Draft Order
The top 14 picks in the 2026 NBA draft would look like this if Sunday’s lottery results don’t change the order:
- Washington Wizards
- Indiana Pacers
- Note: The Clippers will receive this pick if it falls out of the top four (47.9%).
- Brooklyn Nets
- Utah Jazz
- Sacramento Kings
- Memphis Grizzlies
- Atlanta Hawks (from Pelicans)
- Note: The Hawks will receive the most favorable of this pick and the Bucks’ pick.
- Dallas Mavericks
- Chicago Bulls
- Milwaukee Bucks
- The Bucks will receive the least favorable of this pick and the Pelicans’ pick.
- Golden State Warriors
- Oklahoma City Thunder (from Clippers)
- Miami Heat
- Charlotte Hornets
For the full pre-lottery draft order, click here.
Draft Lottery Odds
The Wizards, Pacers, and Nets have the best odds to land the No. 1 pick. Each of those three teams has a 14.0% chance to pick first overall.
From there, the Jazz (11.5%) and Kings (11.5%) have the next-best odds to receive the first overall selection, followed by the Hawks (9.8%), Grizzlies (9.0%), and Mavericks (6.7%).
When the NBA introduced its new lottery format in 2019, the selling point was that the new system flattened the odds, making it less likely that the league’s very worst teams would claim a top pick.
Before the NBA tweaked the lottery rules, there was a 60.5% chance that one of the league’s bottom three teams would secure the No. 1 pick and only a 27.6% chance that a team in the 5-14 range of the lottery standings would do so. Now, those odds are 42.0% and 45.5%, respectively.
Those flattened odds have made a significant impact in the past couple years. In 2024, the Hawks moved up from 10th in the pre-lottery order to grab the No. 1 pick, while the Mavericks one-upped them in 2025 by claiming the top pick from the No. 11 slot. We’ll see if that trend continues with another long-shot team winning the first overall selection in 2026.
For full details on the current lottery format, click here.
Trades Affecting The Draft Lottery
The Pacers traded their 2026 first-round pick to the Clippers, but will keep that selection if it lands within the top four. There’s a 52.1% chance that will happen and a 47.9% chance it will slip to No. 5 or No. 6 and be sent to Los Angeles. If Indiana retains its first-rounder this year, the club would instead owe its 2031 first-round pick (unprotected) to the Clippers.
The Hawks will exit the lottery with the most favorable pick between the Pelicans and Bucks first-rounders, while the Bucks will control the least favorable of the two.
That means the Hawks have a 40.2% chance of securing a top-four pick, including a 9.8% chance at No. 1 overall, while Milwaukee has just a 3.0% shot at a top-four pick and can’t draft higher than second overall. Atlanta also has a 90.1% chance to draft in the top eight, whereas the Bucks’ odds to draft at No. 10 or lower are 86.9%.
The Clippers‘ first-round pick will be sent to the Thunder, no matter where it lands. That pick has a 7.1% chance of moving into the top four, with 1.5% odds of becoming the first overall pick. It’s safe to assume the NBA’s other 29 teams will be rooting hard against either of those outcomes.
Draft Lottery Representatives
The representatives for each of this year’s lottery teams are as follows, according to a pair of announcements from the NBA:
- Washington Wizards
- On stage: John Wall (former Wizards player)
- Drawing room: Michael Winger (president)
- On stage: John Wall (former Wizards player)
- Indiana Pacers
- On stage: T.J. McConnell
- Drawing room: Ted Wu (executive VP of basketball operations / assistant GM)
- Brooklyn Nets
- On stage: Vince Carter (former Nets player)
- Drawing room: Joe Tsai (governor)
- Utah Jazz
- On stage: Keyonte George
- Drawing room: Austin Ainge (president of basketball operations)
- Sacramento Kings
- On stage: Scott Perry (general manager)
- Drawing room: John Kehriotis (minority owner)
- Memphis Grizzlies
- On stage: Tayshaun Prince (VP of player affairs)
- Drawing room: Zach Kleiman (president of basketball operations / GM)
- Atlanta Hawks
- On stage: Onsi Saleh (general manager)
- Drawing room: Daniel Starkman (VP of player personnel)
- Dallas Mavericks
- On stage: Rolando Blackman (former Mavericks player)
- Drawing room: Matt Riccardi (assistant GM)
- On stage: Rolando Blackman (former Mavericks player)
- Chicago Bulls
- On stage: Toni Kukoc (special advisor to the president and CEO)
- Drawing room: Chigozie Umeadi (executive director of basketball operations)
- Milwaukee Bucks
- On stage: Mallory Edens (ownership representative)
- Drawing room: Dave Dean (VP of basketball operations)
- Golden State Warriors
- On stage: Larry Harris (assistant GM / director of player personnel)
- Drawing room: Raymond Ridder (senior VP of communications)
- Oklahoma City Thunder
- On stage: Nick Collison (special assistant to the general manager)
- Drawing room: Sam Presti (executive VP of basketball operations / GM)
- Miami Heat
- On stage: Alonzo Mourning (VP of player programs)
- Drawing room: Adam Simon (assistant GM)
- Charlotte Hornets
- On stage: Kon Knueppel
- Drawing room: Jake Stone (assistant to the president of basketball operations)
Clippers executive director of basketball operations Rishabh Desai will also be present in the drawing room, but L.A. won’t have a representative on stage, since the team’s pick is headed to Oklahoma City regardless of where it lands.
Notably, the Mavericks‘ duo of Blackman and Riccardi is the same pair that was in attendance a year ago when Dallas won the lottery and the right to draft Flagg. The Mavs, of course, are hoping that Blackman and Riccardi bring the same sort of luck they did in 2025.
A total of 16 media members will also be present in the drawing room, per the NBA. That group is made up of a combination of national reporters, like Jake Fischer and Brian Windhorst, and local beat writers, including Dustin Dopirak and Jim Owczarksi. It can be viewed here.
Draft Notes: Peterson, Boozer, G League Combine, Lottery
Kansas guard and top prospect Darryn Peterson finally has an answer for the mysterious cramping he repeatedly experienced during his first and only college season, telling ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne that high doses of creatine created the condition. Doctors reached that conclusion after Peterson underwent additional testing and bloodwork after the season ended.
“I’d never taken it before (going to college),” Peterson explained. “But after the season I took two weeks off and they did tests which showed my baseline level was already high. So, they said when I dosed (a process of increasing a dose over time to create maximum benefit at the beginning of taking a supplement), it must’ve made the levels unsafe.”
Peterson was hospitalized in September after experiencing an intense full-body cramp, and that experience stuck with him throughout the season. Speaking to Shelburne, he admitted that he was worried all year about the possibility of it happening again.
“Whenever I felt anything like that come on, my initial thought was that it might get to that again,” Peterson said. “And I can’t let that happen and be embarrassed and have that on TV and all that. It kind of put me in a tizzy because I didn’t know what was causing it. Nothing has ever been wrong with me before. Basketball is my life. What I love to do. But something was going on and I couldn’t figure it out.”
Peterson, who didn’t speak to the media often during the season about the health issues he was experiencing, has fallen behind BYU’s AJ Dybantsa on most draft boards since the fall and is no longer considered the favorite to be drafted first overall.
However, teams with one of the top two or three picks in next month’s draft will likely feel more comfortable about the prospect of drafting him now that the cause of his cramping has been identified. Peterson tells Shelburne that he has started feeling more comfortable since getting an explanation and hasn’t experienced any problems since he stopped taking a creatine supplement.
Here are a few more notes related to the 2026 NBA draft:
- Duke’s Cameron Boozer is the No. 1 prospect on the top-15 list compiled by John Hollinger of The Athletic, who says Boozer’s offensive upside outweighs his limitations as a defender and rim protector. Hollinger views a “Kevin Love-type impact” as a median outcome for Boozer and believes there’s upside for more than that.
- The NBA has announced the four 11-man rosters for this weekend’s G League combine, as Jon Chepkevich of DraftExpress relays (via Twitter). After initially announcing 44 participants, the league made three changes to that list earlier this week and has since made two more, Chepkevich notes (via Twitter), with Vanderbilt’s Duke Miles and Cal’s Chris Bell replacing Arkansas’ Malique Ewin and NC State’s Darrion Williams. Williams has COVID-19, per Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress (Twitter link), who confirms that Isiah Harwell and Paulius Murauskas – having previously pulled out of the G League combine – are withdrawing from the draft.
- ESPN’s Brian Windhorst considers the enormous stakes of this Sunday’s draft lottery, starting with the Pacers and Clippers having their short-term outlooks altered significantly by the outcome of what is essentially a coin flip.
Knicks Notes: Anunoby, Shamet, McBride, Hart, Robinson
Given that even mild hamstring strains often require a recovery period of a week or two, there was some skepticism on Thursday when OG Anunoby was dubbed day-to-day and listed as questionable for Friday’s game after being diagnosed with a strain. However, league sources tell Stefan Bondy and Jared Schwartz of The New York Post (subscription required) that imaging revealed a “very minor” strain and that the Knicks forward is truly considered day-to-day.
Ian Begley of SNY.tv (Twitter video link) conveyed a similar sentiment in the latest episode of The Putback.
“This is not something that’s going to (take) weeks (to come back from) unless there’s some kind of setback,” Begley said. “If he misses games, it’s going to be a handful of games. He will be back, assuming the Knicks get through Philadelphia. He will be back in this series if the Sixers take a game or two. (There’s) optimism in the locker room — there’s a chance he could be back Friday or Sunday.”
While Anunoby hasn’t been ruled out yet for Game 3 on Friday, it would be surprising if he suited up just two days after suffering the injury, especially with the Knicks holding a 2-0 lead in the series. However, all indications are that he won’t miss as much time as he has when he sustained similar injuries in the past. As Bondy and Schwartz write, two previous hamstring strains cost Anunoby nine games and four games, respectively, but this one is considered milder than either of those.
Here’s more on the Knicks:
- In separate stories for the Post, Schwartz breaks down the ripple effect of Anunoby’s injury, noting that Landry Shamet could return to the rotation and the Knicks could deploy more double-big looks, while Bondy says the team should play it safe with Anunoby, arguing that Miles McBride is more than capable of taking his spot in the starting lineup for at least the next game or two.
- Ryan Dunleavy of The New York Post breaks down why Josh Hart is the best bet to step up if Anunoby misses time, noting that the versatile swingman saw his production spike when Anunoby was injured early in the regular season.
- Of course, it’s not a lock that Hart will be available for Game 3 — he’s listed as questionable after spraining his left thumb in Game 2. Still, there have been no indications to this point that Hart’s availability is in serious jeopardy. Mitchell Robinson is also on the injury report after missing Game 2 with an illness, but he’s considered probable to return to action.
Redick, Lakers Gripe About Officiating After Game 2 Loss
After the Lakers lost Game 2 to the Thunder on Thursday by a score of 125-107, Austin Reaves and several of his teammates spoke to the game’s referees on the court before heading to the locker room, seemingly expressing their frustration with how the game was called (Twitter video link). As Dave McMenamin of ESPN writes, head coach JJ Redick voiced those frustrations during his post-game press conference.
“I sarcastically said the other day, (the Thunder are) the most disruptive team without fouling,” Redick said. “I mean, they have a few guys that foul on every possession. … They’re hard enough to play. They’re hard enough to play, you’ve got to be able to just call them if they foul, and they do foul.”
Through two games, the free throw disparity between the two teams isn’t significant — the Thunder have gone to the line 38 times, while the Lakers have attempted 34 free throws. However, Los Angeles’ leading scorer and play-maker LeBron James only has five of those free throw attempts, prompting Redick to specifically address the way the four-time MVP is being officiated.
“LeBron has the worst whistle of any star player I’ve ever seen,” Redick said. “I mean, I’ve been with him two years now. The smaller guys, because they can be theatric, they typically draw more fouls, and the bigger players that are built like LeBron, it’s hard for them. He gets clobbered. He got clobbered again tonight a bunch.
“And that’s not like a new thing. That’s not specific to this crew or this series. He gets fouled a lot and it doesn’t (get called). The guy gets hit on the head more than any player I’ve seen on drives, and it rarely gets called.”
As McMenamin observes, James appeared to express his displeasure with a number of calls over the course of the game, but he declined to speak about the officiating after the game. Reaves was more willing to discuss the subject, explaining that he took particular exception to a moment when crew chief John Goble “yelled in my face” as the Lakers guard was attempting to get in position for a jump ball (Twitter video link).
“At the end of the day, we’re grown men. And I just didn’t feel like he needed to yell in my face like that,” Reaves said. “I told him that. I wasn’t disrespectful. I told him if I did that to him first, I would have got a tech. I feel like the only reason I didn’t get a tech is because he knew he was in the wrong. So, yeah, I just felt disrespected.”
Regardless of whether or not the Lakers have legitimate gripes about the officiating, neither of the first two games in the series has been close, with the Thunder winning each one by 18 points. A more favorable whistle wouldn’t solve Los Angeles’ real problems in the matchup, according to Dan Woike of The Athletic. Redick acknowledged as much during his post-game remarks.
“We didn’t lose because of the refs,” the Lakers’ coach said, per Law Murray of The Athletic. “That’s never the case. You don’t lose because of the officials. You lose because the other team outplayed you. They obviously outplayed us. … So we just got to be better, and we’ll look at how we can be better at both ends.”
Wolves Notes: Dosunmu, Edwards, Game 2, McDaniels, Clark
Timberwolves guard Ayo Dosunmu returned to action on Wednesday at San Antonio after missing the previous two contests (Game 6 vs. Denver and Game 1 vs. the Spurs) due to right calf soreness. However, the former second-round pick exited the lopsided loss in the second quarter due to right heel pain and did not return (Twitter link via the Wolves).
Dosunmu is considered questionable to suit up for Friday’s Game 3 due to the heel injury, according to the team (Twitter link), as is star guard Anthony Edwards, who continues to battle a left knee bone bruise he sustained on April 25. Edwards has been on a minutes restriction and has come off the bench in the first two games of the second-round series vs. the Spurs.
Here’s more on the Timberwolves:
- After upsetting the Spurs on the road in Game 1, the Wolves “got punked” by a desperate San Antonio team in Game 2, head coach Chris Finch told reporters, including Anthony Slater of ESPN. Finch was critical of Minnesota’s offensive execution, and didn’t like how Edwards and the rest of the team responded to the Spurs’ ball pressure and selective double-teams on the former No. 1 overall pick. “Got to get off of it,” Finch said. “Got to use it as a catalyst for ball movement, what it should be. I thought we dribbled to tough spots. I thought we were late getting off it. I thought our spacing around it wasn’t really good.”
- Foul trouble limited Jaden McDaniels to under 20 minutes of playing time on Wednesday, and the Wolves know they need the versatile forward to stay on the court to have a chance in the series, according to Chris Hine of The Star Tribune. The Spurs went on a huge run when McDaniels picked up his third foul in the second quarter and the game was out of reach by the time he returned in the third, Hine notes. “Him being off the court is going to hurt us every time,” Edwards said. “He knows it, we know it. The whole gym knows it. Their team knows it. When he gets in foul trouble, they get happy. We need him on the floor. He gonna be better next game. He know he can’t really foul. We’re not gonna win if he’s not on the floor.”
- Second-year guard Jaylen Clark has received rotation minutes against the Spurs after only appearing in two of the six games against Denver. The 24-year-old talked about his role in the offense on Wednesday, per Dane Moore (Twitter video link). “Nobody is guarding me right now, so hitting the open shot. Those two, three buckets is enough to keep me out there right now,” Clark said.
Rockets Notes: Offseason, Young Players, Growth, More
Rockets general manager Rafael Stone and head coach Ime Udoka addressed the media on Monday, a few days after the team was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs for the second straight season. Stone referred to the 2025/26 campaign as “frustrating and disappointing,” per Varun Shankar of The Houston Chronicle (subscription required).
“As is constructed and what we had, we still feel we should have won more than 52 (games). Still should have won the first-round series,” Udoka said. “We had some injuries there and (the Lakers) did as well but we had more than enough to get it done.”
While Stone said Houston would look at several pathways to improvement, he expects the team to be better in ’26/27 due to the injury returns of Fred VanVleet and Steven Adams — both of whom are on track to be fully healthy at the start of next season — and continued growth from the young core.
“My expectation is that Tari (Eason), Jabari (Smith Jr.), Reed (Sheppard), Alpi (Alperen Şengün) and Amen (Thompson) all need to be way better basketball players next year and I think they should be,” Stone said. “That’s on them. It’s on us. But I expect that growth from them.”
Stone also addressed the contract situations of Eason and Thompson, Shankar writes. Eason will be a restricted free agent this summer, while Thompson will be eligible for a rookie scale extension. Although Stone noted things could change, he’s high on both players and expects them to be on the roster for the foreseeable future.
Re-signing Eason would likely push the Rockets over the luxury tax again next season, Shankar notes, and Stone said owner Tilman Fertitta is willing to foot the bill.
“I don’t see Tilman ever wanting to take a step back that isn’t strategic,” Stone said. “If we weren’t (in the tax), it’s because of some opportunity to do something else that is basketball-related.”
We have more from Houston:
- Explaining why the Rockets decided not to pursue a point guard ahead of the deadline in the wake of VanVleet’s injury, Stone said the players who were available wouldn’t have been difference-makers. “No one guards (some point guards) after they make the initial pass and then on the other end, they’re just a sieve,” he said, per Shankar. “And those players do exist in the NBA. There’s quite a few of them and they’re available. But I didn’t think that would make us better on the whole.”
- According to Shankar, Stone said the Rockets would like to add more shooting — but not if doing so would negatively impact other parts of the team. “I don’t know that we’re gonna get a shooter who can’t do anything else but trying to find a quality player who, maybe their strength is shooting, I think that makes some sense,” Stone said.
- In another subscriber-only story, Shankar recaps the Rockets’ season, writing that the ultimate outcome was disappointing for a team that entered ’25/26 with championship aspirations. Still, it’s not as though the season was a total lost cause, as many of Houston’s young played improved in ’25/26, even if none looked like stars in the playoffs.
- In a third article for The Houston Chronicle (subscriber link), Shankar lists five key storylines to monitor this offseason, including whether Eason will be on the roster, what an extension for Thompson might look like, and whether VanVleet could re-sign with the club on a new contract rather than exercising his $25MM player option for ’26/27.
Former NBA Forward P.J. Tucker Announces Retirement
Longtime NBA forward P.J. Tucker has retired as a player, he announced on social media (Instagram link).
After three college seasons at Texas, Tucker was selected 35th overall in the 2006 NBA draft. He spent his rookie season in Toronto, the team that drafted him, but only played 83 total minutes over 17 games with the Raptors before he was cut in March of 2007.
Tucker played five years overseas prior to rejoining the NBA with the Suns in 2012/13. The 6’5″ combo forward spent four-plus seasons with Phoenix before to being sent back to Toronto ahead of the 2017 trade deadline. He signed with the Rockets that year in free agency, and proceeded to spend parts of four seasons with Houston, which sent him to Milwaukee ahead of the 2021 deadline.
Tucker helped the Bucks win their first championship in 50 years in 2020/21. He spent the following three seasons with the Heat, Sixers and Clippers, and was under contract but away from Los Angeles for most of 2024/25 until he was traded to Utah and then Toronto last February.
After being waived by the Raptors at the end of February 2025, Tucker signed with the Knicks. The North Carolina native barely played for New York, which advanced to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 25 years. The Knicks declined their team option on Tucker last summer, and he has been a free agent ever since.
Tucker, who turned 41 years old two days ago, holds career averages of 6.6 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1.1 steals in 28.2 minutes per game across 886 regular season appearances, 667 of which were starts. His career shooting slash line was .425/.366/.750.
The 14-year veteran was mostly known for being a solid defender who could guard multiple positions. Tucker was strong, tough and made lots of winning effort plays that don’t necessarily show up on a stat sheet.
Latest On NBA Europe
There continues to be ongoing dialogue between the NBA and EuroLeague about the NBA’s proposed European league, writes Joe Vardon of The Athletic. However, the two sides are still working through the details of what a potential partnership might look like.
According to Vardon, new EuroLeague CEO Chus Bueno — a former NBA executive — will meet this week in Barcelona with George Aivazoglou, the NBA’s day-to-day leader of the project. Aivazoglou’s title with the NBA is managing director of Europe and the Middle East.
As Vardon details, the NBA has sought the money, fan bases, infrastructure and “local gravity” of European football (soccer) giants for NBA Europe, but those teams don’t view the situation as being on even footing in negotiations.
“The clubs are still of the mind that the NBA needs them much more than the clubs need the NBA,” one source familiar with the talks told The Athletic. “Half these clubs don’t really need a basketball team. If you really challenge them, I think they would love to have one in many ways but it’s not a necessity.”
Still, Vardon points out that some of those clubs could be incentivized to “play ball” if they hope to eventually own NBA teams in the future. Sovereign or public wealth funds are currently limited to minority ownership stakes in NBA clubs, Vardon notes, but it’s possible that could change down the line, especially if the board of governors and league office support the idea.
Vardon describes the current situation as “tense,” since both sides are trying to find a middle ground in several areas. While the NBA would like all of the current EuroLeague teams to be involved in NBA Europe, the NBA is also insisting license holders pay a sliding-scale fee based on market size on top of seeking infrastructure improvements, Vardon reports.
“Why should one pay less or more than the other — there should be some coherence around the valuations,” a representative for a potential NBA Europe team said.
Some of the European soccer giants have also floated the idea paying of NBA teams to essentially rent their star players for a period of time, like the transfer system. The NBA viewed that concept as a nonstarter, however.
“This is not something (the NBA is) currently entertaining or considering,” a source familiar with the negotiations told Vardon.
Regardless of how the talks play out, Vardon still hears Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will likely own one of NBA Europe’s licensed teams, with London as the market.
Raptors Notes: Webster, Offseason, Barrett, Rajakovic
Speaking to the media at his end-of-season press conference on Wednesday, Raptors general manager Bobby Webster didn’t give a ton of clues about what the offseason might look like for Toronto, per Eric Koreen of The Athletic.
While Webster is “far more measured in tone” than his predecessor and longtime former boss Masai Ujiri, they seem to value many of the same things from a team-building perspective, Koreen writes, with patience, opportunism and incremental growth among the overlapping talking points.
Webster made it clear he wasn’t going to overreact to Toronto’s seven-game first-round series vs. Cleveland, and pointed out that progress isn’t guaranteed to be linear in 2026/27 after the Raptors increased their win total by 16 games and made the playoffs for the first time since 2022.
“I think it was a step in the right direction,” Webster said. “It doesn’t mean the next step or the next steps aren’t going to be even harder.”
Pulling off a major trade this summer might be difficult since it would essentially have to include at least one of Toronto’s starters, and some of the players in that group don’t have positive value due to their contracts. On the other hand, Webster pointed out that the Raptors control all of their future first-round picks, including No. 19 overall in the 2026 draft, and hasn’t been afraid to take big swings in the past.
“Clearly, the defensive ability of (Scottie Barnes and rookie Collin Murray-Boyles) is special, whether it’s switching or them being disruptive and guarding multiple positions,” Webster said. “What do you surround them with? You could surround them with more defense. You could put more elite defenders with them and figure out the offensive end. But I think we’re going to focus on the strength of those two, which is a defensive pairing, and maybe making the top-five defense an even better defense.”
Here’s more on the Raptors:
- Within his Raptors offseason preview, Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca observes that big man Sandro Mamukelashvili is the team’s biggest free agent this summer, and Webster suggested the team would like to re-sign him. “He fit in really well here,” Webster said. “We’ll talk to his reps, we’ll talk to Mamu. I think he obviously wants to be here. There are financial realities of the NBA, but we’ll do everything we can to retain him.”
- Reports of the Raptors lacking a degree of flexibility due to their starters’ contracts are somewhat overstated, according to Lewenberg, who says including Murray-Boyles in a possible trade package would entice any team who has a star available. The future of RJ Barrett might be the most interesting subplot of the offseason, Lewenberg adds. Barrett is entering the final year of his contract and will be extension-eligible this summer, and his expiring contract and strong playoff play could make him an unexpectedly valuable trade chip.
- Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca shares some of the noteworthy quotes from head coach Darko Rajakovic‘s end-of-season presser.
- In case you missed it, both Webster and Rajakovic are expected to receive extensions this offseason.
Cavaliers’ Merrill, Pistons’ Huerter Out For Game 2
Cavaliers sharpshooter Sam Merrill has been ruled out for Thursday’s Game 2 in Detroit, tweets Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com. The sixth-year wing was initially considered questionable for tonight’s contest due to a left hamstring strain, which he suffered during Tuesday’s Game 1 loss vs. the Pistons.
Merrill had a career year for the Cavs after re-signing with the club on a four-year, $37MM contract in 2025 free agency. He averaged 12.8 points, 2.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists in 26.5 minutes per game — all career highs — while shooting 42.1% from long distance during the regular season.
Merrill didn’t participate in Wednesday’s practice and it would have been surprising if he had suited up on Thursday, given the nature of his injury. But the fact that the 29-year-old was initially listed as questionable suggests his injury may not be severe.
Pistons wing Kevin Huerter will also be sidelined on Thursday, per Hunter Patterson of The Athletic (Twitter link). Huerter was downgraded from doubtful to out because of a strained left adductor he suffered on April 27.
Huerter was playing rotation minutes for the top-seeded Pistons in the first-round series against Orlando. The impending free agent suffered the injury in Game 4.