Kevin Durant Out For Game 2 Of Western Finals
As expected, Warriors forward Kevin Durant will miss Game Two of the Western Conference Finals against the Trail Blazers. While the team has yet to provide official confirmation Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports reports (via Twitter) that Durant won’t play due to his calf strain.
We’d heard on Tuesday that KD was unlikely to play in either of the first two games of the series, and a subsequent report suggested that Golden State had yet to establish a real timeline for his return. Before Game 1, head coach Steve Kerr told reporters that Durant “hasn’t even stepped on the floor yet” and “still has pain.”
While the Warriors would certainly like to get Durant back on the court, they looked good without him in Game One, taking an early lead on Portland. It will be interesting to see whether Durant’s return timetable hinges at least in part on how the rest of the series plays out. For instance, if the Warriors take a 2-0 or 3-0 lead over the Blazers, it would make sense to be a little more patient with his recovery.
Durant’s status for Game Three in Portland on Saturday is not yet known.
2019 NBA Draft Picks By Team
While the Sixers and Celtics suffered disappointing losses in the Eastern Conference Semifinals and face uncertain futures, both teams can at least fall back on the fact that they’re still loaded with draft assets. Philadelphia and Boston are two of only three NBA teams – the Hawks are the other – that possess at least four picks in the 2019 NBA draft.
As our full 2019 draft order shows, there are five other teams that more than two selections in this year’s draft. On the other end of the spectrum, nine teams own just one pick in 2018, while two teams – the Nuggets and Rockets – don’t have any selections.
To present a clearer picture of which teams are most – and least – stocked with picks for the 2019 NBA draft, we’ve rounded up all 60 picks by team in the space below. Let’s dive in…
Teams with more than two picks:
- Atlanta Hawks (5): 8, 10, 35, 41, 44
- Philadelphia 76ers (5): 24, 33, 34, 42, 54
- Boston Celtics (4): 14, 20, 22, 51
- New Orleans Pelicans (3): 1, 39, 57
- Charlotte Hornets (3): 12, 36, 52
- Brooklyn Nets (3): 17, 27, 31
- San Antonio Spurs (3): 19, 29, 49
- Sacramento Kings (3): 40, 47, 60
Teams with two picks:
- New York Knicks: 3, 55
- Cleveland Cavaliers: 5, 26
- Phoenix Suns: 6, 32
- Chicago Bulls: 7, 38
- Minnesota Timberwolves: 11, 43
- Detroit Pistons: 15, 45
- Orlando Magic: 16, 46
- Indiana Pacers: 18, 50
- Utah Jazz: 23, 53
- Golden State Warriors: 28, 58
- Los Angeles Clippers: 48, 56
Teams with one pick:
- Memphis Grizzlies: 2
- Los Angeles Lakers: 4
- Washington Wizards: 9
- Miami Heat: 13
- Oklahoma City Thunder: 21
- Portland Trail Blazers: 25
- Milwaukee Bucks: 30
- Dallas Mavericks: 37
- Toronto Raptors: 59
Teams with no picks:
- Denver Nuggets
- Houston Rockets
Former NBA Exec Rob Babcock Passes Away
Former NBA executive Rob Babcock has passed away following a battle with pancreatic cancer, according to Alex Kennedy of HoopsHype (Twitter link).
Babcock began his NBA career in 1987 when he joined the Nuggets as a scout. After a handful of stops, he began working for the Timberwolves, where he spent 12 years in the team’s front office, including the last two as Minnesota’s vice president of player personnel.
After his time with the Wolves, Babcock was hired as the Raptors‘ head of basketball operations in the spring of 2004, but lasted just a year and a half with the franchise before being let go in January 2006. He was tasked with trading away disgruntled star Vince Carter during his brief tenure as Toronto’s general manager.
Babcock later returned to the Timberwolves’ front office, serving first as a consultant and then as an assistant GM. He was eventually promoted to the role of vice president of basketball operations before being dismissed in May of 2016.
Chris Babcock and Nate Babcock, Rob’s sons, are currently employed by the Sixers and Nets, respectively.
We at Hoops Rumors send our condolences to Rob’s friends and family.
Northwest Notes: Kanter, Wolves, Nuggets
While the Trail Blazers and Raptors are underdogs in their respective conference finals, there’s still a chance that the two teams will meet in the NBA Finals. And if that happens, Portland wants to make sure it will have Enes Kanter available in road games.
With that in mind, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden wrote a letter this week to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, requesting that Canada facilitate “safe passage” for Kanter for any potential games in Toronto, per ESPN’s Royce Young.
A vocal critic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kanter is no longer welcome in his home country, with Turkish prosecutors reportedly seeking his extradition. Turkey, which previously revoked Kanter’s passport, is said to be seeking an Interpol “red notice” for the Trail Blazers center, whose ability to travel outside of America has become extremely limited.
While it’s unlikely that both Portland and Toronto advance to the NBA Finals, this would be a situation worth keeping an eye on in that scenario.
Here’s more from around the Northwest:
- Within an in-depth look at the Timberwolves‘ newly-launched head coaching search, Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic reports that the team hadn’t reached out to Dave Joerger about the job, as of Tuesday afternoon. A Minnesota native, Joerger was speculatively linked to the Wolves’ job even before he was dismissed by Sacramento.
- PJ Washington (Kentucky), Kevin Porter Jr. (USC), and Romeo Langford (Indiana) are among the players who will meet with the Timberwolves this week at the draft combine, tweets Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News.
- Matt Schubert of The Denver Post identifies a few players who might be free agent targets for the Nuggets this summer. While Denver will be able to open up some cap room, the team is unlikely to have more than about $18MM available even without Paul Millsap on the books. As such, some of Schubert’s proposed targets – including Khris Middleton – may be long shots.
- Myles Powell (Seton Hall) has auditioned for the Thunder and has additional workouts on his schedule, sources tell Adam Zagoria of ZagsBlog.com (Twitter link).
And-Ones: Combine, Coach Challenges, World Cup
Eleven prospects who participated in this week’s G League Elite Camp in Chicago have been invited to stick around to attend the actual draft combine, which will begin today and run through this Sunday.
According to a tweet from the NBA G League, those 11 players are as follows: Oshae Brissett (Syracuse), Tyler Cook (Iowa), Terence Davis (Ole Miss), Tacko Fall (UCF), Jared Harper (Auburn), Dewan Hernandez (Miami), DaQuan Jeffries (Tulsa), Terance Mann (Florida State), Cody Martin (Nevada), Reggie Perry (Mississippi State), and Marial Shayok (Iowa State).
A total of 40 draft-eligible prospects who weren’t initially invited to the draft combine worked out in front of NBA teams at the G League Elite Camp. Teams were then polled on which prospects they’d most like to get a longer look at for this week’s combine. The group of 11 prospects who were chosen will join the 65 players who were initially announced as combine participants last week.
Here’s more from around the basketball world:
- Multiple sources tell ESPN’s Zach Lowe that the “liveliest” topic of discussion at Tuesday’s GM meetings involved the possibility of instituting a system for coaches’ replay challenges, which exist in many other major sports. According to Lowe, not everyone agreed on what should be reviewable, with some GMs arguing that coaches should be able to challenge foul calls, while others disagreed. There was also discussion about whether a challenge should cost a team a timeout, regardless of whether a call is reversed or upheld.
- Sixers All-Star Ben Simmons announced this week that he intends to play for Australia in the 2019 FIBA World Cup (link via ESPN.com). He’ll be joined on the Australian squad by Jazz sharpshooter Joe Ingles, tweets Tony Jones of The Athletic. However, Roy Ward of The Age Sport (Twitter link) hears that Ingles’ teammate Dante Exum is unlikely to participate in the event due to his knee injury.
- The NBA and the National Basketball Coaches Association are creating a program intended to better identify and illuminate potential coaches among groups that are underrepresented, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. “We are not talking about a quota system,” Mavericks coach and NBCA president Rick Carlisle told ESPN. “Rival leagues have proven that mandates and demands for diverse hiring practices do not work. Our goal is an absolute equal opportunity for all our members to develop their skills on a level playing field.”
NBA Likely To Move Up Start Of July Moratorium
The NBA is expected to tweak the start date and time of its annual July moratorium, sources tell Tim Bontemps of ESPN.com (Twitter link). According to Bontemps, rather than starting at 12:00 am eastern time on July 1, the moratorium will likely begin six hours earlier, on June 30 at 6:00 pm.
The beginning of the July moratorium also represents the start of the NBA’s new league year. Teams can officially begin talks with free agents at that point, so moving up the start time would allow those discussions to get underway at a reasonable hour rather than in the middle of the night, Bontemps notes.
As we detail in our glossary entry on the subject, teams can’t officially sign players or complete trades during the July moratorium, though there are handful of transactions that can still be completed during that window.
Agreements on trades and free agent deals can, of course, be reached during the July moratorium, which is why most top free agents are unofficially off the board by the time the moratorium comes to an end several days later.
We’ll wait for official word from the NBA, but there’s no indication that changing the start time of the July moratorium would impact its end date. Under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, the moratorium ends and transactions can be finalized at noon eastern time on July 6.
Lottery Notes: Pelicans, Knicks, Cavs, Bulls, C’s
Tuesday night was a massive one for the Pelicans, who won the 2019 draft lottery despite entering the night with just a 6.0% of landing that top pick. As William Guillory of The Athletic details, head coach Alvin Gentry was representing the team in the drawing room and was ecstatic when he learned that the team would be drafting first overall, exclaiming “F— yeah!” and high-fiving other representatives in the room.
While the Pelicans will now have the opportunity to build around super-prospect Zion Williamson, Gentry and new head of basketball operations David Griffin remain optimistic that they can convince their current franchise player – Anthony Davis – to be part of the future as well.
“Guys, the one thing you got to understand is [Davis] is still on our roster,” Gentry said on Tuesday, per Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated. “He is on our roster. All of that will take care of itself. I’m not worried about it. I know Griff has some plans to talk to him, and it will be fine.”
For his part, Griffin downplayed the effect that landing the No. 1 pick might have on Davis’ situation, while still indicating that he’d like to keep the All-NBA big man around.
“I understand why people want to link the two, because the assumption is that elite players want to play with other elite players, but this doesn’t change anything with the Anthony Davis situation,” Griffin said, according to Nathan Brown of The Advocate. “Maybe it gives him one more sign that things are changing in a different direction.
“This is just one more positive chip at this point, and if Anthony Davis is trying to decide if he can trust if we can build a winner, I hope we can build evidence of that day after day. And if AD wants to be part of that, wonderful. And if he doesn’t buy into what we’re trying to do, that’s okay too.”
Here’s more on Tuesday’s draft lottery:
- Within his story linked above, Spears cites a source who says Williamson – who left the draft room without comment after the Pelicans won the lottery – was hoping to end up with the Knicks. The Knicks, who are holding the No. 3 pick, won’t have a shot at Zion now, but they have another Duke player firmly on their radar. A league source tells Adam Zagoria of ZagsBlog.com that New York is expected to meet with R.J. Barrett on Wednesday at the draft combine in Chicago.
- Moving down to fifth in the draft order was close to a worst-case scenario for the Cavaliers, but as Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com observes, it may not be a huge letdown for new head coach John Beilein, who rarely had the opportunity to add five-star recruits during his college coaching career.
- Bulls executive John Paxson sounds open to the possibility of trading the No. 7 pick, writes Mark Strotman of NBC Sports Chicago. “There’s other things you can do with picks to get better,” Paxson said. “You can trade them, you can do a lot of different things. So again, now that we know where we’re at, thankful to know and we’ll get to work trying to find a way to make best use of it.”
- The Kings’ pick didn’t move up from No. 14 and the Grizzlies kept their own first-rounder, but things could have gone much worse for the Celtics on lottery night, as Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston explains.
- Sean Deveney of Sporting News takes a look at some of the winners and losers of Tuesday’s lottery, while ESPN’s Zach Lowe passes along several interesting nuggets from behind the scenes of the event.
Poll: Were NBA’s Draft Lottery Changes Effective?
Two weeks before Tuesday’s NBA draft lottery, we took a closer look at four lottery scenarios that – based on the odds – were more likely than not to happen. As we cautioned in that story, not all of those scenarios would actually play out. For instance, the Knicks technically defied the odds by landing in the top three (40.1% chance) rather than fourth or fifth (59.1%).
However, the first scenario we outlined in that story did, in fact, play out. As we explained, there was a 45.5% chance that a team in the 5-14 range of the lottery standings would land the No. 1 overall pick, as opposed to just a 42% chance that one of the NBA’s three worst teams – the Knicks, Cavaliers, and Suns – would win the lottery.
The Pelicans, who won the first overall pick, were seventh in the lottery standings, while the Grizzlies (picking No. 2) were eighth.
Neither New Orleans nor Memphis had a great chance to move up. The Pelicans only had a 6.0% chance at the No. 1 pick, and the Grizzlies’ odds of moving into the top two were just 12.3%. But those odds would’ve been substantially lower under the NBA’s old lottery format (2.8% and 6.1%, respectively).
In other words, by smoothing out the odds and giving middle-of-the-pack teams a greater chance to move up, the NBA got the chaos it expected, with three teams moving way up in the draft order and bottom-of-the-pack clubs like the Cavs, Suns, and Bulls getting pushed out of the top four. The league’s new lottery format worked as designed, writes Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today.
“One year doesn’t tell the whole story,” NBA executive VP of basketball operations Kiki VanDeWeghe told ESPN’s Zach Lowe after the lottery. “But the intent was to make it a little more random. It certainly doesn’t solve everything, but I think it was a good move by the Board of Governors.”
A common refrain in the wake of last night’s results was that the outcome should discourage tanking going forward. One team executive told Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic that “the war on tanking was a success,” while Rudy Gobert declared on Twitter that “we just witnessed the end of tanking.”
Still, others pushed back against that idea. After all, even if it wasn’t a great night for the Knicks, Cavs, Suns, and Bulls, teams like the Pelicans and Lakers intentionally held their stars out of action down the stretch, and were ultimately rewarded for it. Given how many mid-lottery teams benefited, is it possible that borderline postseason contenders in future years will wave the white flag on the playoff chase earlier than anticipated in an attempt to move into a similar position?
What do you think? Were the NBA’s new lottery changes effective, or do you think they’ll end up creating more issues (related to tanking or anything else) going forward?
Vote in our poll, then head to the comment section to share your thoughts!
Were the NBA's lottery changes effective?
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Yes, they were a step in the right direction. 64% (892)
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No, they'll create more problems going forward. 36% (506)
Total votes: 1,398
Trade Rumors app users, click here to vote.
Celtics Believe Kyrie Irving Stays If Team Acquires Anthony Davis
The Celtics still have eyes for an Anthony Davis–Kyrie Irving pairing. President of basketball operations Danny Ainge wants to bring back Irving and he believes that the point guard will re-sign if Boston trades for Davis, sources tell Frank Isola of The Athletic.
The Pelicans won the NBA draft lottery but that hasn’t curbed Davis’ desire to leave the franchise. Boston doesn’t appear to be high on his wish list, though the six-time All-Star doesn’t own a no-trade clause (no player in the NBA currently does), so his landing spot will not necessarily be on his terms.
The Celtics have a collection of young assets and picks to offer new VP of basketball operations David Griffin. Jayson Tatum is the team’s top asset, though it’s unclear if Boston will include him in trade talks.
Irving appeared distant from teammates during the Celtics’ series loss to the Bucks and speculation that he could bolt for another organization continues. The Lakers and Nets are believed to be possibilities for Irving. The Knicks have been tied to the point guard for quite some time.
New York is expected to pursue two max-level free agents. There are plenty of NBA executives, coaches, players and agents who are “convinced” Durant is going to the Knicks, Isola writes. Irving has been linked as Durant’s future partner in the Big Apple.
Irving isn’t the only 2018/19 Celtics who could find himself in New York next season. The Knicks reportedly have interest in Terry Rozier and Marcus Morris. However, they’d be secondary targets behind the top tier of upcoming free agents.
Draft Notes: Hawks, Culver, Morant, Knicks
The Pelicans and Grizzlies made meteoric rises in tonight’s draft lottery, landing the first and second picks respectively. It’s widely assumed that Zion Williamson and Ja Morant will be the selections, however, much can happen before the draft next month.
Let’s take a look at some notes from teams that didn’t move up in the lottery:
- The Hawks are fond of Texas Tech’s Jarrett Culver, Sean Deveney of Sporting News writes. The franchise believes Culver’s “blend of athleticism and defensive prowess” will allow him to make the leap from the college ranks to the professional level. Atlanta owns the Nos. 8 and 10 picks in the draft.
- Had the Hawks landed the No. 2 pick, they likely would have drafted Culver or made a trade, according to Deveney, who suggests Atlanta was never going to draft Morant. Atlanta is fully committed to Trae Young as its point guard of the future and Young’s game next to Morant would be an awkward fit, writes Deveney.
- The Cavaliers and the Mavericks are other teams that would have explored options outside of Morant had they landed No. 2, Deveney adds. Cleveland drafted Collin Sexton last June while Dallas invested in Luka Doncic.
- The Knicks would not have traded Williamson if they landed the No. 1 pick, Adrian Wojnarowski said during ESPN’s Draft Lottery coverage. New York will have no such opportunity, as the team ended up with the No. 3 selection.
- New York didn’t land the No. 1 pick as the franchise had hoped, but the Suns should be more disappointed than the Knicks in their result, Katherine Fitzgerald of the Arizona Republic writes. Phoenix landed the No. 6 overall pick in the draft.