The NBA announced this week (via Twitter) that the 2024 draft lottery will take place on Sunday, May 12. That’s a departure from the league’s usual schedule — the lottery has typically been held on a Tuesday in recent years.
The lottery will be one of three draft-related events held during that week in Chicago. The NBA’s annual draft combine will run from May 12-19, according to the league, while the G League Elite Camp will take place just before that, on the weekend of May 11-12. The Elite Camp features the top draft prospects who didn’t make the initial cut for the combine, with the top performers at that event typically invited to stick around for combine week.
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Eight-time NBA All-Star and three-time Defensive Player of the Year Dwight Howard will continue his playing career in Puerto Rico, having reached a deal with Mets de Guaynabo, according to a tweet from the Baoloncesto Superior Nacional (BSN). Howard, who last played in the NBA in 2021/22, spent the ’22/23 season in Taiwan. He was accused of sexual assault and battery in a lawsuit filed last July; that civil suit is ongoing, with a Georgia judge denying a motion to dismiss it last week.
- Playing in the G League is becoming a more common path for rookies to develop and show they’re capable of a longer look at the NBA level, according to Zach Kram of The Ringer, who says 18 of this year’s 30 first-round picks – including six of 14 lottery selections – have spent time in the NBAGL. Both of those marks are new records, Kram writes within an in-depth look at what the future might hold for the NBA’s minor league.
- Former Georgia Tech star Moses Wright appeared in just four NBA games in brief stints with the Clippers and Mavericks earlier in his career and now plays for Panathinaikos in Greece. However, Clippers player development assistant Wesley Johnson, who was on Tyronn Lue‘s staff when Wright signed a 10-day deal with the team in 2021, is confident that the 25-year-old will be back in the NBA at some point. “He’s a great player, talented, athletic, can shoot, put the ball on the floor. He was the player of the year in the ACC for a reason,” Johnson said, per Giorgos Efkarpidis of Eurohoops. “… He will find the time and the moment to join a team.”
- Suns forward Kevin Durant is looking forward to playing for Team USA this summer and will be looking to claim his fourth Olympic gold medal, according to Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic, who takes a closer look at what the U.S. roster might look like. The Athletic identified several frontrunners for the 12-man squad earlier this week.