The Washington Wizards Have Won the NBA Draft Lottery | HOOPS, 5/11/26
Plus: Another dominant Knicks' closeout win, and more.
The Tip-Off: Question of the Day
Nike has announced a special Draft Day pack coming up in honor of the late, great Kobe Bryant. The collection will feature 13 different pairs of the Kobe 4, 13 of them will be dedicated to the teams that passed on Bryant in the draft while the 14th will be in signature Lakers’ gold.
The catch? You won’t know which pair you’re getting until you open the box.
That’s right, Nike will be using the blind bag technique for this release, surprising buyers with one of 14 possible options. It’s an interesting strategy for Nike, especially considering how they’ve been seeing their numbers drop every quarter, but with a $190 price tag, I’m wondering if it’s just too steep for buyers to leave up to chance.
Weekend Need to Knows
New York Closes Out the 76ers in Style
The Knicks are headed back to the Conference Finals and for the second straight series, they saved their best performance for last. Up 81-57 at halftime, the entire second half felt like an extended celebration for Knicks fans who infiltrated Philadelphia’s home court, much to the chagrin of 76ers players.
I’ll get to the 76ers in the next segment but there wasn’t much they could do to keep up with New York’s three-point shooting. The Knicks shot the cover off the ball, going 25-44 (57%) from deep compared to just 8-35 (23%) for the 76ers. VJ Edgecombe (8pts/7a, 4-14 FG) and Paul George (7pts) struggled to provide much assistance to Joel Embiid (24pts/5r/a) while Tyrese Maxey (17pts, 6-16 FG) was once again hounded all game by the Knicks’ versatile defense.
It’s a luxury for the Knicks that they’ll be able to continue to let OG Anunoby rest and recover while they wait to see what happens in the Cavs/Pistons series, they have to be hoping it goes the distance so they can get as much time off as possible to recover.
With the way they’re playing right now though, they may not even want the break. Jalen Brunson (25pts/4r) continues to play like he takes every mention of Cade Cunningham being the best in the East extremely personally while Karl-Anthony Towns (17pts/10a/4r) I guess is just suddenly an unbelievably efficient playmaking big man.
I’ll be fascinated to see what either the Cavs or Pistons can do against this Knicks team because right now it feels like nothing can stop them.
The Thunder Look to Complete the Sweep Tonight in Los Angeles
Rough weekend for Lakers fans as we all spent Friday complaining about the lopsided officiating only to then watch the Thunder shoot 10 total free throws on Saturday, SGA struggle most of the night, and still lose by 20+ points to go down 3-0 in the series. Yikes. Not our best look as a fanbase I admit it.
Now tonight, OKC will look to close out a Lakers team that just honestly doesn’t have anywhere near the same level of talent. With Luka Doncic nowhere near close to a return, the writing has been on the wall but you never know, that’s why they play the games.
NBA Refs Continue to Catch Heat
After a full day of arguing about the officials and potential OKC biases, we had another huge incident in Friday’s Spurs/Wolves matchup. This time it was referee Tony Brothers who had to be held back during an argument with Wolves’ coach Chris Finch. Finch has been no stranger to criticizing the officiating but I have never seen a ref actually get that mad about something. I can’t fathom that he was then able to just keep calling a fair and impartial game for both teams, there’s just no way.
There’s been no word yet from the league on the incident or anything that may be done, which is always a great sign that we can expect nothing to happen.
Minnesota Ties Series vs. Spurs, Wemby Gets Ejected
Victor Wembanyama’s night ended after just 12 minutes of action as he was ejected for the first time in his career, even needing to ask teammate Harrison Barnes what a Flagrant 2 meant. That said, there’s no doubt he needed to be ejected for this insane elbow he hit Naz Reid with.1
While the Wolves couldn’t quite fully capitalize on Wemby’s early exit, they were able to pull out the win thanks to another absolutely fantastic Anthony Edwards (36pts/6r) performance. Edwards scored 16 of his 36 in the fourth quarter to make sure the Timberwolves could hold on and tie the series up at 2 games a piece.
Game 5 will be back in San Antonio this Tuesday and one thing to monitor will be if the league levies any more discipline on Wembanyama for the incident. I’d be a bit stunned if he gets suspended for the matchup given he’s never really had an incident like that before, but it’s so egregious you never really know.
Cavs Show Some Signs of Life vs. Pistons
The Game 3 experience for this matchup was one of the craziest things I’ve seen in awhile. It did a great job of summarizing the Cleveland experience too as they raced out to a 64-48 halftime lead, only to then blow it in the second half and have to fight tooth and nail to get the win and cut the Pistons’ lead to 2-1 heading into tonight’s matchup.
There are plenty of areas to harp on Cleveland for being sloppy or underwhelming but I’m going to highlight and applaud James Harden for his Game 3 performance. 19pts/7a on 8-14 shooting with just three turnovers. It’s a huge step in the right direction and something this Cavs team is going to need every night moving forward if they hope to make it to the Conference Finals.
The Wizards Have Won the NBA Draft Lottery
For the first time since 2010, the Washington Wizards have won the NBA Draft Lottery and will get first choice next month. John Wall, the team’s last #1 overall pick, was on hand to represent Washington in this Lottery, bringing the team some good luck as they’ll now likely add AJ Dybantsa or Darryn Peterson to a team quickly turning their fortunes around with guys like Trae Young and Anthony Davis alongside young players like Bilal Couliably, Kysahwn George, Tre Johnson, and Alex Sarr.
2. Utah Jazz
What an insane thing that the league fined Utah $500,000 for essentially unethically tanking this season only for them to end up with the second pick anyways. But I can’t pretend I’m not absolutely thrilled to see Cam Boozer, Peterson, Dybantsa, or Caleb Wilson end up playing alongside this young Jazz team. I just hope this is the last time we see them punt on a season and waste all of the young, exciting talent on the roster.
3. Memphis Grizzlies
4. Chicago Bulls
5. Los Angeles Clippers (via Pacers)
This particular result has me thinking two completely separate things
1 - Much respect to Pacers’ GM Kevin Pritchard who took to Twitter to apologize to fans for the team losing their lottery pick as a result of the Ivica Zubac trade earlier in the season. It’s a tough pill to swallow but I can’t remember the last time a GM was this transparent about something and took blame right away like this. Hats off to him even if you couldn’t have pried this info out of me if I was in his shoes.
2 - So the Clippers just don’t get punished for the Aspiration stuff? That was one of the biggest scandals of the year that has gone from last summer to now with 0 resolution and no sign of anything coming soon. Gifting the Clippers the 5th overall pick without any signs or mentions of the scandal they’ve been actively being investigated for is a wild choice to me. I doubt the league is going to take this pick away now so I’m fully expecting a disappointing slap on the wrist, if we even get any sort of punishment being doled out.
6. Brooklyn Nets
7. Sacramento Kings
Kings fans, I am so so so sorry. You just went 22-60 and now your consolation is the 7th pick?! While the Clippers get top 5?! That hurts.
8. Atlanta Hawks (via Pelicans)
9. Dallas Mavericks
10. Milwaukee Bucks
11. Golden State Warriors
12. Oklahoma City Thunder (via Clippers)
13. Miami Heat
14. Charlotte Hornets
What Next for the Philadelphia 76ers?
“I think, obviously, [my knee] was the biggest concern, and I’m not thinking about it; and as long as we keep doing what we’ve been doing, I won’t have to think about it anymore…. I’m looking at next year, obviously being more available. The personal goals, it doesn’t matter. I know that if I’m available and I play as much as possible, everything else is going to follow.”
- Joel Embiid following the 76ers’ Game 4 loss vs. the Knicks
It’s interesting how quickly things can change because a week and a half ago, Philly fans were chanting “We Want Boston” and vibes were immaculate. The 76ers seemed to have turned a corner vs. the Celtics and looked like they could maybe make some noise against the Knicks. Unfortunately, things just didn’t work out that way.
Paul George fell back to Earth a bit after an unbelievable first round performance while rookie VJ Edgecombe hit a wall, dropping in efficiency, scoring, assists, and just about every shooting number. Their struggles were exacerbated by Tyrese Maxey being unable to impact the game like we all know he can thanks to some fantastic team defense from the Knicks and in the end, it was just Joel Embiid trying to gut it out once again.
All of that said, I feel a lot better about this team’s future than I did three weeks ago when they trailed 3-1 vs. the Celtics. If, and that’s a massive IF, Joel Embiid’s knee is actually feeling good, then it means the team has finally hit on a formula that can work and be used to keep Embiid healthy and on the court as much as possible. The pivot away from this being his team as #1 option was a smart one, but I don’t think they even had to make a decision so much as Maxey just stepped up and took the role.
Maxey and Edgecombe are an incredibly dynamic backcourt to watch, I’m very interested in seeing what Edgecombe works on over the summer months considering how polished he looked for most of the season.
Really, the spot that I’m sure 76ers fans are going to be thinking about and annoyed over is Paul George. Yes, he had a throwback series vs. the Celtics but heading into the third year of a four-year/$211.58 million contract, the team needs a bit more production than one series in the last two seasons. I really doubt they’re going to be able to trade George without attaching multiple assets to him so my guess is this core is going to continue to be the core, with more moves coming on the fringes. This then of course means that Daryl Morey has to absolutely nail any draft picks or free agency signings to improve this team on the fringes without disrupting the solid core they have seemingly hit upon. I have minimal faith in Morey to do that but that’s mostly just me being a hater. I do think we’re going to see a high volume of “Embiid is feeling great” reports all summer though in an effort to entice potential free agents.
At the Buzzer
- Steve Kerr, Warriors agree to two-year contract extension
- LaMelo Ball and his partner welcome their first child together, LaOne Ball2
Tonight’s Game 4 Schedule
Pistons at Cavaliers (Detroit leads 2-1)
Thunder at Lakers (Thunder lead 3-0)
Thank you so much for hanging out and reading today’s HOOPS, I hope everyone that is reading this had a great weekend, a Happy Mother’s Day, and is enjoying a good start to the week. Thank you again, take care.
I know Wemby did off-season training with monks but I didn’t realize he also trained with Metta World Peace.
BRB, going to put every dollar I have into a Polymarket bet that his next child is named LaTwo.