Getty Image / Nic Antaya
Heading into this year’s NBA Draft lottery, every eligible team found themselves hoping that they would be the lucky one to land the draft’s first pick.
Unfortunately for everybody else, the San Antonio Spurs were the ones who won the right to draft Victor Wembanyama.
That has left the rest of the league to try to navigate a draft class that doesn’t have many other sure things.
Now it seems that quite a few of the teams that missed out in the Wembanyama sweepstakes don’t actually have much interest in landing anybody else with 4 teams set to pick in the top 10 potentially trying to trade their picks.
According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, the Portland Trail Blazers, Detroit Pistons, Dallas Mavericks, and Houston Rockets are all looking to trade their top picks.
Brian Windhorst says that the Portland Trail Blazers (3), Houston Rockets (4), Detroit Pistons (5), and Dallas Mavericks (10) are looking to trade out of their first round picks in next week’s NBA Draft on @GetUpESPN this morning. pic.twitter.com/IMsokBb5Uq
— Aaron Johnson (@AJohnsonNBA) June 13, 2023
For the Blazers and Mavs, this could be more about their situations than an actual lack of interest in anybody they could select.
The Blazers are trying to keep Damian Lillard around and build a roster around him that can finally win a ring. The 3rd pick in this year’s NBA Draft just might be the price for a star that can make them a contender.
The Mavs are also trying to contend right now despite their trade for Kyrie Irving ending in disaster last season.
The Rockets and Pistons are a bit less ready to compete.
Both teams have plenty of young talent on their rosters, but don’t really have a true star yet. You would think that picking in the top 5 would be appealing to either of those teams even if they would be missing out on the draft’s biggest names.
With so many teams looking to move top picks, we should expect there to be plenty of trade activity over the next 9 days.