- The Bulls are looking for more than draft help at the combine this week. Coach Billy Donovan is seeking a lead assistant with head coaching experience, K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago reports. They’re looking for a replacement for Chris Fleming, who was not retained after the season. The Bulls also have another vacancy to fill since Josh Longstaff is leaving to join Charles Lee‘s staff in Charlotte.
The Wizards already hold a pair of picks in the first round of this year’s draft at No. 2 and No. 26, but there’s an expectation that they’ll try to acquire another 2024 first-rounder, league sources tell Michael Scotto of HoopsHype.
As Scotto explains, the Wizards’ current front office – led by president Michael Winger and general manager Will Dawkins – is focused on building through the draft and developing young talent. The group made its first lottery pick last year when it used the No. 7 selection to nab Bilal Coulibaly, who was one of the NBA’s youngest players this past season. It sounds like Washington is in no hurry to accelerate its rebuild and won’t be opposed to taking fliers on more young, raw prospects, with Scotto indicating that the club also has its eye on the 2025 draft class.
Within his discussion of the Wizards’ next steps, Scotto adds that forward Kyle Kuzma is expected to generate interest on the trade market again this summer after being included in some discussions leading up to the February deadline. Prior to the trade deadline, Washington reportedly brought a Mavericks offer to Kuzma and asked him if he wanted to be moved — he opted to remain in D.C.
Here’s more from Scotto:
- Echoing previous reports, Scotto says there’s a “widespread belief” from rival executives that the Hawks will break up their starting backcourt of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray this offseason by trading one of the two guards. Those execs also believe that Atlanta will be more open than ever to moving Young, though Scotto’s sources say the Spurs didn’t have “substantive” discussions about the three-time All-Star earlier this year and are skeptical that will change this summer.
- In addition to the Hornets, the teams expected to have interested in free agent forward Miles Bridges this summer include the Pistons and Jazz, league sources tell Scotto.
- Rival executives are keeping an eye on Trail Blazers guard Malcolm Brogdon as a potential offseason trade candidates, Scotto says. Brogdon will be on a $22.5MM expiring contract and there’s an expectation that Portland will be looking to shed some salary.
- There’s a belief around the NBA that DeMar DeRozan will ultimately re-sign with the Bulls rather than changing teams as a free agent, according to Scotto, who notes that the veteran forward is comfortable in his role in Chicago and the Bulls are seemingly willing to pay him.
- Scotto refers to G League Ignite forward Matas Buzelis as a “notable” candidate for the Pistons with the No. 5 overall pick, pointing out that Buzelis is represented by agent Michael Tellem, the son of Pistons vice chairman Arn Tellem.
The Wizards will have plenty of draft options after landing the No. 2 pick in this year’s lottery, writes Josh Robbins of The Athletic. General manager Will Dawkins, who was inside the lottery drawing room to learn his team’s fate, admitted there was some slight disappointment in not getting the top selection, but he’s confident about adding another valuable piece to the rebuilding process.
“I would say that there’s a lot of optionality at the top of the draft, and there’s probably not the same level of instant gratification that you can see in year one with some of these rookies,” Dawkins said. “But if you really dive down and have some patience and have a forward-thinking outlook, these players are going to be pretty good players in the NBA a few years from now.”
Last year’s selection of Bilal Coulibaly, who Washington traded up one spot to get, indicates that the front office is prioritizing players who understand the game and possess a strong work ethic, Robbins adds. He identifies G League Ignite forward Matas Buzelis, Connecticut center Donovan Clingan, French wing Zaccharie Risacher, French big man Alexandre Sarr and Serbian point guard Nikola Topic as players in this year’s draft class who fit that description.
Coulibaly offered a scouting report on Risacher, whom he faced in France last season.
“Risacher, he’s got a lot of talent, a lot of talent,” Coulibaly said. “I played against him, like, two times last year. A great shot-maker. He can create his own shot. Yeah, a really good player.”
There’s more from the Southeast Division:
- There wasn’t any lottery luck for the Hornets, who had the third-best odds for the top pick but dropped to No. 6 when three teams leapfrogged them, notes Roderick Boone of The Charlotte Observer. Even though he didn’t get the result he wanted, co-owner Rick Schnall enjoyed his first look inside the lottery room. “It happens really fast and they run it in an incredibly efficient way,” he said. “And your disappointment comes really quickly. But it was interesting and it was good to see who was in the room, watch how the NBA runs it and understand — it might be my last time in there.” Schnall expressed confidence that Charlotte can find a productive player at No. 6 and called the lottery “just another step” in the process of building a competitive team.
- Assistant coach Josh Longstaff will leave the Bulls to become part of Charles Lee‘s staff with the Hornets, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. He joins former Jazz assistant Lamar Skeeter, who was hired last week.
- Hawks executive David Starkman, the team’s representative in the lottery drawing room, didn’t know how to react when Atlanta overcame long odds to win the No. 1 pick, per Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic. The vice president of player personnel wasn’t familiar with what is considered acceptable behavior inside the lottery room. “I wasn’t sure what the protocol is,” Starkman said. “This isn’t the room to celebrate.”
- The lottery win adds $7MM to the Hawks‘ projected team salary and pushes that figure above the first tax apron, notes Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link).
The Pistons appear to be targeting Timberwolves president Tim Connelly in their search for a new president of basketball operations, according to James L. Edwards III and Shams Charania of The Athletic.
Sources tell Edwards and Charania that Connelly is expected to opt out of the final year of his contract with Minnesota this summer. Although it seems likely that he’ll sign a long-term deal with the Wolves, the authors speculate that Detroit owner Tom Gores could potentially land him with an aggressive offer in the range of $15MM per year.
The Pistons’ search for someone to run the front office has moved slowly since it was announced. The Bucks reportedly denied permission for Detroit to interview team president Jon Horst, and former Trail Blazers executive Neil Olshey refused an invitation to interview for the job.
The Pistons have moved onto other candidates, with the authors hearing that Pelicans general manager Trajan Langdon, Mavericks consultant Dennis Lindsey and Bulls general manager Marc Eversley have become “viable targets” for the role.
In the same piece, Edwards and Charania speculate that falling to No. 5 in the draft lottery may boost leaguewide interest in the Pistons’ first-round pick. Because there’s not a set tier of players at the top of this year’s draft, rival teams may believe the fifth pick could bring a talent similar to the top choice. It also comes at a significant discount, as the authors note that last year’s No. 1 pick, Victor Wembanyama, will earn between $12MM and $16MM for the rest of his rookie contract, while No. 5 pick Ausar Thompson will be paid between $8.3MM and $11.1MM.
- The Bulls remained in the No. 11 spot in the aftermath of the lottery. NBC Sports Chicago’s K.C. Johnson looks at some potential prospects who could land in that area, including Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht, USC’s Isaiah Collier, and Colorado’s Cody Williams.
- In his Bulls offseason preview for Spotrac.com, Keith Smith says he believes the team will trade Zach LaVine this summer, finding a way to move his contract to a contender in need of scoring punch. DeMar DeRozan‘s free agency is a bit more unpredictable, as the Bulls could re-sign him if they’re intent on remaining a playoff contender. If not, they’ll let him walk and look to rebuild, Smith writes.
The Hawks have won the 2024 NBA draft lottery, jumping all the way up from No. 10 in the pre-lottery order to No. 1.
Atlanta had just a 3% chance of claiming this year’s top pick. Those are the longest odds for any team that has won the lottery since the NBA revamped the format prior to the 2019 draft.
The full lottery order for the 2024 draft is as follows:
- Atlanta Hawks
- Washington Wizards
- Houston Rockets (from Nets)
- San Antonio Spurs
- Detroit Pistons
- Charlotte Hornets
- Portland Trail Blazers
- San Antonio Spurs (from Raptors)
- Memphis Grizzlies
- Utah Jazz
- Chicago Bulls
- Oklahoma City Thunder (from Rockets)
- Sacramento Kings
- Portland Trail Blazers (from Warriors)
There’s no consensus No. 1 pick in 2024 like there was with Victor Wembanyama a year ago, so the Hawks will have plenty of options to consider in the coming weeks.
French big man Alexandre Sarr, French forward Zaccharie Risacher, UConn center Donovan Clingan, G League Ignite wing Ron Holland, Ignite forward Matas Buzelis, Serbian point guard Nikola Topic, and Kentucky guard Rob Dillingham are among the prospects expected to be in the mix for the top few picks.
Some of those players look like better fits than others on the current Atlanta roster, but there has been an expectation that the Hawks will make some significant changes this summer, with Trae Young and Dejounte Murray viewed as possible trade candidates. Atlanta’s front office will have to take those potential moves into account as it weighs what to do with the No. 1 pick.
Washington, Houston, and San Antonio are among the other big winners of draft lottery day. The Wizards entered the day ranked second in the pre-lottery order and no team had better odds at the top pick, but they also had just a 27.4% chance to remain in the top two, so they can’t complain about the outcome. It will be the second lottery pick for the current front office, which will get the opportunity to add another building block to last year’s No. 7 overall selection Bilal Coulibaly.
The Rockets‘ own pick at No. 12 will be sent to the Thunder as a result of 2019’s Russell Westbrook trade, but Houston will pick third overall thanks to one of the unprotected Nets first-rounders that was included in the 2021 James Harden blockbuster. Prior to the lottery, that pick had just the ninth-best odds to move into the top three (14.5%).
A report this week stated that the Rockets are interested in trading their lottery selection for future draft assets after having made nine first-round picks in the past three years. Assuming Houston’s stance hasn’t changed following the lottery results, the fact that the pick is now No. 3 instead of No. 9 should significantly improve its value on the trade market.
The Spurs, meanwhile, had an eventful lottery day, landing a pair of picks in the top eight as they look to build a contending team around Wembanyama. Their own pick moved up one spot, from No. 5 in the pre-lottery order to No. 4, and they also secured a second pick as a result of Toronto dropping from No. 6 to No. 8.
The Raptors traded their top-six protected 2024 first-round pick to San Antonio in a package for Jakob Poeltl last year and would have retained it if no teams had leapfrogged them into the top four. Because Atlanta and Houston both moved up, that No. 8 pick will be controlled by the Spurs — the Raptors’ obligation to San Antonio is complete and they’ll control all their own first-rounders beginning in 2025.
It’s another disappointing lottery day for the Pistons, who – for a second consecutive year – finished with the NBA’s worst record and ended up with the No. 5 overall pick. For what it’s worth, Detroit only had about a 50/50 chance (52.1%) in each case to land in the top four, due to the flatter nature of the odds under the NBA’s current format. Still, losing that coin flip in back-to-back years is a discouraging outcome for a Pistons team whose rebuild hasn’t progressed at the rate the organization hoped.
While no team dropped as far as the Pistons (four spots), the Hornets (No. 3 to No. 6), Trail Blazers (No. 4 to No. 7), Grizzlies (No. 7 to No. 9), and Jazz (No. 8 to No. 10) also moved back multiple spots as a result of the lottery.
If Utah had fallen one more spot, the Jazz would’ve owed their top-10 protected first-round pick to the Thunder, but that obligation will roll over to 2025 instead — the pick will retain its top-10 protection next year.
The Wizards, Pistons, Hornets, Trail Blazers, and Kings also had traded picks fall into their protected range and will owe their 2025 first-rounders to rival teams. The Knicks will receive Washington’s 2025 pick if it’s not in the top 10 and Detroit’s pick if it’s not in the top 13. The Spurs will control Charlotte’s lottery-protected 2025 pick; the Bulls would get Portland’s 2025 pick if it’s outside the lottery; and the Hawks will acquire the Kings’ 2025 first-rounder if it doesn’t end up in the top 12.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the Warriors would have retained their 2024 first-rounder in the unlikely event that it had moved into the top four. Because it stayed at No. 14, it was sent to Portland and Golden State has no further obligation to the Blazers.
- Bulls forward Patrick Williams turned down a four-year extension offer worth about $64MM before the start of the 2023/24 season, sources tell K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago. Johnson adds that Williams, who is headed toward restricted free agency, is expected to make a full recovery well before training camp after having surgery on his left foot in February.
- The Bulls plan to explore trade options involving starting center Nikola Vucevic, a source tells Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times. Vucevic, 33, is owed a total of about $41.5MM over the next two years. He was noticeably slower on defense this season, Cowley observes, and he dropped to 29.4% from three-point range.
Bulls point guard Lonzo Ball has exercised his player option for 2024/25, locking in his $21.4MM salary for next season, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).
The decision was a no-brainer, given that Ball hasn’t played a game since January 2022 due to knee problems. He has undergone a series of procedures on his troublesome left knee, including receiving a cartilage transplant in 2023.
There’s hope that the latest of those surgeries will help get him back on the court next season, but given the uncertainty surrounding his prognosis, there’s obviously no chance that Ball would have been able to exceed $21.4MM on the open market if he had declined his option in favor of free agency.
Ball spent two seasons with the Lakers and two more with the Pelicans before being sent from New Orleans to Chicago in a sign-and-trade deal during the 2021 offseason.
During the first half of his first season as a Bull, Ball looked like a steal on his new four-year, $80MM contract, making a major two-way impact as the team’s starting point guard. He averaged 13.0 points, 5.4 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 1.8 steals in 34.6 minutes per game across 35 appearances before being sidelined. The Bulls went 22-13 in those games, but haven’t had the former No. 2 overall pick available in the two-plus years since then.
Ball picking up his player option doesn’t necessarily mean that he’ll be on the Bulls’ roster in 2024/25. If his injury is ultimately deemed to be career-ending by a Fitness to Play panel, the club would be permitted to let him go without his $21.4MM cap hit counting against its books. It’s also possible the 26-year-old could be included in a trade for salary-matching purposes, given that his contract isn’t as onerous now that it’s expiring.
If Ball remains on the roster and his recovery continues to progress as hoped, it’s possible we’ll see him in a Bulls uniform again next season. During his lengthy absence, younger guards like Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu have emerged as reliable backcourt contributors in Chicago, but if Ball looks anything like he did before his injury, he’d be worthy of rotation minutes.
The Pacers advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in 10 years on Thursday night after dispatching the Bucks in six games. T.J. McConnell (20 points, nine assists, four steals in 23 minutes) and Obi Toppin (21 points, eight rebounds in 24 minutes) were particularly impressive off the bench.
As Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star writes, the Pacers are just two years removed from a 25-57 season. And at one point, it seemed inevitable that Myles Turner would be traded.
Instead, the longest-tenured member of the team renegotiated and extended his contract with the Pacers in January 2023. While Turner wishes he could’ve contributed more in Game 6 after several excellent performances during the series, he was thrilled to complete the first playoff series victory of his nine-year career.
“It was bittersweet just because of the way things unfolded for myself tonight but I was very excited for our group,” Turner said. “And for the city just because I’ve seen the highs and lows of this, and I know the fans have seen the highs and lows of this over the past 10 years as well. To finally get a little bit of fruit of your labor with this is incredible. We still have a lot of work to do, but for me personally, it means a lot to finally advance, being in the NBA as long as I have.”
Indiana will face the Knicks in the second round, with Game 1 scheduled for Monday in New York.
Here’s more from the Central:
- Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen, who missed Game 5 on Tuesday due to a rib injury, was unable to participate in Thursday’s practice, writes Tom Withers of The Associated Press. “He’s still working through some things, still getting treatment,” head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “He’ll be with us on the trip, obviously, and we expect him to give it a go if he can.” Allen is officially questionable for Friday’s Game 6 in Orlando with a right rib contusion, tweets Kendra Andrews of ESPN.
- While they’ve won all their home games to hold a 3-2 lead in their first-round series with the Magic, the Cavaliers were blown out in both of their losses in Orlando. Joe Vardon of The Athletic argues that Cleveland should bring Allen off the bench tonight, assuming he’s able to play. According to Vardon, that doesn’t have anything to do with Allen’s performance in the series, as he’s been the team’s “most consistent player.” The Cavs simply have much better floor spacing when they go with one big man in the frontcourt instead of two, Vardon adds, with Evan Mobley filling in at center in Game 5 with Allen out.
- In a pair of stories for NBC Sports Chicago, K.C. Johnson reviews the seasons of Bulls veterans DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic. DeRozan will be an unrestricted free agent this summer if he doesn’t sign an extension, while Vucevic has two years left on his deal.