Potential lottery picks and point guards Cason Wallace and Nick Smith Jr. worked out for the Wizards on Monday, Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington tweets.
Kentucky’s Wallace is ranked No. 14 overall on ESPN’s latest Best Available list, one slot under Arkansas’ Smith. Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe, UCLA’s Tyger Campbell, Texas’ Marcus Carr and Iowa State’s Osun Osunniyi also participated in the Wizards’ workout.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver made his latest statement on the possibility of expansion during an interview Sunday on NBA TV (video link).
Silver has repeatedly said that the idea of adding teams won’t be considered until after the 2024/25 season. The league wanted to get its new Collective Bargaining Agreement in place, which has been done, and negotiate its new media rights deal before thinking about expanding.
“I think it makes sense over time, if you’re a successful organization, to continue to grow,” Silver said. “There’s no doubt there are a lot of great cities we’re interested in having in the NBA.”
Here are some other odds and ends from around the basketball world:
With Scoot Henderson ranked second or third in nearly every mock draft, the G League Ignite star only plans two workouts during the pre-draft process, tweets Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report.
Henderson was in Portland on Saturday to show off the skills that have made him one of the most talked-about prospects in this year’s class. The Trail Blazers hold the third pick and appear to be the most likely destination for Henderson if speculation about Brandon Miller going to Charlotte at No. 2 is correct. There’s been plenty of conjecture that Portland may trade the pick for veteran help, but some sources believe the team would be comfortable adding another young player.
Henderson hasn’t scheduled a session with the Hornets yet, but he told Casey Holdahl of NBA.com that he expects to work out for them at some point before the June 22 draft. He also talked about what he’ll bring to the team that selects him.
“You always want a guy like me, that dog mentality,” Henderson said. “Just my personality, the culture I bring to the locker room. I’m a great leader, I’ll tell what’s up and I can do everything on the floor. I can do everything on the floor. I’m going to go out there and give my 110 percent every day. And that’s the thing about me: I’m very consistent in effort. Even if it’s not there, I just try to even it out the next game, try to get right to it. Give it a 120 if I didn’t give it 110 the last game.”
There’s more draft news to pass along:
The Trail Blazers, who control the No. 3 overall pick, are holding a pre-draft workout Saturday with G League Ignite guard Scoot Henderson, a projected top-three pick, tweets Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report.
Henderson has said in the past he thinks he’d be a good fit alongside Damian Lillard and he reiterated that again today, according to Aaron J. Fentress of The Oregonian (Twitter link).
Recent mocks have Henderson, who was a candidate for No. 1 overall at one point before Victor Wembanyama went to a different level this season, going No. 3 to Portland, with Alabama’s Brandon Miller going to Charlotte at No. 2.
Highkin recently said he thought the Blazers would trade their pick for an established star player, mentioning Jaylen Brown and Pascal Siakam.
Here are a few more 2023 NBA draft-related notes ahead of June 22:
Having reached an agreement to join the Wizards as the team’s senior VP of player personnel, Travis Schlenk will oversee Washington’s player evaluation work at all levels (amateur, international, and professional), according to Josh Robbins of The Athletic, who says scouts will report to Schlenk.
While new team president Michael Winger will have the final word on personnel moves, Schlenk’s input will carry “significant weight,” writes Robbins, as will that of the executive that the Wizards eventually hire in a general manager-type role. Winger hasn’t offered that position to anyone yet, sources tell The Athletic.
As Robbins explains, Winger’s previous work has focused less on player evaluation and more on bigger-picture roster construction and strategy, as well as navigating the CBA and salary cap, so he wants to ensure he’s surrounded by strong player evaluators in Washington’s new-look front office.
Here’s more on the Wizards:
President Michael Winger plans to make his first addition to the Wizards‘ new-look front office, hiring former Hawks president of basketball operations Travis Schlenk as senior vice president of player personnel, sources tell ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
Josh Robbins of The Athletic confirms the news (via Twitter) through his own league sources.
While Schlenk is certainly a notable executive, Winger is still searching for a general manager to directly oversee the Wizards and their G League affiliate, the Capital City Go-Go, Wojnarowski adds. The new GM would report directly to Winger.
Formerly an assistant GM in Golden State, Schlenk was hired as Atlanta’s general manager in 2017 and was promoted to president of basketball ops in 2019. He had been the ninth longest-tenured head of basketball operations in the NBA before he moved into an advisory role in December.
Schlenk launched a rebuild when he initially joined the Hawks and oversaw three losing seasons before the team turned things around in 2020/21, making a run to the Eastern Conference Finals. They have been ousted from the first round of the playoffs each of the past two seasons.
During his tenure atop the team’s front office, Schlenk swung two major draft trades to land Trae Young (for Luka Doncic and a future pick) and De’Andre Hunter; drafted John Collins, Kevin Huerter, Cam Reddish, and Onyeka Okongwu; and acquired Dejounte Murray from San Antonio in a blockbuster deal this past summer.
Although the Hawks publicly announced Schlenk was transitioning to advisory role, subsequent reporting from Sam Amick of The Athletic indicated that he was no longer part of the operation in Atlanta and was free to leave for another team if he desired to. About five months later, he’s landing in D.C.
According to Amick, Schlenk expressed reservations about the price to acquire Murray (three first-round picks, including two unprotected, and a pick swap), and that played a factor in his exit from the franchise. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also reported that Schlenk’s relationship with Young had deteriorated after the point guard chartered a private flight home from Miami without telling anyone from the team during last year’s playoffs. Young was later fined.
New Wizards president Michael Winger loves the idea of building a foundation and he’s eager to use the lessons he learned during his time with the Cavaliers, Thunder and Clippers, writes Ben Golliver of The Washington Post. Winger is taking on one of the NBA’s biggest challenges in the Wizards, who haven’t posted a 50-win season in 44 years. He’s inheriting a team that’s desperately in need of a makeover after missing the play-in tournament, but he welcomes that opportunity.
“I wouldn’t want a ready-made organization,” he said. “That’s not very exciting. It’s going to be a matter of establishing a culture and creating an identity that we can latch onto and carry into the next half-decade. Sometimes, change for the sake of change accelerates progress.”
Winger had been with Los Angeles since 2017 and he helped team president Lawrence Frank oversee the transition from the Chris Paul–Blake Griffin era to the new-look Clippers built around Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Winger comes highly recommended as he looks to perform a similar roster remake in Washington.
“One thing that separates Michael from others is his ability to be a couple steps ahead,” Frank said. “It’s one thing to know what you’re trying to get accomplished. But Michael can show you how the pieces on the board need to move to get it done, and how one move can set up the next. That’s invaluable.”
There’s more from the Southeast Division:
If the Lakers opt to pursue Kyrie Irving in free agency, the Mavericks wouldn’t be interested in taking back free agent guard D’Angelo Russell as the primary player in a sign-and-trade deal, Marc Stein reports in his latest Substack column.
There hasn’t been any concrete information that trying to sign Irving is part of the Lakers’ offseason plans, Stein adds, but there’s plenty of speculation that LeBron James would like to reunite with his former Cavaliers teammate. L.A. was heavily rumored as a possible destination for Irving when he considered opting out of his contract last summer and again when he asked the Nets for a trade in February.
James’ retirement talk after being swept by Denver is widely seen as a message to the Lakers’ front office that a roster upgrade is needed, but Stein isn’t convinced that they’ll be active on the free agent market. He states that the team’s preferred plan is to reach new deals with two of its own free agents, Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura. It’s less certain that L.A. wants to keep Russell after his disastrous performance in the Western Conference Finals, Stein adds.
The Mavericks appear committed to keeping Irving after paying a high price to acquire him from Brooklyn, according to Stein. A report last weekend indicated that a “handshake deal” may already be in place for Irving to remain in Dallas.
Stein passes along more inside information:
Two of the biggest winners on draft lottery night last week were the Hornets and Pacers. Charlotte moved up two spots from the pre-lottery standings to claim the No. 2 overall pick. The Pacers, meanwhile, stayed put in the lottery, but because San Antonio leapfrogged Houston in the first round, Indiana moved up 18 spots from No. 50 to No. 32 in the second round due to a convoluted set of trade criteria.
The Hornets and Pacers have something else in common: Charlotte and Indiana are the only teams that control more than three picks in the 2023 NBA draft. In fact, the two clubs own five selections apiece, accounting for 10 of the 58 total picks in this year’s event.
Nine additional teams each have three 2023 picks, joining the Hornets and Pacers to control nearly two-thirds of the draft — those 11 teams hold 37 of this year’s 58 picks, leaving the other 19 clubs to divvy up the remaining 21 selections.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, three teams don’t own any 2023 draft picks. The Bulls, Knicks, and Sixers will sit out this year’s event unless they acquire a pick via trade.
To present a clearer picture of which teams are most – and least – stocked with picks for the 2023 NBA draft, we’ve rounded up all 58 selections by team in the space below. Let’s dive in…
Having passed on the opportunity to interview for a general manager role with at least one other NBA team in the past, Michael Winger tells Andrew Greif of The Los Angeles Times that he had begun to wonder whether he’d get an opportunity to become the lead executive in a front office. That was the impetus for his decision to pursue the job as the Wizards‘ president, a position he officially secured on Thursday.
“Seldom, I think, in pro sports do those opportunities come along where almost all of your boxes, if not all of your boxes, are checked,” Winger said. “And this was I think the rare and supremely fortunate opportunity for somebody like me to check all the boxes: ownership, market, fan base, already a talented team.”
Winger has some familiarity with the Washington area already, as Greif notes. The former Clippers general manager lived in Baltimore during his final year of law school and often visited friends in D.C. during that time.
“I just felt like if I’m ever going to challenge myself, now’s the time and (Wizards owner) Ted (Leonsis) is the right person,” Winger said. “I think D.C. is the right fan base.”
Here’s more from the new Wizards executive on the challenges that await him in D.C. and the six years he spent in Los Angeles as the Clippers’ GM: