Pistons without first-round pick for third time in 19 years
The NBA Draft Lottery is tonight, and for once, as a Detroit Pistons fan, I am not feeling once ounce of stress. The Pistons have a tremendous habit of being so bad that everything feels like it is riding on the NBA Draft Lottery results, and the kind of luck that leads them to falling about as far as possible and hoping for the best.
Detroit is absent its pick courtesy of a draft night trade way back in 2020 that saw them surrender a future first to the Houston Rockets so they could receive the draft rights to No. 16 pick Isaiah Stewart.
Stewart has proven to be a valuable reserve big man who can be counted among the best defensive rim protectors in the NBA who can also guard out to the perimeter and his the occasional 3-pointer. He was by far the best of Detroit’s three first-round picks in Troy Weaver’s first year as GM (joining Killian Hayes and Saddiq Bey).
Because of various trade maneuvering, that pick now belongs to the Minnesota Timberwolves , who will be picking 17th overall and are not eligible for the lottery tonight.
The Pistons are coming off of three consecutive seasons with the fifth overall pick, falling four spots in the lottery in 2024, four spots in 2023, and two spots in 2022. Much remains to be seen about how their respective careers pan out, but netting Ron Holland, Ausar Thompson and Jaden Ivey, respectively, with those three picks isn’t looking too shabby at the moment.
NBA Draft Lottery Vitals
When: 7 p.m. ET
Where: United Center, Chicago, Illinois
Watch: ESPN
Odds: Tankathon Odds
NBA Draft Lottery Breakdown
The Utah Jazz enter with the best odds at the No. 1 overall pick and look to avoid Detroit’s futility over the last two seasons as being the worst team in the league, but dropping four spots to the No. 5 selection.
With the flattened lottery odds, the Jazz, Washington Wizards , and Charlotte Hornets all have identical top-four odds: 14%, 13.4%, 12.7%, 12.0%.
The New Orleans Hornets and Philadelphia 76ers stand at spots four had five, both seemingly desperate to have NBA Draft Lottery luck completely change their franchise fortunes as expensive teams who seem to be going nowhere fast.
The opposite end of that spectrum is the Houston Rockets, who are on the upswing, coming off a season where they finished with the second best record in the Western Conference, and already awash in young talent. They own the Phoenix Suns ’ first-round pick, and they have the ninth-best odds entering the lottery. If they vault up, I will be equally furious and also laughing my little butt off at the Suns’ ineptitude. Similarly, if the Sixers are jumped by two teams below them, they will lose their pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder, a team currently fighting to get to the NBA Finals . Rounding out the “rich get richer” trio, is the San Antonio Spurs , who not only have their own pick, No. 8 in the lottery odds, they have Atlanta’s pick at the tail end of the lottery at No. 14.
The talent in this year’s draft seemingly isn’t as potentially star-studded as was projected this time a year ago, but it is still led by potential superstar Cooper Flagg, a rangy, explosive, multi-talented forward from Duke. After that, you are looking at Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey, V.J. Edgecombe, and Tre Johnson rounding out the top five (aka Detroit’s typical floor).
The Pistons won’t have a draft pick until No. 37 overall (via Toronto). I’ll leave it to our resident draft experts to let us know during the offseason who the Pistons could potentially target there, or whether it would be worth it to trade back into the first round for a potential contributor.
All I know is that there is no way that the Pistons or their fans can be disappointed tonight, and it feels mighty good.