The NBA Draft is less than two weeks away, and unlike past years, there hasn’t been a ton of clarity about what is going to happen. The case can be made that as many as four players deserve to go No. 1 overall to the Orlando Magic, while the trade winds have yet to start blowing in the lead-up to June 23.
In his most recent newsletter, Marc Stein indicated that a pair of teams sitting in the top-10 of the Draft have their sights set on turning their picks into someone a little more established. Stein mentioned that the Sacramento Kings, which sit at No. 4, and the Portland Trail Blazers, which have the No. 7 selection, would be open to moves if a player who could help them win right away became available.
A rare NBA Draft rumble from your infamously draft-shy correspondent: Both Sacramento and Portland are widely expected to give serious consideration to trading the No. 4 and No. 7 overall picks, respectively, if they can concoct appealing win-now swaps. And now I’m told Washington is another top-10 team (drafting 10th overall) said to be weighing the same possibility.
It makes a ton of sense why the Blazers would want to turn this into a more established player, as the team has its sights set on a bounce-back year following a tumultuous 2021-22 campaign. Sacramento, meanwhile, has the league’s longest playoff drought and acquired Domantas Sabonis at the trade deadline, both of which would appear to factor into whatever sense of urgency they feel.