Orlando Magic may draft Joel Embiid, trade him to Celtics for Dante Exum

While some have suggested that Joel Embiid, the previous consensus selection for the No. 1 pick may drop out of the NBA’s draft lotto all together, that doesn’t appear the be the thought of Orlando Magic beat writer Brian Schmitz who not only thinks Embiid remains in the top five, but seems to feel that he’ll be drafted by the Orlando Magic with the No. 4 overall pick.

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That won’t be Embiid’s final stop of the day though as Schmitz, who released his most updated mock draft, suggests that the Magic will then trade Embiid to the Boston Celtics for Australian point guard Dante Exum, who he believes will be drafted by Beantown with their sixth selection.

Now, on the surface it all seems rather impossible though we’ve seen trades of big name prospects after they’ve been drafted and the fact that it’s an Orlando insider who suggests the Magic doing so should raise a few eyebrows.

On Saturday, the Celtics front office suggested that drafting Embiid would be ‘quite a gamble’ so it seems a little odd to believe that they’d be willing to draft a player like Exum and then trade additional parts to the Magic in exchange for Embiid, especially given the Magic could simply draft Exum themselves.

The Celtics obviously have little need for Exum assuming they’re going to keep Rajon Rondo around for the foreseeable future, so if that is how the situation played out, it’s not outlandish to suggest the Celtics trading Exum though such a move for Embiid would be pretty shocking.