NBA Draft Lottery winners and losers: Lakers, Kings come out on top

The 2016 NBA Draft Lottery was a highly anticipated event that ended up being rather uninteresting as the lottery order stayed chalk, finishing exactly as predicted. Still, the lottery process had significant ramifications for a number of NBA franchises and draft prospects. Who were the night’s big winners and losers?

Winners

Los Angeles Lakers – Tuesday night could have been an awkward one for Lakers’ general manager Mitch Kupchak had his team fallen out of the top three and been forced to convey their 2016 first round pick to Philadelphia. Luckily, the Lakers will keep their pick and more importantly be in the running for either Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram, the draft’s two best prospects by far. In some ways, losing this pick and keeping the 2017 pick may have been the preferable scenario given the strength of the 2017 class, but this allows Los Angeles to begin their rebuilding process sooner rather than later and to develop a core of young talents that might be attractive to potential free agents this offseason.

Sacramento Kings – Sacramento is another team that won by not losing. Had they fallen out of the top 10, then the Kings would have lost their 2016 first round pick. Now, under a new regime, Sacramento will have an opportunity to find a solid rotation player in the bottom half of the top 10. Given the Kings’ plethora of needs, any number of players might make sense here, so expect just about everyone on the board to be in play.

Bryan Colangelo – Colangelo’s first draft lottery as the Sixers’ president of basketball operations and general manager couldn’t have gone much better. Philadelphia retained the top pick in the draft and have their choice of either Simmons or Ingram. Ingram certainly fits the Sixers’ current roster much better than Simmons given his ability to be plugged in at the small forward spot immediately, but Simmons is the better talent in my eyes. If Philadelphia ultimately selects Simmons, I would expect them to move some of their other front court pieces in the near future.

(Sidenote: Colangelo’s ability to reap the rewards of what Sam Hinkie planted is somewhat infuriating. Hinkie put together a plan to rebuild the franchise from the ground up and now that the foundation is in place, Colangelo will be the one making the top pick in the draft. It’s like that kid who never showed up to the group project meetings in college, but made sure to be there on presentation day to take all of the credit. Nobody liked that kid. To make matters worse, Sixers’ CEO Scott O’Neil has been using #process2progress on Twitter recently, a seemingly obvious shot at Hinkie.) 

Losers

Phoenix Suns – Phoenix obviously didn’t move up or down in the lottery order, but the fourth pick is a strange spot for the Suns if the Celtics select Dragan Bender over some of their other options. The best players on the board with Bender gone will be guards like Jamal Murray and Kris Dunn, the one position where Phoenix has a decent amount of depth. California’s Jaylen Brown is certainly a fit for the Suns here, but I’m not a believer in him as a top five pick for the reasons that Kyle Neubeck laid out over here. The option that makes the most sense to me is for Phoenix to select a front court player to help replace Markieff Morris now that he’s in Washington.

Philadelphia 76ers – The only reason the Sixers find themselves on this end of the winners and losers list is because they had an opportunity to land two top five picks if the Lakers selection fell outside of the top three. There was a 44.2 percent chance of that happening, according to the lottery odds, but now Philadelphia will just have one top five pick to help their rebuild. It’s certainly tough to consider the team with the draft’s top choice a “loser,” but given that nothing about the lottery order changed, the lines are thin.