There’s at least a tiny sliver of potential good news in the box scores of yesterday’s NBA games to be had for Boston Celtics fans.
We are not of course referring to the loss against the Miami Heat Tuesday night, but to the continuing three-game slide of the Memphis Grizzlies, exacerbated by the loss of big man Jaren Jackson Jr. to a meniscus tear.
The Celtics, who control the Grizzlies’ 2020 NBA first round pick with protections over picks No. 1-6, will get Memphis’ pick if they fall out of the playoff picture and don’t happen to a draw picks 1-4, the only other positions the draft lottery could place the pick given the constraints put in place for the restarted season, according to Yahoo’s Keith Smith.
Nope. Still protected top-6 this year. But Memphis can only land 1-4, since those are the lottery spots. If it's 1-4, Memphis keeps it. Then Boston gets an unprotected pick in 2021.
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) August 5, 2020
Should the pick end up in the low lottery range protected by the Grizzlies, it could conceivably break even worse than losing the No. 14 pick to Boston.
With Jackson likely out for at least a part of the season after this one, an even lower lottery pick could get sent to the Celtics the summer after this one, when they will be owed the pick sans protections altogether.
For a team that really needs to nail its draft picks in the next few seasons to maximize their chances of winning a title with little cap room to spare, this Grizzlies misfortune is an unambiguous boon for Boston.
In a draft that drops off hard after the lottery, a chance at being able to draft a Devin Vassell or James Nesmith-type player could end up being the difference between hanging a banner and going home empty-handed in some not-too-distant season.
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Should Memphis “win” the lottery and end up with a top pick, it could produce a pick in a lower range than No. 14, but in what is being held up by many experts as a much deeper draft, that might not be so bad — if not better.
There’s still plenty of time for the Griz to turn things around and dodge a play-in game to become first-round draft fodder for the Los Angeles Lakers, but down one of their best young bigs on a three-game losing streak, it’s safe to say the odds are increasingly against that outcome.
Whether that would produce a lottery pick this summer or an unknown commodity the next remains to be seen — as does whether Memphis can beat the odds and make the playoffs.
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