Already so late into the season, several teams don’t have much to look forward to outside of the 2023 NBA Draft.
But this upcoming class has one particularly impressive prized possession: Victor Wembanyama. His blend of height and wingspan is something we have never seen before from someone with his skill level in professional basketball.
The only question: Where will he play next season? We won’t officially know for several months, but we can take some well-informed guesses!
For this research, we looked at data from ESPN’s NBA Basketball Power Index and the projected draft order from Basketball-Reference. We included their rest-of-season forecast as well as additional win-loss projections from FiveThirtyEight.
Remember: Even though one team may have the strongest likelihood to have the worst record in the NBA, the lottery process flattens those odds to avoid tanking.
Traded picks and pick swaps also were included in all calculations.
For example, ESPN’s BPI projects the Utah Jazz have a 2.7 percent chance to land the No. 1 overall pick. But because they are also owed an unprotected first-rounder from the Timberwolves (who have a 0.9 percent chance), that increases their chances to 3.6 percent.
Based on these projection models, here is how it may shake out.