What Brooklyn clinching playoffs means for 2022 first-round draft pick owed to Houston

With the Nets clinching a playoff berth by defeating Cleveland, the 2022 first-round pick due to Houston will be at No. 16, 17, or 18 overall. Here’s a look at the remaining scenarios.

With the Brooklyn Nets clinching a playoff berth by defeating Cleveland in the first game of the Eastern Conference play-in tournament, their 2022 first-round pick due to the Houston Rockets will be at No. 16, 17, or 18 overall. Here’s a look at the remaining scenarios.

Since Brooklyn made the 2022 playoffs, it is now to Houston’s benefit to have No. 7 seed Minnesota advance out of the West’s play-in tournament. Because the Timberwolves (46-36) had a better regular-season record than the Nets (44-38), Minnesota will be behind Brooklyn in the order unless they somehow miss the playoffs altogether.

To make the playoffs, Minnesota simply needs to win one of two games, both at home. Their first chance is Tuesday night versus the No. 8 Los Angeles Clippers. Should the Timberwolves lose that, they would still advance if they defeat the winner of the New Orleans-San Antonio game.

If Minnesota makes the playoffs, that would take the No. 18 spot off the table and improve the outlook for Brooklyn’s pick to No. 16 or 17.

To have a chance of getting the Brooklyn pick to No. 16, the Rockets need Cleveland to win (at home) in the second game of the East play-in tournament versus the Atlanta-Charlotte winner. From there, since the Cavaliers and Nets had identical records in the regular season, a coin flip would be held in the coming days to determine placement.

All in all, it’s not the picture-perfect scenario that some Houston fans may have imagined when the Nets were sitting at No. 9 and No. 10 in the Eastern Conference standings for portions of this spring.

But in the grand scheme, for a team led by two future Hall of Famers in Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, a pick outcome in the middle of the first round probably won’t be seen by the Rockets as a bad result. After all, Houston benefited from some unusual circumstances (Irving’s missing most home games due to New York’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, Durant’s month-long knee injury, and James Harden forcing a trade at midseason) that previously pushed Brooklyn lower in the East standings.

Unlike the NFL, the NBA does not revise its draft order based on playoff results — so the Nets’ pick will be locked at the conclusion of this week’s play-in tournament, even if they go on a deep playoff run.

Houston also, of course, owns its own pick in the first round of the 2022 NBA draft. That selection is guaranteed to be in the top five.

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