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SALT LAKE CITY — Well, it was the most boring lottery in NBA history.
Yes, there are technically 2,184 possible combinations for the NBA ping-pong to spit out the teams in the lottery of the draft. But for the first time ever, all 14 lottery teams stayed in exactly the same order of their regular season records Tuesday night in a ballroom in New York City.
That includes the Utah Jazz, who will pick 12th for the second consecutive year. In the 2015 draft, they used that selection to draft rookie Trey Lyles.
"We assumed we were picking at No. 12 all along," Jazz team president Steve Starks said.
About the 12th pick, general manager Dennis Lindsey said, "There's prospects that can help us now in short order that have real defined skillsets, and I think there are really intriguing prospects that are more anticipation picks, that we're going to have to wait a while."
Still, though, Lindsey indicated that the Jazz were going to be aggressive in exploring trading up, down, or out. The best value option for the Jazz could be "to push that pick, turn it into multiple picks out, or could be a stash, there's very significant international talent," said Lindsey.
On the other hand, Lindsey also said, "we could trade it for a vet, let's say a good player on a one-year deal, and have that kind of one-off decision. Especially with where the team's at, that's a viable argument."
In other words, the Jazz haven't decided what they plan to do with the No. 12 pick just yet.
Meanwhile, the rest of the league largely let out sighs of relief. The Philadelphia 76ers will draft first, 20 years after their last number one selection, Allen Iverson. That's the first number one pick of their rebuilding era, initiated in 2013.
The Los Angeles Lakers would have lost their pick this year had they not finished in the top 3. Luckily for Mitch Kupchak and company, they finished second.
The Brooklyn Nets' selection finished third, but thanks to the 2013 trade that sent Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to Brooklyn, they gave that pick to the Boston Celtics. Celtics fans, though, will be disappointed to miss out on the big prizes in the lottery: the top two likely selections in Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram.
Teams with young superstars missed out on acquiring counterparts. Minnesota's Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins could have used another wing player like Ingram, and New Orleans would have liked either Ingram or Simmons next to Davis. To the relief of the league, it wasn't to be.
The 2016 @NBADraft order! pic.twitter.com/4k9QezDQt4 — NBA (@NBA) May 18, 2016
