BREAKING: Mavs Receive 10th Pick in Lottery; Spurs Win Wembanyama Sweepstakes
At long last, NBA Draft Lottery day arrived, and the Dallas Mavericks anxiously awaited Tuesday night’s drawing results to see if they’d keep their first-round pick or not.
With a 65.9-percent chance getting the No. 10 pick, the Mavs did just that, as their logo was revealed in the No. 10 envelope. Now that Dallas stayed in the top 10, it doesn’t have to covey the pick to the New York Knicks to complete the 2019 Kristaps Porzingis trade until next year at the earliest.
Meanwhile, although the Mavs kept their pick, there was surely some cringing involved later on as they watched their division rivals, the San Antonio Spurs, get awarded the No. 1 overall pick. This likely means that Victor Wembanyama, who has been dubbed by some as being the best NBA prospect of all-time, will be in the same division against Luka Doncic for the foreseeable future.
Due to the national media outrage over the Mavs tanking their last two games of the season, many believed that Dallas didn’t deserve to keep its pick — especially people with Knicks rooting interest. However, lottery odds don’t care for people’s conspiracy theories. The ping-pong balls will fall where they fall each year, and everyone will live with the results.
The Mavs just hoped those results were favorable enough for them to move up in the draft order for the first time in franchise history, but they’ll gladly settle for not having to surrender the pick to New York. Retaining this year’s pick makes building around Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving a little bit easier than it would’ve been in that doomsday scenario.
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