The Celtics’ front office has a lot to feel good about as the calendar year turns to 2018. The C’s currently have the second best record in the NBA after recent slides by the Rockets and Cavs while the Lakers stand in the ideal position (third-worst record in the NBA) at the moment for the Celtics to land a draft pick from them in the 2-5 range for the 2018 NBA Draft. The Lakers finishing with the third-worst record at the end of the year would give Boston an 80 percent chance of landing one of those four protected picks, a huge boon for them since the 2018 draft class is living up to the hype so far during this college season.
With that said, there is still quite the logjam in the cellar of the NBA standings. As we approach the halfway mark of the year, ten teams are all within 3.5 games of each other in the bottom third of the league.
Mark J Reblias/USA Today Sports
Celtics
NBA Notebook: Forecasting where the Lakers pick will fall in the lottery race
Standings via Tankathon.com
Current lottery teams that will be fighting for playoff spots and won’t be in the tanking race
New York:
Carmelo Anthony
Philadelphia:
Trevor Booker
LA Clippers:
Blake Griffin
Doc Rivers
DeAndre Jordan
Utah:
Rudy Gobert
Chicago:
Nikola Mirotic
Zach LaVine
Kris Dunn
Bobby Portis
Charlotte:
Rich Cho
Nicolas Batum
Marvin Williams
Dwight Howard
Teams battling for the bottom
8. Brooklyn:
Jeremy Lin
D’Angelo Russell
Kenny Atkinson
Spencer Dinwiddle
Caris LaVert
Jahlil Okafor
7. Phoenix:
Jay Triano
Devin Booker
Greg Monroe, Tyson Chandler, Jared Dudley
Ryan McDonough
6. Dallas:
Nerlens Noel, Devin Harris
J.J. Barea
Rick Carlisle
5. Memphis:
David Fizdale
Mike Conley
Marc Gasol
4. LA Lakers:
Lonzo Ball
Brook Lopez
Kyle Kuzma
Luke Walton
Julius Randle
3. Orlando:
Aaron Gordon
Nikola Vucevic
Jonathan Isaac
2. Atlanta:
Marco Belinelli, Ersan Ilyasova
Dennis Schroder, Kent Bazemore
1. Sacramento:
Zach Randolph)
Loading...
Loading...