SI:AM | Wizards Face Tough Choice After Winning Lottery

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Is the Knicks’ offense totally unstoppable, or are the Sixers just awful?

In today’s SI:AM:
🎰 NBA draft lottery results
😬 Spurs lose as Wemby gets tossed
🗽 Knicks crush Sixers

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Wizards win NBA draft lottery

The Wizards’ tanking paid off.

After finishing with the worst record in the NBA this season (17–65), Washington lucked out by winning the draft lottery on Sunday and will pick first on June 23.

This year’s draft class is an interesting one. There isn’t a can’t-miss prospect at the top like Victor Wembanyama or Cooper Flagg, but there are a few players who would be good enough to go No. 1 in other years. BYU forward AJ Dybantsa is the current favorite for the top pick. Kansas guard Darryn Peterson and Duke forward Cameron Boozer are also candidates. Then there’s a sizable group of not quite No. 1-caliber players who still have teams very excited, like Caleb Wilson, Darius Acuff Jr., Kingston Flemings, Mikel Brown Jr. and Keaton Wagler.

The losers of the lottery were the Pacers and Nets, who had the same odds of landing the top pick as Washington but didn’t have the ping pong balls bounce their way. Indiana got the fifth pick, but will send the pick to the Clippers as part of February’s trade for Ivica Zubac. The pick would have stayed with the Pacers if it was in the top four. Brooklyn, meanwhile, dropped all the way to sixth.

Wemby’s ejection costs Spurs

The key to the Timberwolves’ beating the Spurs is simple: Limit Victor Wembanyama’s impact on the game. They did it in Game 1 with Rudy Gobert’s defensive effort, and it happened again in Game 4 on Sunday thanks to Wembanyama’s own costly lapse of judgment.

Wembanyama was ejected early in the second quarter after striking Minnesota’s Naz Reid in the throat with his elbow, and the Wolves went on to win, 114–109.

It was an uncharacteristic play from Wembanyama, who has never shown himself to be a dirty or even especially physical player. But there was no doubt that he should have been ejected. He jabbed Reid forcefully right in the head and neck area with the point of his elbow.

Luke Kornet played well in Wembanyama’s absence, but there’s no way for the Spurs to replicate the impact of their do-it-all superstar, and now the series is tied.

Another Knicks blowout

The Knicks-Sixers series ended the same way it began: with a hilariously lopsided New York win.

The Knicks won Game 4 in Philadelphia on Sunday, 144–114, to finish up their sweep. Miles McBride, who slid into the starting lineup in place of the injured OG Anunoby, led the way for New York with 25 points. He was a preposterous 7-for-9 from three-point range.

New York set a new franchise record for points in a playoff game. Before this year, the record was 135 points (set in 1990 against the Celtics and tied last season against the Pacers), but the Knicks have now surpassed that figure three times in this postseason.

The Knicks are also just the third team in NBA history to have three games in a single postseason in which they scored at least 135 points. The Lakers did it three times in 18 playoff games in 1987 and seven times in 19 games in ’85. They won the championship in both of those years.

The best of Sports Illustrated

AJ Dybantsa drives to the hoop — Former BYU forward AJ Dybantsa is among the favorites to go No. 1 in the NBA draft. | Craig Strobeck-Imagn Images

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Eva Geitheim outlines one move every NFL team should still make after the draft.
Washington finally landed the No. 1 pick after years of rebuilding, but Chris Mannix believes the Wizards are still weighing every option atop a wide-open draft.
Now that the NBA lottery has been completed, Kevin Sweeney reveals his new mock draft.
They are the top two players in the world. They have combined to win the past three tournaments. Max Schreiber writes that Jeeno Thitikul and Nelly Korda have the chance to be the next great LPGA rivalry.

The top five…

… things I saw yesterday:
5. A smooth 5-4-3 triple play by the Marlins’ Double A affiliate.
4. Elliot Anderson’s effort on a late equalizer that assured Nottingham Forest would remain in the Premier League.
3. Nick Castellanos’s game-tying two run homer on a full count with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. The Padres went on to win on Manny Machado’s walk-off sacrifice fly in the 10th.
2. Ayo Dosunmu’s tough catch on a long inbounds pass to seal the Timberwolves’ win over the Spurs.
1. The Canadiens’ beautiful power play. They maintained possession for 1:22 and peppered the Sabres with shot after shot before Cole Caufield found the back of the net.

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