CHICAGO — Victor Wembanyama is now set to begin his NBA career with the San Antonio Spurs, after they won the NBA draft lottery and the No. 1 overall pick on Tuesday night.
The Spurs were one of three teams with the best odds — 14% — to land the No. 1 pick, which they’ll almost certainly use on Wembanyama. The 7-foot-3 French 19-year-old is one of the most highly touted prospects in NBA history and will be expected to make an immediate impact on the league.
“He’s an incredible young man,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told ESPN as part of its draft lottery broadcast. “He’s 19 years old and I didn’t take out a yardstick or meter stick or whatever they use in France, but he seemed all of 7-4 to me. … He clearly appears to be a generational talent.”
It’s the third time the Spurs have won the lottery, and on both previous occasions they made picks that paid off for decades. They chose David Robinson in 1987, Tim Duncan in 1997, and those selections were a major part of how the Spurs became a team that won five NBA titles under Coach Gregg Popovich.
“I’m so excited,” Spurs managing partner Peter J. Holt said.
Charlotte will pick second, Portland will pick third and Houston will pick fourth.
The Spurs were 22-60 this season, tied for the second-worst record in the NBA. Popovich and the Spurs have had incredible success with international players in the past – most notably, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, who owns the French team that Wembanyama played for last season.
Wembanyama finished his regular season with Boulogne-Levallois of France’s top pro league earlier Tuesday, his 22-point effort good enough for him to clinch the league’s scoring title. It was shortly past 2 a.m. Wednesday in Paris when the lottery results were revealed, and Wembanyama was gathered with family and friends for a celebration.
Finally, they know where his NBA journey will begin.
“I think the team that has the first choice isn’t going to get it wrong,” said Vincent Collet, Wembanyama’s coach in France and also the coach of the French national team — which Wembanyama is expected to play for this summer at the World Cup and next summer at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Detroit had the worst record in the NBA and was one of the three teams with the best odds of winning. The Pistons wound up falling all the way to fifth, the worst of their possible outcomes.
The rest of the lottery order: Orlando will pick sixth, Indiana seventh, Washington eighth, Utah ninth, Dallas 10th, Orlando (from Chicago as part of an earlier trade) in 11th, Oklahoma City 12th, Toronto 13th, and New Orleans 14th.
Wembanyama is wrapping up his third professional season in France and has been the consensus top pick for months. He has the height of a center, the shooting touch of a wing and the passing ability of a point guard.
He wasn’t at the lottery because of his game schedule in France. But many of the other top prospects — Scoot Henderson of the G League Ignite, Brandon Miller of Alabama, twin brothers Amen and Ausar Thompson of the Overtime Elite program — were in the room to watch the lottery results get unveiled and get a little better idea of where they may be heading to start their NBA careers.
GRIZZLIES: Guard Desmond Bane had surgery on his right big toe after initially breaking a bone during a game Nov. 11 against Minnesota.
The Grizzlies announced the procedure on a broken medial sesamoid bone in the toe. The team says Bane is expected to be fully recovered before the start of the season.
Bane initially hurt his toe during the Grizzlies’ win Nov. 11 against the Timberwolves. He finished that win over Minnesota with 24 points and five assists. The Grizzlies announced the next day the third-year player out of TCU would miss at least two to three weeks with a sprained toe.
He missed 17 games and returned Dec. 23.
The 30th overall pick in the 2020 draft ranks second in the NBA in 3-point shooting percentage since entering the league with a minimum of 400 3-pointers made. He set the franchise record with 228 made 3s last season.
• NBA Commissioner Adam Silver expressed disappointment that guard Ja Morant apparently held a firearm again on social media this past weekend, but did not predict what punishment the league may impose.
Morant has already been suspended from all team activities by the Grizzlies and the league has opened another investigation into the star guard’s off-court conduct.
Silver met with Morant after a similar incident in March and suspended him for eight games.
“Honestly, I was shocked when I saw, this weekend, that video,” Silver said in a televised interview with ESPN before the draft lottery in Chicago. “We’re in the process of investigating it and we’ll figure out exactly what happened as best as we can. The video’s a bit grainy and all that, but I’m assuming the worst. We’ll figure out exactly what happened there.”
It’s the second time in less than three months that Morant was seen on Instagram holding what appeared to be a weapon. The first led to the eight-game suspension that was handed down in March and cost Morant about $669,000 in salary.
This time, the suspension could be much longer and much more costly. The second video was captured Saturday night and widely shared online. It was streamed on the Instagram account of Morant associate Davonte Pack, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Grizzlies have not commented on the specifics of the latest video.
The video streamed by Pack shows Morant in the passenger seat of a vehicle, briefly appearing to display a handgun. At the very brief moment — maybe less than a second — when Morant is shown holding what appears to be a weapon as he sits in the passenger seat of a vehicle, the livestream had 111 viewers.
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