The San Antonio Spurs won the 2023 NBA sweepstakes on Tuesday, giving them the first pick in the June draft and the right to pick their most anticipated prospect since LeBron James: 19-year-old French star Victor Wimpanyama.
Tottenham chairman Peter J Holt jumped in to celebrate the moment it became clear that Spurs had secured the top pick. The lottery was held in Chicago, and the draft order was revealed during an ESPN broadcast.
“I probably passed out,” Holt said on the broadcast. “I’m so excited. The city of San Antonio, our fans, man – we’ve got a lot of people who love Spurs so we’re grateful.”
The #2 pick went to the Charlotte Hornets, the third to the Portland Trail Blazers and the fourth to the Houston Rockets.
Wembanyama, interviewed from France, told ESPN: “My heart is pounding. I got everyone I love, everyone I know around me. It really is a special moment that I will remember for the rest of my life.”
The Wembanyama center, at 7-foot-3 with an eight-foot wingspan, can handle the ball and shoot like a guard. He plays for the Metropolitans 92, a professional team in the French League, where he averages 21.6 points and 10.5 rebounds per game. The NBA G League hosted its team at a two-game show near Las Vegas in October, and the NBA broadcast some of its games. The hype around him rivaled the one surrounding James in 2003, when the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted him No. 1 overall out of high school.
“It’s clear, you know, he looks like a generational talent,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said on ESPN ahead of the lottery. “And, you know, there are a lot of other examples of generational talent that have come into this league who lived up to expectations and some of them didn’t. But I have no reason to believe he wouldn’t.”
Wimpanyama certainly isn’t the only potentially franchise-changing prospect available in this year’s draft, which is scheduled for June 22 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Scott Henderson, the 19-year-old guard who played in the G League Ignite and faced Wembanyama in the October exhibitions, is widely expected to be drafted second overall. Henderson averaged 16.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists in 19 games with the Ignite this season.
For Tottenham, this is the third time they have won the lottery. In 1997, they used the #1 pick to select Tim Duncan, who went on to become one of the best big men in NBA history. Ten years ago, they also picked a big guy in David Robinson, a 10-time All-Star. Both players are in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The draft order is determined by a lottery that gives teams with the worst regular season records better odds for the first pick. This system has led teams to accuse teams of tanking — not prioritizing wins to position themselves for high draft picks. The three teams with the best chance — 14 percent — of getting a top pick this year were San Antonio, Houston and Detroit, which got the fifth pick. The other 11 teams in the lottery had lower odds, ranging from Charlotte at 13 percent to the New Orleans Pelicans at 0.5 percent.
In recent years, the NBA has moved to curtail the decline by introducing a post-season tournament to determine the seventh and eighth seeds in each conference and by flattening first-choice chances among the three worst teams.
But with the NBA coming to Wimpanyama on the horizon, Silver told reporters in the fall, “I know a lot of our NBA teams are drooling at the idea that maybe with our lottery, they can get it, so they all have to compete hard after that. season.”
The NBA fined the Dallas Mavericks $750,000 last month for resting several players in the final days of the season, even though the team still had a chance to participate in the tournament. They missed the playoffs and got to No. 10 through the lottery. They had a 3 percent chance of getting first place.
They were not as lucky as San Antonio.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is the longest serving coach in the NBA. He took over in December 1996 and has since led Spurs to five championships, most recently in 2014. But in recent years, Spurs have rebuilt and stockpiled young talent. The team has not made the playoffs since 2019. It is tied with Houston for the worst record in the Western Conference this season at 22-60. Wembanyama can change that immediately.
“I’m trying to win a ring as quickly as possible,” Wimpanyama told ESPN on Tuesday. “So be prepared.”