2026 NBA Draft Thread.....

[The Consiglieri]

Watch on YouTube

;t=1258s

right around the 20:50 mark the Suns bit comes in, and then 21:00 they talk the Wiz bit.

It's annoying that no-one seems to know we don't have the first right at the Suns swap in '28, that it has weird asterisks right? That's what I remember, that more than likely we can't get the '28 one.

But the point still plays, in '28 and '30 we will be fighting for the playoffs and the Suns will be hot garbage, so at bare minimum, the '30 swap will likely be quite valuable, as is the '26. The trade really potentially went our way. The Suns basically did a Prokorof part II, which nobody thought was ever going to happen again after that horror show error, but here we are.

[The Consiglieri]

Actually this is as good a time as any, how does our pick swap work exactly with Phoenix/Brooklyn/Philly/Milwaukee etc in terms of '28? It's so confusing.

[doclinkin]

That Phoenix pick swap gives us some incredibly favorable odds for the next lottery.

Right now they are projected to win 30. If Booker misses any amount of time, they may be looking at 20-25 wins. Basically its like our odds double. We get two lottery tickets even though we can only use of of them.

I was loud on this from day one while folks were fussing that we didn’t get enough. That this was the hidden gold of the Beal trade.

From the jump it was clear. Betting on 3 high usage players with injury history was a predictable failure for the Suns. That Winger and Dawkins gamed the odds in their favor, stealing lotto tickets til the math was on their side no matter what.

Winger figured how to jiu jitsu the Stepien rule and use it as leverage anyway. So even the prospect of a swap holds power. Now you can hold a bad team hostage with their own swaps. Extort whatever you need from them since they can’t properly tank even. Trade a full future pick for a possible swap. Etc.

Yeah we still have to land in the bottom 8 with our own lotto chances. The flattened lotto was maddening for us bottom dwellers. But Winger is working his tail off to try to battle the probability defying suckhole of all that has been #sowizards

[gesa2]

Actually this is as good a time as any, how does our pick swap work exactly with Phoenix/Brooklyn/Philly/Milwaukee etc in terms of '28? It's so confusing.

Here is RealGMs future pick guide’s explanation:

2028 first round draft pick from Milwaukee or Portland (Washington, Brooklyn, Philadelphia or Phoenix outgoing to Milwaukee) [this overlaps with another incoming pick to Washington]
Portland will receive the more favorable of its 2028 1st round pick, protected for selections 15-30 if Portland has not conveyed a 1st round pick to Chicago by 2027, and Milwaukee's 2028 1st round pick; Washington will receive the more favorable of (i) the more favorable of (a) its 2028 1st round pick and (b) the least / less favorable of Brooklyn's 2028 1st round pick, Philadelphia's 2028 1st round pick, which would be protected for selections 1-8 and otherwise conveyable if Philadelphia conveys a 1st round pick to Oklahoma City in 2026, and Phoenix's 2028 1st round pick and (ii) the less favorable of the Milwaukee pick and the Portland pick if conveyable and Milwaukee will receive the less favorable of (i) and (ii); if the Portland pick is not conveyable, then Milwaukee's obligation to Portland will be extinguished and Washington will instead have the right to swap for the Milwaukee pick [see (ii) above] (via Portland's right to swap for Milwaukee; via Washington's right to swap Washington, Brooklyn, Philadelphia or Phoenix for Milwaukee or Portland)

I need to make a flow chart to try to understand all the possibilities, but the biggest hope is that Portland’s pick is not conveyable, leaving us with a clean swap right with Milwaukee. Right?

[doclinkin]

Actually this is as good a time as any, how does our pick swap work exactly with Phoenix/Brooklyn/Philly/Milwaukee etc in terms of '28? It's so confusing.

Here is RealGMs future pick guide’s explanation:

2028 first round draft pick from Milwaukee or Portland (Washington, Brooklyn, Philadelphia or Phoenix outgoing to Milwaukee) [this overlaps with another incoming pick to Washington]
Portland will receive the more favorable of its 2028 1st round pick, protected for selections 15-30 if Portland has not conveyed a 1st round pick to Chicago by 2027, and Milwaukee's 2028 1st round pick; Washington will receive the more favorable of (i) the more favorable of (a) its 2028 1st round pick and (b) the least / less favorable of Brooklyn's 2028 1st round pick, Philadelphia's 2028 1st round pick, which would be protected for selections 1-8 and otherwise conveyable if Philadelphia conveys a 1st round pick to Oklahoma City in 2026, and Phoenix's 2028 1st round pick and (ii) the less favorable of the Milwaukee pick and the Portland pick if conveyable and Milwaukee will receive the less favorable of (i) and (ii); if the Portland pick is not conveyable, then Milwaukee's obligation to Portland will be extinguished and Washington will instead have the right to swap for the Milwaukee pick [see (ii) above] (via Portland's right to swap for Milwaukee; via Washington's right to swap Washington, Brooklyn, Philadelphia or Phoenix for Milwaukee or Portland)

I need to make a flow chart to try to understand all the possibilities, but the biggest hope is that Portland’s pick is not conveyable, leaving us with a clean swap right with Milwaukee. Right?

Last time I worked my way through this I think it landed like this:

If Portland misses the playoffs the next couple years they don’t convey their pick to the bulls. The Bulls only get the pick if it is not a lotto selection.

If the Blazers then make the playoffs in 2028, the Bulls get their pick. The Blazers would have no pick to swap. They are out of the picture.

Then we are rooting for the Bucks to be worse than us. Or at least miss the playoffs. We’d have a clean swap between us and the Bucks if we want it.

Alternatively. We could get the 3rd best of Brooklyn, Philly, and Phoenix. If that pick is better than ours or the Bucks pick.

So basically we are rooting for Portland to miss the playoffs the next 2 years then win in 2028. The Bulls take their pick.

The Bucks still suffer from the Kuzma trade, maybe lose The Greek Freak. Forced to rebuild.

And all of the Nets, 6ers, and Suns miss the playoffs. Brooklyn is still young. Embiid retires from injury. The Suns gonna Sun.

At that point maybe we win the play-in tournament. Have no lotto pick. But all of the above teams fail.

All of a sudden we get a free lottery player in a year when we are trying to win.

[nate33]

Doc pretty much nailed it. But if you care about the nuts and bolts of it, I made this post in the Kuzma trade thread:

From the RealGM pick tracker page:

2028 first round draft pick from Milwaukee or Portland (Washington, Brooklyn, Philadelphia or Phoenix outgoing to Milwaukee) [this overlaps with another incoming pick to Washington]
Portland will receive the more favorable of its 2028 1st round pick, protected for selections 15-30 if Portland has not conveyed a 1st round pick to Chicago by 2027, and Milwaukee's 2028 1st round pick; Washington will receive the more favorable of (i) the more favorable of (a) Washington's 2028 1st round pick and (b) the least / less favorable of Brooklyn's 2028 1st round pick, Philadelphia's 2028 1st round pick, which would be protected for selections 1-8 if Philadelphia does not convey a 1st round pick to Brooklyn in 2027 and otherwise conveyable if Philadelphia has conveyed a 1st round pick to Oklahoma City by 2026, and Phoenix's 2028 1st round pick and (ii) the less favorable of the Milwaukee pick and the Portland pick if conveyable and Milwaukee will receive the less favorable of (i) and (ii); if the Portland pick is not conveyable, then Milwaukee's obligation to Portland will be extinguished and Washington will instead have the right to swap for the Milwaukee pick [see (ii) above] (via Portland's right to swap for Milwaukee; via Washington's right to swap Washington, Brooklyn, Philadelphia or Phoenix for Milwaukee or Portland) [Milwaukee-Phoenix-Portland, 9/27/2023; Milwaukee-New York-Washington, 2/6/2025]

It took me a while, but I think I finally figured out this pick situation.

The issue is that Portland still owes a pick to Chicago which is lotto-protected through 2028. There are 3 scenarios:

• Portland makes the playoffs in either 2025-26 or 2026-27, then that pick will convey to Chicago and Portland will have their own pick available in 2028 to swap with Milwaukee. Portland will execute that swap first, and then we have the option to swap our pick with the worst of MIL/POR pick that is leftover in Milwaukee's possession.
• Portland misses the playoffs in 2025-26, 2026-27, and 2027-28. Their pick obligation to Chicago would be extinguished (or rather, converted into SRP's), which means they still have their 2028 pick to swap, and they will execute that swap with MIL if advantageous for them. Again, we will get sloppy seconds on that swap, which probably means it won't help us much.
• Portland misses the playoffs in 2025-26 and 2026-27, but makes the playoffs in 2027-28. In that scenario, they would be forced to complete their obligation with Chicago and send their 2028 FRP to Chicago. That leaves them with no pick to swap with Milwaukee. That means our swap with Milwaukee would still be in place, unfettered by Portland. If Milwaukee is worse than us in 2027-28, the pick swap could be very helpful.

Finally, if all three of Brooklyn, Phoenix and Philadelphia finish with a worse record than us, and Philly also finishes outside of the bottom 8, then we would have the option to swap our pick with the worst pick between Brooklyn, Phoenix and Philly if that pick happened to be better than the POR/MIL pick we would end up getting from the above scenario. Ultimately, this one seems fairly unlikely. One of those teams is probably going to be better than us, or at least better than the best of POR/MIL.

TLDR: we should root for Portland to miss the playoffs in each of the next two seasons, and then make the playoffs in 2027-28 while hopefully Milwaukee bottoms out in the same season.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

This whole exercise reminds me of tanking a year only to end up picking 6th with a tie for the worst record. All the surety for the future runs completely counter to what I have the capacity to fathom.

It remains to be seen how minutes will be distributed on this sub-30 win team. A lot of guys will have to be inefficient. None of the second-year guys can experience a huge breakout.