By Aidan Joly
The 2024 NBA Draft is complete. It was a historic draft in some ways, some of those ways better than others.
Most notably, it sets up the first father-son combination on a team for the first time in league history, which felt inevitable. More on that in a second.
Here are nine takeaways from the NBA Draft.
The Bronny-Lakers sideshow
This draft became quite a Bronny James-Lakers sideshow.
It always felt inevitable that the Lakers were going to select the son of LeBron James with the 55th pick of the draft. But that doesn’t mean the ordeal was exhausting. We have never talked about a 55th overall pick as much as we have with this one.
A question I’ve been asked for months: is Bronny actually any good? The answer I’ve given is not really. This is a player who struggled to see consistent minutes on a bad USC team once he recovered from a cardiac arrest at a workout last summer. Bronny James was always going to be there when it came time for the 55th pick.
It did always behoove the Lakers to take Bronny as an inexpensive insurance policy to sway potential free agent LeBron to stay. It would have been very funny to see another team take him a few picks before, which would have likely forced the Lakers’ hand to overpay to trade for him, or see him play overseas, or even just sit him out.
Now, LeBron has his podcast co-host as his coach and his son as a teammate. Yeah.
Very few 55th overall picks have been stars. Some past 55th overall picks have carved out decent careers such as Patty Mills (2009), Jeremy Evans (2010) and E’Twaun Moore (2011), but the cards are against Bronny being anything in the NBA.
Soon, we’ll have endless updates from the Lakers’ Summer League games, which start on July 6. I’m exhausted already, but he moves the needle.
French connection
After Victor Wembanyama went first overall last year, we had three French players selected in the first six picks and four in the first round overall.
Zaccharie Risacher went first overall to the Atlanta Hawks, Alex Sarr went second to the Washington Wizards after he was seen after the first pick for a long time, and then Tidjane Salaun went sixth to the Charlotte Hornets. For good measure, Pacome Dadiet went 25th to the New York Knicks.
With how good Wembanyama was in his rookie year for San Antonio, the French influence will be there when it comes to prospects for the next few years. In this group, it seems like Sarr would be the one most likely to end up being a good NBA player.
Timberwolves get a steal
The Minnesota Timberwolves, who did not have much to speak of in terms of draft assets, somehow were able to trade into the lottery and snatch up Rob Dillingham with the eighth pick.
Minnesota is a team on the rise and Anthony Edwards is a budding superstar. It needed three things: a shot creator in the second unit, a succession plan for 36-year-old point guard Mike Conley and young talent to surround Edwards with. Dillingham should solve all three of those problems if he hits.
It didn’t have to give up much for it, either: a pick swap in 2030 and a first-round pick in 2031. Minnesota will definitely have some salary cap issues this summer, certainly a concern for a team that has ownership issues. But when it comes to being a contender right now, the Timberwolves have what it needs.
The Timberwolves also picked up Terrence Shannon with the 27th pick. He’s another guy with high upside.
Wizards loading up
Washington was able to pick up their center of the future with the aforementioned Alex Sarr, but also picked up guard Bub Carrington with 14th overall pick and high-upside guard Kyshawn George with the 24th pick.
They picked up Carrington after trading Deni Avdija to the Portland Trail Blazers. For their troubles, Washington also picked up sure-handed guard Malcolm Brogdon, a nice veteran presence. Washington also picked up a 2029 first round pick during the night’s events.
It’s hard to say how any of these guys will turn out in Washington, but Sarr and Carrington should get immediate playing time for a team that needs help on just about every position on the court. They did well to get a nice variety grab bag of prospects.
Best fit in the draft
It’s kind of funny to say that the guy the Spurs picked is the best fit in the draft because of course it’s a good fit, it’s the Spurs.
San Antonio picked up Stephon Castle with the third overall pick. He is the latest key piece to San Antonio’s rebuild and will be a good guard to have play along Wembanyama. He is a physical defensive force, and paired along a generational paint protector. It’s a recipe that the Celtics just used to win a title, and one Minnesota used to get to the Western Conference Finals.
San Antonio also got some picks, which will be important to keep having good picks as the rebuild continues and their own picks get lower and lower.
Lakers do get a steal in the first
As much as I criticized the Lakers’ for that second round pick becoming such a sideshow, they did do well in the first round.
Los Angeles got Dalton Knecht after he slid down from a potential top 10 pick, getting him at 17th overall. There were some concerns with his age (23) that led to him sliding down the draft.
However, this may have been the steal of the entire draft. Knecht should immediately become a player in the Lakers’ rotation, a good shooter who will be taking passes from LeBron will taking instruction from one of the best shooters and 0ff-ball players of all time in new coach JJ Redick. That is a dream for Knecht.
For the Lakers, they get a top-10 talent and will be able to save some salary cap on him since that slot commands a much smaller rookie deal. It’s a fantastic deal for Los Angeles.
Nuggets get aggressive
The Denver Nuggets’ title defense ended in a heartbreaking second-round loss to the Timberwolves.
Denver has a high-salary core, which will not be easy to replace. It is already likely to lose Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in free agency. It also shedded $5.2 in cap space by trading Reggie Jackson to Charlotte. So, Denver had to be aggressive on draft night to get young, serviceable reserves on the cheap.
It did that, surrendering the Phoenix Suns three second-round picks to move up from No. 28 overall to No. 22 overall to pick up DaRon Holmes II.
Holmes is older and experienced (he will be 22 by the start of the season) and will give Denver a frontcourt option behind Nikola Jokic. He’s a good shooter and is a high-energy player, so he should be a welcome addition in Denver.
All of this being said, it will be interesting to see how the Nuggets get to right around the luxury tax in the coming weeks and months.
The most divisive pick
Zach Edey, the 7-foot-4 behemoth who led Purdue to the national title game, ended up questionably going in the lottery with the Memphis Grizzlies taking him at No. 9 overall.
It’s unclear how he will work out in the NBA. He was extremely effective in the Big Ten in terms of how he played in the middle, but the focus on speed and the perimeter in the NBA will challenge him in ways that college basketball didn’t.
The fit is an issue here, too. Memphis is a team that wants to run with Ja Morant and co., including former Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson in the middle right now. Adding Edey and pushing Jackson to the four would absolutely make Memphis slower.
Edey is also unlikely to be with Memphis much of the summer as he trains for the Olympics with Team Canada.
Everyone has their opinion on him, and we might not see much of him in the NBA until October.
What are the Pistons doing? Also, we’re seeing the death of G-League Ignite
The Detroit Pistons took Ron Holland with the fifth overall pick from G-League Ignite.
You have to somewhat feel for the Pistons. Two years in a row, they have been in position for the first overall pick and fell all the way to fifth in the lottery.
Still, that doesn’t make what they did not baffling. Holland is a major swing for the fences pick and is a guy who did not show any signs of being NBA-ready in the G-League.
The fit doesn’t make sense either. The Pistons need to surround poor shooters in Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey with shooters, and Holland is simply not a shooter. If you really wanted Holland, he likely would have still been available if you traded back. Or, Donovan Clingan was still there.
The Pistons are 31-133 over the past two seasons. Oh yeah, and they still don’t have a coach. Even worse, it came out on Friday that James Borrego reportedly took his name out of the running for the job. Not many options out there for Detroit now. It’s probably going to be another long year.
As a side note here: we’re seeing why the G-League Ignite is shutting down. Membership is seeming to hurt players more than help. Matas Buzelis fell to 11th before he was picked by his hometown Chicago Bulls, while Tyler Smith ended up slipping to the second round.
Once a premier destination for top prospects and then produced players not ready for the league, the NBA began to no longer fund the program, and it died an ugly death.
Some other quick hits:
- Jared McCain in Philadelphia feels like a very, very good fit. He feels like a player who is ready to compete in the NBA, and should quickly.
- I don’t love the fit for Donovan Clingan in Portland. With DeAndre Ayton and Robert Williams already there, Clingan will likely get pushed down the depth chart. Unless they trade one of the two, or both.
- Devin Carter, one of my favorite players in the draft, goes to Sacramento. Solid fit there.
- Utah gets decent value after Kyle Filipowski fell to the second round. It seemed to be for some, uh, reasons other than basketball. It’s some wild rumors that you can Google.
- The Knicks got great value in the second round with Tyler Kolek. He is likely to be a solid bit player in New York.
- Let’s go back to a one day format next year. Doing this over two days stunk.
AJ Hoops 