Good morning. Free Brittney Griner. Let’s basketball.

Il Ridotto, Pietro Longhi, 1700s

The top five finishers in 2022 NBA MVP balloting, along with their NBA draft position:

1. Nikola Jokic (No. 41 overall)

2. Joel Embiid (No. 3)

3. Giannis Antetokounmpo (No. 15)

4. Devin Booker (No. 13)

5. Luka Doncic (No. 3)

The best player on each of the four teams left standing in the NBA playoffs and their NBA draft position.

DALLAS: Luka, No. 3
GOLDEN STATE: Stephen Curry, No. 7
MIAMI: Jimmy Butler, No. 30 (if you prefer Bam Adebayo, he was picked No. 14)
BOSTON: Jayson Tatum, No. 3

Of the last 25 NBA MVP winners, here’s the breakdown of where those players were picked:

No. 1: Nine times (four for LeBron, two for Tim Duncan, one each for Iverson, Shaq and Derrick Rose)
No. 2: One time (Kevin Durant)
No. 3: Twice (MJ and James Harden)
No. 4: Once (Russell Westbrook)
No. 5: Once (Kevin Garnett)
No. 6: Zero
No. 7: Twice (Stephen Curry)
No. 8: Zero
No. 9: Once (Dirk Nowitzki)
No. 10: Zero
No. 11: Zero
No. 12: Zero
No. 13: Twice (Kobe and Karl Malone)
No. 14: Zero

Outside the Lottery: Six times (Steve Nash twice, Giannis twice, Nikola Jokic twice)

The NBA draft lottery doesn’t matter: none of the top five MVP finishers this year were No. 1 picks, and there hasn’t been an NBA MVP who was picked No. 1 in nine years. The NBA draft lottery doesn’t matter: all the best players for the teams left standing as we enter the conference finals were picked No. 3 or lower, and the two players picked No. 3 were acquired by trade on draft day (one, Tatum, through a team trading down and the other, Luka, through a team trading up). The NBA draft lottery doesn’t matter: there have been more MVP awards given to players taken outside the lottery over the past quarter-century than MVP awards given to players selected No. 2-6 combined.

2022 NBA MVP candidates who remain with the team that drafted them (including acquiring them on draft day): 100%

Best players on each team remaining who are with the team that drafted them (including acquiring them on draft day): 75%

The percentage of NBA MVPs over the last 25 years who won MVP while with the team that drafted them or acquired them on draft day: 76%

The NBA draft lottery does matter: the best, most stable teams get their best players via the draft by and large. The NBA draft lottery does matter: the mechanics of NBA team-building allow teams to keep good players they draft, particularly in the first round, under control for large portions of their career. The NBA draft lottery does matter: simple luck can provide teams if not a path to a young potential star, than the assets to move within the draft itself to target the young potential star they believe in (a la Boston moving down for Tatum). The NBA draft lottery does matter, if there’s a LeBron James or Tim Duncan coming eligible.

Given the recent success of non-lottery superstars led by Giannis and Jokic and the superlative performances of Tatum, Doncic and Booker, I would frame the argument this way:

The NBA draft lottery has rarely been less important to team-building. But the NBA draft is as important as ever.

Getting the top pick or even a top pick has never been a guarantor of greatness. But it’s became increasingly clear in recent years that nailing your picks wherever they lay is the most important thing here. All things being equal, you’d rather have No. 1 than No. 3, and you’d rather have No. 3 than No. 13. But there are paths to success if you mix the right expertise, strategy and luck in the player evaulation and acquisition part regardless of how the lottery luck plays out.

The symettry of the Tatum and Luka drafts are illuminating. The Celtics struck gold in the lottery, picked up No. 1 off of a pick swap with Brooklyn from the Kevin Garnett/Paul Pierce trade … and decided they wanted someone who wouldn’t go No. 1 or 2, so they traded down to get another asset. The lottery luck helped them get the player they wanted.

A year later, the Mavericks were tied for the third worst record in the league … but fell down to No. 5 in the lottery. But they were lucky in that none of the teams that won the first three picks wanted Luka, so they executed a trade with Atlanta (the team they had tied with in the standings) to move up and snatch him. Had Memphis (second worst record) or Orlando (one game better than Dallas) landed at No. 2 instead of Sacramento, one imagines that they would have likely taken Luka and been resistant to the Mavericks’ attempts to move up.

In both cases, lottery luck helped the Celtics and Mavericks get what they wanted, even though the player they wanted wasn’t taken in the slot they won in the lottery. And in both cases, the team executive who targeted those players were absolutely right for chasing them.

Keep all that in mind as the NBA draws ping pong balls tonight.

ESPN Tricked Y’All

Patrick Beverley, first thing in the damn morning, day after Chris Paul got dropkicked out of a Game 7.

NBA on ESPN @ESPNNBA

.@patbev21 says the Suns should've benched Chris Paul instead of Deandre Ayton 👀 "They benched the wrong person. They should've benched Chris." (via @GetUpESPN)

May 16th 2022

1,281 Retweets10,703 Likes

Later on, Matt Barnes gave Pat Bev that sweet chin music.

ESPN @espn

.@Matt_Barnes22 was not a fan of Patrick Beverley's criticism of Chris Paul: "There's a thin line between being critical and disrespecting. And I feel like what Pat Beverley did today to Chris Paul, was completely disrespectful and out of the line."

May 16th 2022

1,427 Retweets8,235 Likes

Barnes is correct: CP3 averaged 13-6-4 in this disastrous series. Bev’s career averages are 9-3-4 on far worse percentages. And need we remind everyone that CP3 averaged 24-9 against Pat Bev and the Clippers in the Western Conference Finals last season en route to a 4-2 series win. And Pat Bev averaged 6 and 1.

This is all dumb. Pat Bev was talking crazy on Twitter during the Mavericks’ beatdown on Sunday, so an ESPN producer asked if Pat Bev would get up early (or stay up late) to talk crazy on T.V. in the aftermath. Pat Bev loves nothing more than talking crazy, so he agreed and he delivered exactly what ESPN wanted. And then another ESPN personality later that day decided to talk crazy about Pat Bev, and both clips have millions of views, and I’m sharing them here again in case anyone missed it, because you know what? I sort of like watching these dudes talk crazy, too.

This is all dumb. Count me in.

Schedule

All times Eastern.

NBA Draft Lottery, 8, ESPN

Celtics at Heat, Game 1, 8:30, ESPN

Sun at Liberty, 7
Dream at Fever, 7
Mystics at Wings, 8, CBS Sports Network
Mercury at Aces, 10, CBS Sports Network
Lynx at Sparks, 10:30

Links

Here’s NBA.com’s lottery explainer.

ESPN reports that Nike is likely to end its signature sneaker deal with Kyrie Irving once it expires next year. On the one hand, Kyrie’s signature sneaker is one of the most popular Nike puts out. On the other hand, [motions to everything else around Kyrie].

I really enjoyed this treatise from Henry Abbott on Heat Culture and what passes for Sixers Culture.

Katie Heindl on where the Bulls go from here.

Jenn Hatfield on Alysha Clark’s long-awaited Mystics debut.

Mike Sykes on the bitter battle between Nike and StockX.

Jared Dubin on how the Mavericks sent the Suns crashing into Earth.

Marc Stein on the blame game in Philadelphia and the future of James Harden in Joel Embiid’s world. ($)

This is a few days old, but Spencer Nussbaum talks about Rhyne Howard giving the Dream hope, something in short supply the last few seasons. Since then, Howard has been named Eastern Conference Player of the Week. In her first week in the WNBA. Impressive!

Incredible new job title for deposed interim head coach Alvin Gentry in Sacramento — Vice President of Basketball Engagement. I too love to engage with basketball.

Free BG. Be excellent to each other.