On the annual night where small spheres of plastic determine NBA history, the Spurs scored the rights to take a generational prospect (again) while the Hornets, Pistons and Rockets got shunned by the lottery Gods. Here are some winners and losers of the 2023 NBA Draft Lottery. 

Winner: …duh.

The San Antonio Spurs have arguably the most spoiled fanbase in all of sports. Not that I dislike Spurs fans or anything, but gosh, they have experienced such little…failure, one of the most inevitable parts of supporting a sports team. 

When San Antonio missed the playoffs in 2021, it was the first time in franchise history (which includes their ABA days in 1968) the team had missed the playoffs in back-to-back years. The first time! It’s like if Kim Kardashian suddenly made, like, $50,000 a year. It’s like “ha! Welcome to the land of normal people!”

However, that’s only one part of why the Spurs are arguably the most annoyingly successful franchise in sports. Not only have they endured less suck than most other sports teams, but during the few times they have sucked, they were gifted a franchise-changing player that offseason via the NBA Draft lottery. From 1985-2019, the Spurs missed the playoffs three (!) times. In two of those years, they were awarded the top pick in the draft. In 1987, it was David Robinson, and 10 years later, it was Tim Duncan. Not only that, the Spurs actually won with their top picks, capturing five championships over the next two-plus decades and solidifying themselves as a true dynasty. 

After a stretch of Spurs basketball that saw an unprecedented amount of losing, the lottery gods and goddesses decided that their generational pick-me-up was overdue and threw them a bone once again. Only this time, it might be one of the most prized bones in NBA history. 

Spurs managing partner Peter J. Holt – the team’s representative at the lottery – erupted with understandable excitement. The city of San Antonio had a similar reaction. On one of the most consequential nights in NBA history, the Spurs landed maybe the greatest prospect in the history of team sports because, well, of course they did. 

The lottery gods and goddesses love everything about the Spurs. Even when their roster isn’t very talented (like it has been over the past few seasons), the general basketball environment has been relatively healthy, unlike the other two professional hoops teams in Texas. San Antonio’s basketball was so pure, their development of international talent was so exceptional, and their tanking was so non-existent that the lottery higher ups had no choice but to reward them for their wholesome basketball ways.

There’s another peeving part of all this from the perspective of a non-Spurs NBA fan: this is one of the easiest decisions in the history of decisions! There is zero pressure on the Spurs; no one will question San Antonio taking Wembanyama, because he’s unlike anything we have ever seen before. I wrote a piece back in October reacting to Wembanyama’s spectacular pair of performances in Las Vegas against G League Ignite, who were led by fellow likely top-three pick Scoot Henderson. I feel the same way about Wembanyama as I did then; while players of his size have historically struggled to stay on the court, and not every player is perfect…Wembanyama is pretty darn close. 

Now, the Spurs’ trajectory is suddenly pointing upwards. Wembanyama will be flanked by a steady point guard in Tre Jones, a pair of sneakily great wings in Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell, an elite young defender in Jeremy Sochan and an all-time amazing head coach in Gregg Popovich. 

There weren’t any teams that were particularly “bad” fits for Wembanyama; however, the Spurs might’ve been the best-case scenario for him, and of course, that’s exactly where he’s going to land. 

Loser: Every lottery team that’s not the Spurs (but especially a few in particular)

For one night a year in the NBA, MLB and NHL, ping pong balls can ignite a surge of joy throughout an entire franchise, fanbase and city. On the other hand, these tiny spheres of plastic can rip the hearts out of other franchises that aren’t as lucky as the team at the top.

My favorite reaction to falling short of a generational talent was during the 2003 NBA Draft Lottery, when then Grizzlies GM Jerry West looked like an emotional balloon popped within him after Memphis was given the second overall pick in the LeBron lottery. West made the face of a man who’d seen years of vast success cruelly disappear in the blink of an eye. The even worse part was that the Grizzlies didn’t even get that pick, as a 1997 trade with the Pistons required Memphis to hand the selection over to Detroit. Brutal!

While the 2023 draft class offers several other Uber-talented prospects (similarly to the 2003 class), none of them are named Victor Wembanyama. It’s why Hornets center Mark Williams (who was representing Charlotte at the lottery) looked like he’d been stung by a sadness bee. It’s why so many of the unlucky representatives in drafts with franchise-altering prospects react so defeatedly, while the winners act like they’d won the actual lottery. 

Similarly to other generational talents, the thing about Wembanyama is that he won’t just impact the Spurs on the court. Wembanyama by himself is going to make the Spurs an extremely attractive basketball team. He’s going to sell a high volume of tickets and merchandise. He’s going to increase fan interest league wide. Non-Spurs fans now have a singular reason to watch San Antonio, who likely just earned themselves more nationally televised games that wouldn’t have existed if not for Wembanyama. He’s a force multiplier for the franchise; the profit won’t be collected solely on the court. The same can’t be said for 99% of not just basketball players, but all athletes, which is why West and Williams looked so deflated despite achieving a high draft pick. 

The team that fell just short of Wembanyama were the aforementioned Charlotte Hornets, who have a lengthy history of being on the precipice of drafting a franchise player. Charlotte has picked second overall in the 1994, 2004 and 2012 drafts, so instead of being gifted Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard and Anthony Davis, the Hornets instead ended up with Alonzo Mourning (great), Emeka Okafor (not as great) and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (oof). After being on the verge of snaring an all-time talent three separate times, the lottery gods and goddesses seemingly couldn’t help themselves once more. 

While the Pistons have recently shaken off the lottery demons with their selections of Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey, the Motor City hoopers experienced an emotional wreck on Tuesday. Despite sharing the best odds for the top pick alongside the Rockets and Spurs, the Pistons fell all the way to the fifth pick, with Ben Wallace looking like he had all of his emotions brutally extracted from him in half a second. Not only will they miss out on Wembanyama, but they’ll also likely miss out on Henderson, Brandon Miller and at least one of the Thompson twins. The Rockets endured a similar fate, as they got bumped down to the fourth pick. 

Heck, even the Trail Blazers got slighted despite leapfrogging two spots to the third overall pick. The way the lottery works is that, prior to the ping pong balls mixing around, each lottery team is given a set of four-number combinations, with the available numbers being 1-14. The balls are numbered 1-14; whichever team has the combination of ping pong balls that are drawn gets the first overall pick. The first three balls that were drawn were 14, 5, and 8. The Spurs and Blazers both had this combination, so it all came down the last ball, which ended up being 2. Obviously, the Spurs had 2; the Blazers had…3. 

One ball. Portland was literally one ping pong ball away from Victor Wembanyama. 

Winner/Loser: Karma

While I previously entailed how the Spurs sort of deserved the number one overall pick, karma wasn’t fully working properly on Tuesday night, because the Dallas Mavericks ended up with a draft pick they probably…no, definitely didn’t deserve. 

Now, it’s not like Dallas got the number one overall pick or anything, but it would’ve felt proper if their blatant late-season tanking (that they were fined heavily for) didn’t even yield the desired result. Throwing out a crunchtime lineup of Frank Ntlilikina, Theo Pinson, McKinley Wright IV, Justin Holiday and A.J. Lawson in pursuit of the tenth overall pick instead of playing for a spot in the play-in tournament should’ve been enough for the lottery gods and goddesses to deal Dallas a bad hand. 

Am I slightly biased because the pick would’ve gone to my beloved Knicks if it didn’t land in the top ten? Certainly! While it was entertaining seeing two Knick legends in Pinson and Ntilikina get substantial playing time (Pinson dropped a triple-double in the season finale), it was a tad damning knowing that the only reason they were out there was to lose. 

The Kristaps Porzingis trade proved to be a loss for the Mavericks. The final pick that was dealt not even landing in Dallas’ hands would’ve been the cherry on top. 

Loser: The Washington Wizards

By lottery luck standards, the Wizards weren’t a loser. They came into Tuesday night with the eighth-best odds, and they ended up with the eighth pick. However, the result was one that was all-too-familiar; Washington is stuck in the middle. Again. 

As a sports franchise, being in the middle stinks. You’re not good enough to compete for a championship, but you’re not bad enough to give yourself a viable shot at landing a top draft pick. The Wizards have lived in this realm for a few years; barring a trade, they’re going to pick in the 9-15 range for the fifth consecutive draft. While several of the players they’ve picked in that timespan have been decent – Troy Brown, Rui Hachimura, Deni Avdija and Corey Kispert have all become solid rotation players – that’s the thing. They’re solid. Not great. Not bad. Solid. Decent. Ok. While that’s desirable for teams who just need to fill in the edges in order to propel themselves towards a championship, the Wiz aren’t very close to that stage right now. 

If you want to build through the draft, you have to get lucky and/or be exceptional at scouting and player development. They got lucky in 2011 with John Wall and again in 2013 with Bradley Beal, both of whom turned into superstars during their time in DC. But even when the Wizards scored a top-five pick in the lottery, the players they took often never lasted long in Washington. Despite taking above-average players like Tom Gugliotta, Juwan Howard, Rip Hamilton and Rasheed Wallace, only Howard made it to his second contract in DC (which he didn’t even play out the entirety of in Washington, as he was traded to Dallas in year five of his six-year deal). Jan Vesely and Otto Porter Jr. never became what they were supposed to, and Kwame Brown, um, also didn’t pan out. 

If anyone could’ve used a franchise savior, the Wizards were at the top of the list. However, they remain stuck. With Bradley Beal locked into a big money contract to go along with Kristaps Prozinigs and Kyle Kuzma preparing to hit unrestricted free agency next offseason, there don’t seem to be a whole lot of opportunities for substantial growth in the near future other than hoping for a lottery miracle. 

Winner: Mark Tatum

By all accounts, NBA deputy commissioner and chief operating officer Mark Tatum is a wonderful guy. He’s heavily involved with developing the league’s relationship with prominent business partners.; Tatum spearheaded efforts to get corporate sponsorships on the front of jerseys and played a huge role in scoring a partnership with Nike to outfit every NBA, WNBA and G League team.

However, when he enters the NBA spotlight once a year to announce the results of the NBA Draft lottery, he’s the deliverer of bad news to many NBA fans and franchises. His face is associated with doom and gloom, although he doesn’t seem like a doomy or gloomy kind of guy. As a Knicks fan who’s endured countless disappointing lottery results over the past handful of years, he’s become the voice of an oft-crushed dream, as he likely has for many others. 

However, there’s one thing that Tatum needs to be applauded for: efficiency. He goes up to the podium, thanks whoever is emceeing the event for ESPN, then immediately starts revealing the draft order. No theatrics. No extra lines. Nothing. He knows why he’s up there and what the people want. He reveals the picks incredibly quickly, but allows enough time in between picks for people to take a breath. I love this a lot!

This is a problem the NFL Draft runs into every year. While commissioner Roger Goodell does a good job of not wasting time when announcing picks during the first round, rounds 2-7 (where guests announce the picks) are where the unnecessary antics happen. 

Now, I’m not including the picks where the people announcing the selection are honoring something, someone or a group of people for something good. Those are great and should keep happening. However, there are too many instances of people getting onstage and taking forever. I get it; you’re in front of a large crowd under a national spotlight, and the temptation to entail how excited you are to be up on stage is strong. But people have extremely short attention spans, and all they want to hear is who their team selected. 

The worst example of this happened during the 2022 draft, when former Minnesota Vikings running back Ed Marinaro rambled for over two minutes before one of the stage managers literally went on stage and told Marinaro he had to hurry up and announce Minnesota’s pick. 

Moment’s like Marinaro’s are why I appreciate Tatum’s punctuality. Even though several fanbases and franchises despise his face and voice, he does his job exceptionally well.