Wait over: Delayed draft finally arrives
Timberwolves weigh options with No. 1 overall selection
Therewas no dancing on the court after a March Madness victory. No bounding onto the stage in a spiffy suit to meet the commissioner in June.
The coronavirus pandemic wiped out the traditional end of a college career and the usual start of a pro one. Players such as Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball and James Wiseman should be about a month into their rookie seasons by now, but their plans were put on hold.
After multiple delays, the NBA draft finally arrives Wednesday. Like everyone else in 2020, this year’s class of players has tried to make the best of their difficult circumstances.
“I feel like itwas better forme,” Edwards said. “I haven’t complained, I haven’t tripped about it at all. I just felt like it was better for me because more time for me to get better and get ready for theNBA.”
The freshman guard from Georgia is one of the leading candidates to be picked first by the Timberwolves. Ball, a guard who skipped college to play professionally overseas, and 7-foot-1 Memphis freshman center Wiseman are the other headliners in the class.
The draft is usually held in June inNew York, where Adam Silver announces the first-round picks. The top players sit at tables in the front of the arena and when their names are called, put on a hat with the logo of the team that picked them and walk onto the stage for a handshake and a photo with the commissioner.
This time, Silver will be announcing the picks from the ESPN campus in Bristol, Connecticut. Players have been shipped boxes of hats for wherever they will be watching to choose the one they need when their name is called.
It’s not the draft night they wanted, but the excitement of becoming a pro player won’t diminish. Not when they’ve been waiting sinceMarch, when sports stopped just days before the selection of the NCAA Tournament field, to start playing ball again.
“I mean, playing in games, I missed it a lot. But at the same time, this extra time, it’s only helpingme,” said forward ObiToppin, the national college player of the year from Dayton.
“I feel like I’m more prepared and mentally prepared for when the time comes, and I feel like when I’m on the court and that jump ball goes up, I feel like I’ve been waiting so long that it’s going to be an amazing feeling.”
The Warriors have the No. 2 pick, a chance to add a top young player to a team that reached five straight NBA Finals before tumbling to thebottomof the league when Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson were injured. The Hornets pick third, followed by the Bulls and Cavaliers.
The teams lacked some resources to evaluate players, without the normal draft combine in Chicago or the ability to invite players to their facilities for meetings and workouts. Perhaps that’s partly the reason there’s no consensus No. 1 pick this year like ZionWilliamson in 2019.
“Iwould say the analysis is fair. There is no guy that has separated themself from the pack, from public or external view,” Timberwolves President Gersson Rosas said.
Edwards believes the lack of an NCAA Tournament hurt the players. They couldn’t make a final collegiate statement like Ja Morant did when he turned in a triple-double in an upset victory for Murray State in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament. That helped secure him as the No. 2 pick behind Williamson and hewas a runaway winner of the rookie of the year award after nearly leading Memphis to the playoffs.