The 2023 NBA Draft is shaping up to be a game-changing night for the NBA, with several teams looking to fundamentally reshape their rosters.
After all, the 2022-23 NBA season had more parity than ever, but only one team took home the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Add in the fact that the 2023 NBA Draft class is full of high-level, high-upside players teams love to build around, and it’s easy to imagine we’ll see a ton of movement on draft night, with teams trading veterans for draft picks and others going in the opposite direction.
The trade market has already gotten off to a flashy start with Bradley Beal going to Phoenix, while free agency will be another interesting time to monitor in the NBA, with several good players set to hit unrestricted free agency on June 30. But for now, let’s focus specifically on the June 22 NBA Draft, looking into the most interesting teams that could be active on draft night.
The excitement around this year’s draft starts with Portland, which own the No. 3 pick after tanking the final two months of the season and getting lucky enough to move up in the lottery. But 32-year-old franchise cornerstone Damian Lillard is coming off one of the best seasons of his career and he wants to win right now, meaning he isn’t going to be happy if the Blazers use the pick to draft a young player who will need years of development.
Instead, Lillard has consistently used the media to pressure the Trail Blazers front office to trade the pick for veteran players who can help Lillard win now. If the pick isn’t traded and the Blazers do indeed draft either Scoot Henderson or Brandon Miller at No. 3, it is likely that Lillard will ask for a trade.
This dilemma puts Portland at the centre of the 2023 NBA Draft because it is one of a handful of teams that really could truly go in either direction on draft night. In other words, the Blazers hold all the cards, and whether they decide to go all-in and trade what is considered a highly valuable pick to please Lillard or go young and trade the greatest Blazer of all time is the single most interesting storyline to watch at the draft.
When it comes to teams that could make a deal with Portland should it choose to trade the No. 3 pick, look no further than the Raptors. Toronto owns the No. 13 pick in the draft and has a bunch of valuable veterans that could fit well with Lillard in Portland, including Pascal Siakam and O.G. Anunoby, who the Blazers have reportedly been after for years. And while it seems like the Raptors are in the rumour mill around this time of year and usually end up doing nothing, this year feels different for a number of reasons.
After all, the Raptors have their new coach Darko Rajakovic and will likely look to re-shape their roster this offseason in order to duck under the luxury tax and address some of their fit and spacing concerns. The Raptors know that the draft is the best time to do that, and they are reportedly attempting to move up in the top three or four of the draft, potentially resetting their timeline around Scottie Barnes and other young players.
The Pacers appear to be heading in the opposite direction of the Raptors. After exceeding expectations with a 35-win season on the back of exciting young talents Tyrese Haliburton and Bennedict Mathurin, the Pacers are reportedly looking to add established veteran players to round out their roster. More specifically, they are looking for high-level wing players to balance out their guard-heavy roster, reportedly dangling the No. 7 pick in the draft. Indiana native Anunoby has been mentioned as a possible target of the Pacers going back to last season.
Plus, the Pacers also own the Nos. 26, 29 and 32 picks in the draft, so there is going to be no shortage of opportunities for them to shake up the draft, dealing picks for established players and trying to be a threat in the Eastern Conference as soon as next season.
The Nets are in an interesting position because they have no choice but to fundamentally reshape their roster after dealing both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant ahead of last season’s trade deadline, trading both for wing-heavy packages. The Nets added Mikal Bridges, Dorian Finney-Smith and Cameron Johnson to an existing wing core of Seth Curry, Joe Harris, Royce O’Neale, Yuta Watanabe and, in case you forgot, Ben Simmons, giving them a surplus of wings and not enough shot creators or forwards.
The draft represents an opportunity for the Nets to reshape their roster and to try to be competitive again next season after being swept by the Philadelphia 76ers in the opening round of the 2023 NBA playoffs — something they are incentivized to do, given that Houston owns the rights to their first-round picks in each of the next three drafts because of the James Harden trade. With pick Nos. 21 and 22 in the 2023 NBA Draft, expect the Nets to be active in order to build a more sustainable roster moving forward.
Similar to the Nets, the Mavericks also find themselves in a very precarious position heading into next season after a series of mismanaged moves. After letting Jalen Brunson walk for nothing in 2022 free agency and getting off to a disappointing start to their 2022-23 season, the Mavericks traded for Irving ahead of the trade deadline. Unfortunately, the Irving and Luka Doncic pairing didn’t work as well as the Mavericks hoped, with the two ball-dominant stars failing to develop the requisite chemistry in time and instead playing “your turn, my turn” basketball, going 8-12 together and finishing 11th in the Western Conference.
The Mavericks are short on future assets or cap space (should they re-sign Irving, who is an unrestricted free agent), yet they need to build a contender by next season. If not, there are fears within the organization that franchise cornerstone Doncic could request a trade “as soon as the summer of 2024 if Dallas doesn’t make significant progress by then,” according to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon.
That’s a big deal, given that Doncic is just 24 years old and is on a trajectory to be an all-time great. But the Mavericks have messed up their chances to build around him time and again, making the No. 10 pick in this year’s draft monumentally important, as it represents one of their final opportunities to re-balance their roster ahead of what could be a franchise-altering 2023-24 season.
The Wizards’ new front office got off to a quick start, within days of taking over trading franchise cornerstone Beal to Phoenix for a deal centred around Chris Paul. The trade likely signals a complete rebuild for the historically mediocre Wizards, meaning there is work to be done ahead of and at the 2023 NBA draft in order for the Wizards to wipe the slate clean and start building around young players.
The Wizards could trade all three of Paul, Kristaps Prozingus and Kyle Kuzma ahead of next season, should they choose to go young, potentially using one of those pieces to move up from No. 8 in the draft. With a bunch of good veterans and a desire to build for the future, the Wizards are likely to be very active on draft night.