Houston Rockets Land No. 3 Pick in NBA Draft Lottery
Although the NBA Draft doesn’t get underway until June 23, the lottery commenced on Tuesday night to let all non-playoff participants know where they’ll be picking in the draft order a little more than a month from now.
The Houston Rockets were tied with the Orlando Magic, Oklahoma City Thunder and Detroit Pistons for having the best odds (14% each) to receive the No. 1 overall pick.
After the ping-pong dust settled, the Rockets ended up with the No. 3 pick for the second time in franchise history.
The Magic landed the top pick.
As a franchise, The Rockets have had great luck with their top-five picks when given the chance, selecting Elvin Hayes, Rudy Tomjanovich, Bobby Jones, John Lucas, Ralph Sampson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Yao Ming, and most recently Jalen Green, with those opportunities.
The last time the Rockets selected No. 3 was in the 1983 draft, when they selected Rodney McCray.
Green, who was selected No. 2 in last year's draft behind Cade Cunningham (Pistons), exploded onto the scene in his rookie campaign, averaging 17.3 points and 3.4 rebounds in 31.9 minutes in 67 regular-season games.
Green also ended the year ranked second among all rookie scorers behind only Cunningham (17.4), and hit nearly 43 percent of his shots from the field, including 34 percent from three.
If the Rockets can find a way to add a similar impact player in the 2022 class, as history suggests they are very capable of doing, they could find themselves in line for a much improved 2022-23 season.
Given how a number of mock drafts have looked in recent weeks, there’s a very good chance the Rockets could end up selecting Paolo Banchero with the No. 3 pick.
Banchero was the best player on a Duke team that made its first Final Four in seven years, the longest drought of Coach Mike Krzyzewski's career before he retired at season's end.
He averaged 17.2 points per game to go with 7.8 rebounds in his lone season with the Blue Devils before declaring for the draft. He's projected to be one of the first three players to be selected in this year's draft.
And while he won't get to choose where he wants to go, the Duke forward might prefer Houston out of all his potential destinations.
The draft is just one area the Rockets will be focused on this offseason as they look to improve on their 20-62 campaign in 2021-22.
What will the team decide to do with John Wall's albatross contract? Will they elect to trade Eric Gordon and Christian Wood? Are Russell Westbrook or James Harden still in play?
Stay tuned for the draft on June 23, because whichever prospect Houston ends up with could potentially shape what it does throughout the rest of the offseason.
You can follow Matt Galatzan on Twitter @MattGalatzan
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