Lakers may get their 2023 first-round pick back from Pelicans
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers traded a lot of draft capital to the New Orleans Pelicans for Anthony Davis but it was instantly worth it as the team won the NBA Championship in AD’s first season with the team.
One of the picks the team traded was a pick swap in the 2023 NBA Draft and early on in the season, it looked like that pick would end up being a disaster. Los Angeles was towards the bottom of the league and New Orleans was towards the top. There was a legitimate chance the Lakers could have given New Orleans Victor Wembanyama.
That could still technically happen with how the NBA lottery works and the fact that the Lakers are always an injury or two away from falling off a cliff. But with the direction things are going right now, the opposite might actually end up happening.
The Lakers could get their first-round pick back from the Pelicans.
Things have started to plummet for the Pelicans after starting the year on top of the Western Conference. At the time of writing this, New Orleans has lost nine games in a row and is in 10th place in the West with a 26-26 record.
The Lakers are not that far behind the Pelicans, holding a 24-28 record after Tuesday’s win over the New York Knicks. Los Angeles may not be red hot but they finally have Anthony Davis back in the fold and are entering an easier portion of the schedule coming up.
It is not inconceivable with the way things are going that the Lakers would continue to win games and eventually surpass New Orleans in the standings. If that is the case, Los Angeles would then have a worse first-round pick than New Orleans, essentially making the swap obsolete.
As it stands right now, the purple and gold would get a first-round pick in the lottery with both teams falling in the bottom 14. However, the best-case scenario for the Lakers is that the team continues to win games and they end up getting their own pick in the 20s. That would mean that the team quickly climbed up the standings and was a top team in the West.
Regardless of what happens, the Lakers will be getting a first-round pick in the 2023 NBA Draft and with the way the Pelicans are losing, that pick may no longer be that bad. Gone are the days when the Lakers would be giving New Orleans the top pick and would be getting the 25th pick back in return.