Wizards win NBA draft lottery after league’s worst record

Since the Suns do not have a 1st rd pick in this draft, I'm assuming it was traded. Suns traded their 2023, '25, '27 & '29th picks to Brooklyn. They pick swapped the 28th. So how did they manage to trade the 26th?

The Nets selected PF Noah Clowney at 21st in '23.
The Suns were returned their own pick last summer, Khaman Maluach.

I think I just figured out the mystery behind the Suns 2026 1st rd pick. That pick was a pick swapped to Washington for Bradley Beal. The Suns traded the pick they would receive to Orlando for three 2nd rd picks.

Orlando sent that pick to Memphis as part of the Desmond Bane trade. So now I'm confused on the 26th 1st rd pick they sent to Charlotte with Nurkic.

Phoenix supposedly sent their end of the swap rights to Charlotte along with Nurkic. But they sent their end to Orlando for three 2nd rd picks previously.

Hmmm......I'm back to square one and the mystery still exists. How did the Suns trade their end to Orlando for three 2nd rd picks and then later to Charlotte along with Nurkic?

I digress, to get back to your original question, I would have loved the Suns to have their 16th pick to draft Anderson for themselves.

Almost. Charlotte owns Phoenix’s (no. 18) after Orlando (originally no. 18) swapped with Phoenix (which was originally at no. 16 after not swapping with Washington) for those three second round picks. Because of James Jones, it became imperatively critical for the Suns to be “good-enough to make the postseason” this season because had they not, they were walking into a land-mine.

The Beal trade with WAS that was a swap (not a flat-out trade) wasn’t that risky since it’s hard to imagine WAS not being one of the worst teams in the league each year. So you had to figure that Phoenix would have kept its own pick while WAS would naturally keep its own pick. But the trade with ORL for three second round picks was a huge risk! Was that another James Jones special? I wouldn’t be surprised because there were so many boneheaded buffoon trades and decisions that that ridiculous excuse for a GM had made during his tenure. That trade could have been disastrous had the Suns ended up in the lottery this year. Why? Jones traded for Nurkic, which was dumb enough. He then had to trade his. No. 1 pick to CLT to unload Nurkic. Not only could the Suns have lost a lottery pick to ORL (for that boneheaded trade), but they were then losing it regardless to CLT (for that boneheaded trade to offset his original boneheaded trade). Luckily, both the Suns and Magic were marginally and almost equally “good enough” (identical records and only 2 draft positions apart at Nos. 16 and 18) that it didn’t become a terrible outcome for Phoenix.

For example, most prognosticators had Phoenix as one of the worst teams this year while Orlando was even seen as a dark horse to win the East. Imagine had the Suns ended up where they were predicted, e.g., at a no. 5 draft position, and Orlando at no. 25 (just for example). The Suns would have given their No. 5 pick to ORL for 3 second round picks to then be able to pick at No. 25. And then they would have lost that no. 25 to CLT for nothing (essentially so that they could have given away a valuable piece in Camara to Portland (who had traded Nurkic to the Suns)).

I’m sure Ishbia couldn’t get rid of Jones fast enough. In my opinion, Ishbia didn’t want to come in and fire both Monty Williams AND James Jones after that first half-season for fear of looking like a controlling dictator, but he had to pick one of them. And had Monty’s team not laid another egg in a close-out game (game 6 at home against Denver), I believe that Jones would have ultimately been the one fired at the end of that season.

Yes, you’re right, Earl. This even year, 2026, was the swap year in the Beal trade with Washington. However, since Washington had the No. 1 pick, obviously Washington would not have chosen to swap with Phoenix, and Phoenix would have kept its own first round pick. But Phoenix had traded the lesser of those swap rights with WAS to ORL for three second round picks (thanks for reminding me because that’s what connects all this here). Because the Suns, Orlando, and Philadelphia had identical 45-37 records, the NBA did a random drawing (although with the NBA, I don’t think anything is really ever “random”), and the Suns ended up with no. 16, PHL with no. 17, and ORL No. 18. And of course ORL chose to swap with the Suns and take No. 16. The Suns would have then had No. 18. But in the CLT trade involving Nurkic (thanks again to James Jones for being enamored with pre-injured Nurkic from a decade ago to trade for him), the Suns then traded that No. 18 pick as a Nurkic-dump, hence CLT is now picking at No. 18.

And in the second round, the order flips (46-48) for the three teams w identical records (PHX, PHL, ORL), hence the Suns should have had no. 48 (with ORL getting no. 46), but somehow PHX got no. 47, so there had to have been another trade in there somewhere. But that should be the gist of things; I just couldn’t recall the odd year vs even year on the Durant and Beal trades.

Regarding Anderson, he is an amazing pure shooter, but his height, build, and defense at the point could be problematic at the pro level. He could have served as a great energy guy off the bench in the beginning, but I wonder how playable he would ultimately become once teams started targeting him.