By Tom Orsborn, Sports reporter | San Antonio Express-News, 2024-05-10 18:17:37
由Gemini Pro人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
星期四 6 月 22 日在纽约巴克莱中心举行的 NBA 选秀中，法国篮球运动员维克多·文班亚马在被圣安东尼奥马刺队选中状元后 applauds。（提摩西 A. 克莱里/法新社/盖蒂图片社/TNS）
芝加哥- 马刺队总经理布莱恩·赖特上周一的晚上有些紧张。
媒体小组刚刚宣布， unanimously 将维克多·文班亚马选为 NBA 年度最佳新秀，这是创纪录的一个赛季，赖特在马刺训练基地看着这位 20 岁的法国人接受 TNT 赛前工作人员的现场采访。
之后，一位观察者开玩笑说，当马刺队在去年 6 月选中文班亚马为状元签时，他打出了本垒打。
“好选择，是吧？”Victory Capital Performance Center 的游客说。
“这是一次伟大的选择，”赖特笑道。
尽管今年的选秀中没有像文班亚马这样的代际天才，但如果篮球之神再次选择以 NBA 选秀抽签中的前 5 签的形式向球队投下好运，马刺队或许可以再收获一名年度最佳新秀候选人。
尽管今年再次赢得抽签的几率很低，但当谈到一年一度的 ping-pong 选秀盛宴时，马刺已经学会了永远不轻言放弃。
周日的活动定于美国东部时间下午 2 点在 ABC 从 McCormick Place West Convention Center 播出。
过去 37 年里，马刺三次赢得抽签。前两次在 1987 年选中了未来的名人堂成员大卫·罗宾逊（David Robinson）和在 1997 年选中蒂姆·邓肯（Tim Duncan），他们分别在 1987 年和 1997 年有 14.29% 和 21.6% 的获胜几率。
“我们不应该在 NBA 篮球史上再获得任何好运了，”马刺主教练格雷格·波波维奇在去年的抽签中告诉记者。
但他错了。在与底特律活塞队和休斯顿火箭队并列最佳几率（14%）获得状元签的资格后，马刺队去年赢得了抽签。
马刺队本赛季以相同战绩（22-60）完赛，但这次他们获得了联盟第五差的成绩。因此，他们以 10.5% 的几率获得了状元签的第五佳几率。
去年，波特兰以第五高的几率获得状元签，并以第三顺位选中。2022 年，印第安纳从第 5 名降至第 6 名。2021 年，克利夫兰从第 5 名升至第 3 名。
马刺有 44.3% 的几率获得前 5 签，并且排名不会低于第 9 位。他们最有可能以第 7 顺位被选中（26.7%）。
底特律活塞队和奇才队以各 14% 的几率获得状元签的最佳几率。夏洛特黄蜂队以 13.3% 排名第三，波特兰开拓者队以 13.2% 获得第四佳几率。
在文班亚马的带领下，马刺队在本赛季的最后 11 场比赛中赢得了 7 场，跌出后三名。
“这从来不是讨论的一部分，”当一名记者告诉波波维奇说，没有人会指责球队为了获得更好的机会而摆烂时，他在赛季结束时说。
由于 2023 年 2 月马刺将雅各布·珀尔特尔从圣安东尼奥交易到多伦多，本次抽签对马刺队来说更加引人入胜。如果猛龙队的前签顺位跌出前 6，他们将把自己的首签欠给马刺队，而且有 54.6% 的可能性会发生这种情况。
如果猛龙队的选秀权今年没有传达，它将在 2025 年和 2026 年再次获得前 6 名的保护。
周日的结果将由 NBA 副总裁马克·塔图姆宣布，他将按降序公布密封信封。
实际抽签以确定 1 至 4 号签将在广播前的一个单独房间内进行，其中有 NBA 官员、参选球队代表、选定的媒体和监督抽签的会计师事务所恩斯特会计师事务所的代表。
抽奖从抽奖机中投入 14 颗 ping-pong 球开始，而联盟代表随机选择 4 颗球，显示四位数组合。有 1,001 种可能的组合，其中 1,000 种组合分配给 14 支参与的抽签球队。
马刺有 105 种组合。 如果同一支球队的组合出现多次，则结果将被丢弃，并将抽取另一个四球组合。
在前四个选秀权确定后，其余选秀权将根据胜负记录按倒序排名。
马刺在去年的抽签中使出了全力。
首席执行官 R.C. 布福德的女儿确保他父亲幸运的蓝色皮椅——那把马刺在 1997 年抽签中获胜时他所坐的椅子——在他的酒店房间里。赖特身上穿着幸运符藏在衬衫左口袋里，参加了抽签仪式。事务合伙人彼得·J·霍尔特坐在演播室的舞台上，就像他的父亲彼得·M·霍尔特在 1997 年那样。
今年，他们的预期降低，马刺队这一次将在芝加哥派出一套不同的阵容。他们在抽签室的代表将是篮球战略经理布兰登·莱布森。在广播期间，赖特而不是霍尔特将登上舞台。
尽管球探认为今年是选秀水平较低的一年，没有绝对的顶级新秀，但法国球星仍然是该届选秀的榜首，分别是本赛季在澳大利亚国家篮球联赛中效力的 7 英尺 1 中锋亚历克斯·萨尔和在效力祖国并且得分能力很强的 6 英尺 9 前锋扎卡里·里萨舍。
今年的选秀被认为是多年来最弱的一届，但仍然有一些球员可以很好地融入围绕文班亚马的球队的重建计划，这份名单包括萨尔、肯塔基后卫罗布·迪林厄姆和里德·谢泼德、康涅狄格后卫斯蒂芬·卡斯尔和中锋唐诺万·克林根、田纳西神射手达尔顿·克内希特和塞尔维亚控球后卫尼科拉·托皮克。
预计赖特和球员人事部门的其他成员将在彩票开奖后的几天里在芝加哥综合选拔中采访这些球员以及更多球员。当球员被带到圣安东尼奥参加训练时，将进行更多评估，教练组和其他人员可以采访他们。
与去年选择文班亚马是毫无疑问不同，这一次马刺队将就如何进行选秀权进行大量讨论。
“我们不在乎想法来自哪里，”波波维奇说。“我们希望每个人都发表意见，然后我们将尝试对大多数情绪进行三角测量。我们想要这个、那个还是其他？我们想让这个人离开，签下这个自由球员，交易这个人吗？所有这些事情都得到了广泛的讨论。我一直都是这样，只要我在，我想它将永远如此。”
如果他们再次走运呢？
赖特将再次迎来高光时刻。
原文如下：
Plenty of draft lottery intrigue for Spurs
[Image] French basketball player Victor Wembanyama applauds after being selected No. 1 overall by the San Antonio Spurs during the NBA Draft at Barclays Center on Thursday, June 22, 2023, in New York. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
CHICAGO — Spurs general manager Brian Wright was having a moment last Monday night.
It had just been announced that a media panel unanimously selected Victor Wembanyama as the winner of the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award after a record-setting season, and Wright was at the Spurs’ practice facility to watch the 20-year-old Frenchman do a live interview with TNT’s pre-game crew.
Afterward, an observer joked with Wright that he hit a home run when the Spurs selected Wembanyama No. 1 overall last June.
“Good pick, huh?” the visitor to the Victory Capital Performance Center said.
“It was a great pick,” Wright said with a laugh.
While there are no generational talents like Wembanyama in this year’s draft, the Spurs could perhaps wind up with another rookie of the year candidate next season should the basketball gods again choose to shower the franchise with good fortune in the form of a top-5 pick at the NBA Draft Lottery.
While the odds are stacked against them winning the lottery again this year, the Spurs have learned to never say never when it comes to the annual ping-pong ballapalooza.
Sunday’s event is set to be broadcast at 2 p.m. on ABC from the McCormick Place West Convention Center.
Three times in the past 37 years the Spurs have won the lottery. The first two brought future Hall of Famers in David Robinson (1987) and Tim Duncan (1997) after they had a 14.29% chance of winning in '87 and a 21.6% chance in '97.
“We deserve no more luck ever in the history of NBA basketball,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich told reporters before last year’s lottery.
But he was wrong. The Spurs won the lottery last year after being tied with the Detroit Pistons and the Houston Rockets for the best odds — 14% — to earn the rights to the No. 1 overall draft pick.
The Spurs finished with the same record (22-60) this season, but this time that ranked as the league’s fifth-worst mark. Thus, they have the fifth-best odds of landing the No. 1 pick at 10.5%.
Last year, Portland had the fifth-best odds at landing the top pick and would up with the No. 3 selection. In 2022, Indiana fell from from No. 5 to No. 6. In 2021 Cleveland went from No. 5 to No. 3.
The Spurs have a 44.3% chance of winning a top-5 pick and can come in no worse than No. 9. Their most likely selection is No. 7 (26.7%).
The Pistons and the Wizards have the best odds to land the No. 1 pick with a 14% chance each. The Charlotte Hornets are third at 13.3% and the Portland Blazers have the fourth-best odds at 13.2%.
With Wembanyama leading the way, the Spurs won seven of their final 11 games this season to fall out of the bottom three.
“That was never part of the discussion," Popovich said at the end of the season when a reporter told him that nobody could accuse the franchise of tanking to gain better odds.
There’s some added intrigue to the lottery for the Spurs thanks to the February 2023 trade that sent Jakob Poeltl from San Antonio to Toronto. The Raptors will owe their top pick to the Spurs if it falls outside the top 6, and there is a 54.6% shot at that happening.
If the Raptors’ pick does not convey this year, it will be top-6 protected again in 2025 and 2026.
Sunday’s results will announced by NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum, who will reveal the sealed envelopes in descending order.
The actual lottery to determine picks 1 through 4 will take place before the broadcast in a separate room with NBA officials, representatives of participating teams, select media and representatives from the accounting firm Ernst & Young, which oversees the drawings.
The lottery begins with 14 ping-pong balls being dropped in a lottery machine while a league representative randomly selects four balls, revealing a four-number combination. There are 1,001 possible combinations with 1,000 of those combinations being assigned to 14 participating lottery teams.
The Spurs have 105 combinations. If the same team’s combination comes up more than once, the result is discarded and another four-ball combination is drawn.
After the first four picks are determined, the remaining picks are ranked in inverse order, based on win/loss record.
The Spurs pulled out all their good mojo stops at last year’s lottery.
CEO R.C. Buford’s daughter made sure her dad’s lucky blue leather chair — the same one in which he sat when the Spurs won the '97 lottery — was in his hotel room. Wright was in the drawing with an undisclosed lucky charm in his left shirt pocket. Managing partner Peter J. Holt was seated on the broadcast stage just like his dad, Peter M. Holt, in '97.
With their expectations lowered this year, the Spurs will have a different lineup in Chicago this time around. Their representative in the drawing room will be Brandon Leibsohn, manager of basketball strategy. Wright, rather than Holt, will be on the stage during the broadcast.
Although their’s no sure-fire top prospect in what is considered by scouts to be a weak draft this year, French stars are again at the top of the class in 7-foot-1 center Alex Sarr, who played in Australia’s National Basketball League this season, and 6-9 sharpshooting forward Zaccharie Risacher, who is playing professionally in his homeland.
This year’s draft is considered one of the weakest in years, but there are still players that could fit in well to the team’s rebuilding plans around Wembanyama, a list that includes Saar, Kentucky guards Rob Dillingham and Reed Sheppard, the Connecticut duo of guard Stephon Castle and center Donovan Clingan, Tennessee sharpshooter Dalton Knecht and Serbian point guard Nikola Topic.
Wright and other members of the player personnel staff are expected to interview those players and many more at the combine in Chicago in the days following the lottery. More evaluation will take place when players are brought to San Antonio for workouts, where the coaching staff and others can interview them.
Unlike last year when choosing Wembanyama was a no-brainer, the Spurs will have plenty of discussions about what to do with their picks this time around.
“We don’t care where the ideas come from,” Popovich said. “We want everybody’s opinions and then we’ll try to triangulate and see where most of the sentiment falls. Do we want this, that or the other? Do we want to let this person go, sign this free agent, trade this person? All those things are discussed broadly. So it’s always been and always will be that way as long as I’m here, I guess.”
And if they get lucky again?
Wright will have another moment.
By Tom Orsborn, Sports reporter , via San Antonio Express-News