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The wait will be over Tuesday night.
The 76ers will finally learn where they are slotted to pick in the June 22 NBA draft after once again finishing among the league’s worst teams.
The Sixers have a shot at two top-seven selections in Tuesday’s draft lottery to pair alongside Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Dario Saric. The worst-case scenario would be adding just the sixth pick. But the Sixers should be fine with just that one pick. The draft is considered to be front-loaded with talent, meaning there are several talented guards and swingmen for the Sixers to choose from.
The Sixers have a 14.7 percent chance to end up with the top overall pick because they finished with the fourth-worst record (28-54) and also have the right to swap first-round picks with Sacramento. Without the pick swap, the Sixers would have an 11.9 percent chance to win the lottery.
Because of another previous trade, they also will get the Los Angeles Lakers’ first-round pick if it isn’t in the top three at the lottery. So the Sixers have a 53.1 percent chance of having two picks in the top seven.
They are guaranteed a top-seven pick. However, they would slide to seventh if the Lakers finished sixth. The Sixers would receive both picks in that scenario.
But that’s unlikely to happen. The Lakers have a 4.0 percent chance of finishing sixth, while the Sixers’ chance of finishing seventh is 1.2 percent.
That’s why the worst-case scenario for the Sixers is finishing just with the sixth pick.
The Sixers will have four additional picks in the second round, numbers 36, 39, 46, and 50.
Bryan Colangelo, the team’s president of basketball operations, has not ruled out trading or stashing second-round picks overseas.
“It really becomes an issue of whether or not we have enough roster spots to deal with them in terms of drafting, signing, and having them occupy a spot,” Colangelo said. “We’ve got a lot of other things we’ve got to balance in the equation.”
Those things include whether last summer’s 26th overall pick, Furkan Korkmaz, can buy out the remaining two seasons of his contract with the Turkish team Anadolu Efes. In that scenario, the 19-year-old shooting guard would join the Sixers in time for next season.
It also would depend on whether the Sixers get two first-rounders or just one.
Most mock drafts have Washington point guard Markelle Fultz going with the first overall pick.
The other players projected to go in the top 10, according to nbadraft.net., are Kansas forward Josh Jackson, UCLA point guard Lonzo Ball, Kentucky point guard De’Aaron Fox, Duke forward Jayson Tatum, Florida State forward Jonathan Isaac, Kentucky shooting guard Malik Monk, North Carolina State point guard Dennis Smith Jr., French point guard Frank Ntilikina, and Gonzaga center Zach Collins.