Pelicans looking for even more Lottery luck

METAIRIE – The New Orleans Pelicans have had pretty good luck in the NBA Draft Lottery.

In 2012 they had less than a 15 percent chance of getting the No. 1 pick and they did just that and wound up with Anthony Davis.

In 2019 they had just a 6 percent chance of getting the No. 1 pick and they did just that and wound up with Zion Williamson.

The 2022 lottery takes place Tuesday night and the Pelicans – who have a better than 99 percent chance of winding up with a pick somewhere in the top 10 – already have had good fortune.

And they’re hoping for more.

When the Pelicans traded Davis to the Los Angeles Lakers three years ago, one of the many assets they acquired was potentially the Lakers’ No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft.

The Pelicans would have acquired the Lakers’ No. 1 draft choice in 2021 if it were a top eight pick. It wasn’t, so that asset was deferred until this season provided it is a top 10 pick.

Barring a complete reversal of New Orleans’ luck with ping-pong balls, the top 10 status will be confirmed shortly after 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The element of the Davis trade currently in play was designed to produce a long-range asset as lagniappe to the immediate arrival of Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart and the No. 4 pick in the 2019 draft (which eventually produced Jaxson Hayes after another trade).

But the lagniappe arrived sooner than expected. The Pelicans, who won two play-in elimination games to grab the eighth playoff seed this season, helped make their own luck by winning all three games against the Lakers this season, which contributed to L.A. falling into the lottery.

“It would be disingenuous for any of us to tell you that we thought the ’22 Lakers pick would be a lottery pick,” executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin said. “We didn’t anticipate that. We thought the best value in the deal was further out. So we got very lucky.”

The Pelicans’ hope is that their lottery luck hasn’t run out. On Tuesday night, they’ll have a 6 percent chance of getting the No. 1 overall pick and a one-in-four chance of getting a top-four pick.

“It’s exciting thinking about adding a talent like that to a group like this,” Griffin said. “The thing we have proven that we have a really good ability to do is identify character. I think we have found guys that fit our group well. To think we could potentially add the right piece is exciting.”

The Pelicans will have the luxury of considering myriad options from a position of strength regardless of how the lottery plays out. They’re not desperate to fill any particular piece to a puzzle that suddenly has well-defined features.

They have 14 players under contract for next season, most of whom are young and evolving players whose continued evolution presumably will make the Pelicans a better team next season regardless of what happens Tuesday night and in the June 23 NBA Draft.

And, of course, Zion Williamson, is expected back after missing all of this season because of foot surgery.

“I think you’re going to see an offseason this year that’s a little calmer,” Griffin said. “I think we’re going to build through continuity and through growth from within to a huge degree. This group is just scratching the surface of what they can do.”

Head coach Willie Green, whose first Pelicans team battled top-seeded Phoenix for six games before seeing the season end, said the opportunity to add a lottery-quality player should add more motivation for his players to work hard during the off-season.

“It’s rare that you’re a playoff team and have that kind of an opportunity in front of you,” Green said. “Our guys know what it’s like to play in big moments, they know what it’s like to have these fans, this community, this culture support them.

“Now it’s no excuse coming in this summer. When I tell guys, run hard, they know what it means because they’ve done it and now adding another probably really good young player to the mix they’re going to push each other that much more.”