2023-06-21 20:37:56
Victor Wembanyama, first “pick” of the NBA draft on Thursday night and drafted by the San Antonio Spurs. You did not understand anything about this event which promises to be historic? It’s not serious. We will explain everything to you.
What is the draft?
Created in the first NBA season, the American basketball championship in 1947, the draft is a kind of scholarship for young players. For the teams, it’s a way of recruiting the best hopes on the planet. And the system is simple: the more the team has had a bad season, the more likely it is to recover by recruiting the best young player.
Since the NBA is a closed league with the same 30 teams all the time, we had to find a way to prevent the best teams from recruiting all the best players. “The NBA draft was created to rebalance forces, explained to us last month Rémi Reverchon, NBA specialist at BeIN Sports. The worst team in the League recruits the best young hope of the year. The second worst team recruits the second best player, and so on. »
A bit as if in football, FC Nantes, the lowest ranked team this season which remains in Ligue 1, had the first choice among the best players coming out of training centers.
For the players, it is the real passage between the university and amateur world, and the professional world. The vast majority of candidates come from American universities, where the championship is extremely scrutinized by recruiters. Foreign players not registered at the University in the United States can also apply, and have therefore already played in professional championships like Victor Wembanyama in the French Championship. Three criteria to respect: you must be between 19 and 22 years old, have left high school, and you can only present yourself for the draft once in your career.
The draft, how does it work?
The 30 teams in the championship will each choose a player, one after the other. In total, there are two rounds, or 60 players chosen. 4 other French, Bilal Coulibaly, Rayan Rupert, Sidy Cissoko and Nadir Hifi are also candidates. The first, teammate of “Wemby” in Boulogne-Levallois, could even be in the Top 5 too! Small particularity this year, there will only be 58 places, because Philadelphia and Chicago lost their second rounds, sanctioned for having approached players outside the authorized recruitment window.
The order in which the teams will choose has been determined by a somewhat complex system: the lottery. The 14 lowest ranked teams at the end of the regular season and therefore eliminated from the race for the playoffs, have already shared the order of the first fourteen choices with a bit of luck on May 16th. The three teams that finished with the worst records had a 14% chance of selecting the player of their choice first. The fourth worst team has a 12.5% chance, the 5th 10.5%, etc., down to the 14th who has only 0.5%.
This year, Detroit, Houston and San Antonio were part of the trio at 14% and it was finally at the Spurs that the lottery, carried out using ping-pong balls, smiled. Then will come the turn of the Charlotte Hornets to choose second, then the Portland Trail Blazers. From pick number 4, just work your way up the league standings in the reverse direction (Houston Rockets in 4, Detroit Pistons in 5 etc.).
Or ? When ? And how to follow the draft?
After having long taken place at Madison Square Garden in New York, the ceremony now takes place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, still in the New York metropolis. The 78th draft in history will take place this Thursday from 2 a.m. French time, 8 p.m. local time.
The announcement of the first choice of the San Antonio Spurs should not be long since it is announced, necessarily, first, surely around 2:30 am. As every year, it is Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, who will announce the team choices, one by one, in a very precise formulation: “With the first pick of 2023 NBA Draft, the San Antonio Spurs select Victor Wembanyama from Metropolitans 92. ” The French giant should then join the boss of the American basketball league to pose with him with a Spurs cap on his head.
VIDEO. Wembanyama soon at Spurs?
“This moment is something I have imagined for a long time. It’s going to be a mix of incredible emotions. I’m not used to stressing out before games or big events. But for this moment of change in my life, I will surely have the ball in the stomach, “has already told Victor Wembanyama.
The ceremony will be transcribed live in France on BeIN Sports 1, and to be followed, of course, live, on the site of parisien.fr.
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