The NBA draft specializes annually in suspense, but on Thursday night its arrival will be delayed, overtaken by an initial spasm of predictability. Super-sized, hybrid playmaker Ben Simmons already knows the Philadelphia 76ers plan to select him with the first overall pick, according to widespread reports.
Simmons’s selection will leave the Los Angeles Lakers, picking second, with only one plausible choice in the form of Duke point guard Brandon Ingram. It is a two-player draft at the top, and everybody already knows which order they’ll be taken.
At that point, intrigue will burst through the wall and leave behind a Boston Celtics-shaped hole. In the analysis that takes place in years to come, this draft may well be about Simmons and Ingram, two players who fit perfectly into the NBA’s drift toward position-less basketball.
In the immediacy of Thursday night, it will be shaped by the Celtics, who own the third pick, a war chest of additional choices, a desire to land a star player who can vault them into serious contention and, in Danny Ainge, a hoops czar ever-willing to be bold.
Given the Celtics’ motivations, their assets and their president’s propensity for big swings, nobody knows what will happen after the first 15 or so minutes Thursday night. The Celtics have given no hints, even via the league’s notoriously chatty grapevine, of which players they like. Washington’s Marquese Chriss, Cal’s Jaylen Brown (who visited Boston for a second workout this week), Providence’s Kris Dunn and Europe’s Dragan Bender all seem logical possibilities.
But it’s anybody’s guess at which player will come off the board – or even which team will be making the pick, given the Celtics’ ability to swing a trade. The Celtics own the draft, almost literally, with eight of the 60 picks, three of them in the first round. They also have a haul of future first-rounders gleaned from past trades that they could use to entice, say, the Chicago Bulls into trading Jimmy Butler or the Sacramento Kings into dealing DeMarcus Cousins.
If something goes boom Thursday night, it will be Boston making the sound. The first two picks, though, will provide only tepid applause.
Simmons arrived at LSU as the seeming surefire first overall pick, a 6-foot-10 specimen with a point guard’s skills, heralded by some as the most physically advanced prospect since LeBron James or Kevin Durant. He punched up monster numbers – 19.2 points, 11.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 2.0 steals per game – with little assistance from a bad LSU team. His passing ability for a big man drew the James nods; his rebounding punch as a freshman drew comparisons to Durant.
Ingram, who doesn’t turn 19 until September, is 13 months younger than Simmons. Though not as physically imposing as Simmons, Ingram’s game will fit more immediately into the modern NBA. He played, and guarded, all five positions at Duke, although he’ll lack the bulk to guard NBA big men down low right away.
Now the draft is here, and the drama at the top is missing. Lurking close behind, though, will be chaos, the kind the NBA draft seems to always provide.