THE NINTH PICK

Say it.

Ninth.

That's not a draft slot. That's an address.

And before anybody writes in — this order isn't assigned. It's drawn. Every year a group of these guys get on a call, somebody spins a random wheel, and that's the board. There's no committee. There's no commissioner handing out slots.

So it's worse.

It's worse. Because if a person were doing it, you could at least be angry at the person. This is a wheel. The odds of landing the same slot four consecutive times at random are one in one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight.

The WHEEL has it out for him. You understand what I'm saying? Four spins. Four nines. That wheel knows something.

Shaq, it's a wheel.

It's a wheel with a memory.

Here's where it gets complicated, though. We started pulling this expecting to find a man getting robbed. That's not what we found.

All three worked. Haliburton at fifty a night for sixty-nine games is a top-ten fantasy season. Tatum at forty-eight for seventy-two is the same. And Sabonis looks like the weak one on paper until you remember what he turned into.

He flipped him for WEMBY.

Mid-season. Sabonis, Butler and Jaren Jackson to Tampa for Wembanyama, Grayson Allen and Naz Reid. And then every single player Dom brought in got hurt almost immediately.

That's the trade that ended Dom's season! That's the one! I was on this desk saying it was a king's ransom and within a week Tampa was a hospital ward.

So the ninth pick turned into Wemby. Through a trade that wrecked somebody else's year.

So wait. Hold on. You're telling me this man draws the ninth slot four years running, and he's turned it into Haliburton, Tatum and Victor Wembanyama — and he's still never won anything?

Second, third, second. Thirty-seven and nineteen career. No ring.

That's WORSE than being robbed, Kenny! If the slot was the problem I could explain it to him! This man has done everything right from a slot a wheel keeps putting him in and he's got nothing.

We reached out. He hasn't responded.

He's typing.

The Records Department also pulled every first-round pick in league history. Three drafts, thirty-six picks, up on the board now.

Look at the top row.

Jokić first overall in all three drafts. Three different managers. Not one of them won a title with him.

Declan took him and didn't win. Liam took him and didn't win. Kevin took him and traded him away. That's the most cursed line on this entire board.

Seven players have been first-rounders every single year — Jokić, Giannis, Dončić, Gilgeous-Alexander, Edwards, LeBron and Sabonis.

And then look across row nine. Haliburton, Tatum, Sabonis. Three straight years, same slot, three players who all produced.

Row nine is the saddest row in sports.

And look at LeBron. Tenth, eighth, twelfth. Drafted every single year and never once before the back half of the round.

Everybody wants LeBron. Nobody wants to pay for LeBron.

Rich has improved every single year. Eleventh, tenth, third, and now the number one overall pick. Nobody else in this league has a line that clean.

Sit with that for a second. The man who spent a year telling anybody who'd listen that this league is rigged — the reports, the accusations, the towns — has had his draft position improve four years running until he landed first overall.

He's been hunting a conspiracy with a flashlight while standing in the middle of one.

Kevin's line is the one that should scare people. Four, two, one, two. That's the best average draft position in the history of this league and it is not close. And he's got one playoff appearance.

ONE. From Dončić, Wembanyama and Jokić in consecutive years.

In fairness, last season was the breakthrough. Playoffs, the highest regular season score this league has ever recorded, and a semifinal loss by forty-nine. He's not wasting it anymore.

And then the champion. Second, third, fifth, sixth. Worse every single year, back-to-back titles at the end of it.

Worse slots, better rings. I don't know what to do with that.

I know exactly what to do with it. It means this draft matters less than everybody in this league thinks it does.

And Liam. Tenth, first, twelfth, eleventh. He had the number one overall pick in this league two years ago and took Jokić with it.

And we spent last season calling him a fraud. Both things are true.

Ernie, one more thing off this graphic, and I only noticed it an hour ago. Split the board by conference.

Hold on.

The East has the first four picks in this draft. All of them. The West doesn't have a single pick in the top four, and its average slot is eight and a half against the East's four and a half.

The West got ROBBED. Ernie, the West got robbed and nobody's said a word about it.

Here's the part that makes it strange. Conferences get randomized every year. The draft order gets drawn separately, on that wheel. Two independent draws, and they landed like that. It's about a one in seventeen result.

That wheel again.

I'm telling you, somebody needs to look at that wheel.

We're going to do a full show on it. Conferences, the rival matchups, and what all of it does to the race for a first-round bye — that's next week, once everybody's actually got a roster.

And it matters more than people think. Six teams make the playoffs, division winners take the top two seeds, and those two get a week off in the first round. That's the prize nobody talks about in October.

Six guys in that East drafting at the top of the board, fighting each other for one bye. And the West gets the other one with the bottom half of the draft. Tell me that's fair.

It might be the most important structural thing in this league and we've never once covered it properly.

Next week. Write it down.

The people upstairs put a mock together for tomorrow night. They didn't ask us, and I'm told nobody up there is happy about it either. Roll it.

I got problems. Several problems.

Start at two.

Kevin taking Wembanyama. Again. Do y'all understand this man's history with this player? He took Wemby second overall in 24-25. Then last year he took Jokić first overall, and then he traded Jokić away and got Wemby back. Now the board's got him going right back to the same guy. Three drafts, same man, every time.

At some point that's not a strategy, that's a relationship.

And I'd push back on the pick itself, not the pattern. Wembanyama's games played the last three years: seventy-one, forty-six, sixty-four. That's sixty percent durability. If you're taking him second overall you're paying full price for a player who's missed meaningful time in two of three seasons.

Which brings me to five, and this is the one that's crazy.

Declan taking Giannis.

Giannis played thirty-six games last season. THIRTY-SIX. And this board has him going fifth overall like nothing happened.

Sixty-seven, sixty-three, seventy-three, sixty-seven, and then thirty-six. That last number isn't a blip in a pattern, it's a break in one. Sixty-one percent durability over five seasons.

But when he plays he's a top-three fantasy player. That's the whole argument. You're not drafting games, you're drafting weeks.

Shaq, you can't win weeks with a man in a suit!

You can if he gives you fifty-seven a night in the ones he plays!

Both of you are right, and that's exactly why it's shaky at five.

And this is his second straight year taking him.

It is, and he's the third different manager to invest a top-five pick in Giannis. Xander drafted him second overall in 23-24 and traded him to Dom midseason. Dom drafted him fifth the next year. Declan took him fourth last season. That player has been a first-round pick for three different teams in three drafts and nobody's won a title with him yet.

He's a rental. A fifty-seven-point-a-night rental.

And if that pick goes wrong it goes very wrong, and Declan's the one manager who can't afford a dead first-rounder with that schedule.

Six. The champion.

I have no idea.

None of us do. That's the honest answer. The board says Jalen Johnson and I wouldn't bet a dollar on it.

This is a man whose draft slot has gotten worse four years running and who's won the last two titles. He don't need the obvious pick. He's taken Luka twice, he took Giannis once, and every one of those was the safe play — but that was when he was picking second and third. Sitting at six? I think he does something nobody expects.

And if it's Jalen Johnson, understand what that is. Johnson's games played go twenty-two, seventy, fifty-six, thirty-six, seventy-two. That's fifty-one percent durability, the worst number on this entire board. Coming off seventy-two games, but still.

So the champ's projected pick is the shakiest player in the first round. That tracks, actually. Man's never needed to care where he picks.

One more. Eight.

Gaven getting Edwards. First pick of his life.

And here's what nobody's saying — Edwards has the best durability number of anybody in this first round. Seventy-two, seventy-nine, seventy-nine, seventy-nine, sixty-one. Seventy-four percent. If this board is right, the new guy gets the healthiest star available with the eighth pick.

That's not fair. That is not fair to the rest of this league.

And nine is the one I'd bet on, not against. Dennis taking Tatum. Because this isn't a projection, this is a man and his guy.

Walk through it.

Three seasons. In 23-24 Nik drafted Tatum and Dennis traded for him before Christmas. In 24-25 he drafted him himself, ninth overall. And last season Nik had him again on a twelfth-round flyer, and Dennis got him back late, after the Achilles, with sixteen games left. He's at an average draft position of nine point eight right now, which is exactly where Dennis picks. Nobody should be surprised when it happens.

He went and got that man THREE TIMES.

That's not roster construction, that's a custody battle.

And eleven. Liam.

Oh, I've been waiting.

Say it.

The man has drafted LeBron James twice. Tenth overall in 23-24. Twelfth overall in 25-26. And the board's got him taking Maxey, which — fine, sure. But you and I both know what's gonna happen.

LeBron's at an ADP of thirty-three this year. Nobody should be spending a first-round pick on him.

Kenny. Kenny. Nobody should have the last two times either.

If that man takes LeBron in the first round a third time I'm walking off this set.

If he takes LeBron a third time it becomes a bit. At that point I respect it. That's commitment.

Before we go — what are we hearing?

Quieter than you'd expect, honestly. There's been movement. Multiple managers have taken calls about moving up or down in this draft. Nothing has closed.

Nothing? With this group? That's not quiet, that's suspicious.

Everybody likes their board the night before. That's why nothing closes. Ask 'em again Saturday morning when half of 'em hate their team.

That's actually right. The trade market in this league doesn't open until people see what they got.

Three managers have told us they want to see their roster before they do anything. So expect the phones to start Saturday, not tonight.

That's the board. Rich at one with four straight years of improvement behind him. Kevin at two with the best draft capital this league has ever handed anybody and one playoff trip. Tom back at three after two years gone. The champion at six, picking worse every year and winning anyway. And Dennis in the ninth chair for the fourth consecutive season, having done absolutely nothing wrong.

Tomorrow night the board starts moving and all of this becomes theory.

That's when it gets good.

Somebody reaches in the first round. Somebody always reaches. We'll put their name on a graphic Saturday.

Draft night, tomorrow, eight thirty eastern. Full coverage and grades this weekend. For Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal, I'm Ernie Johnson. Somebody check that wheel.