If history has anything to do with it, the Wolves won’t have any luck during the NBA Draft lottery Tuesday night in New York City.
But if new Wolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders is right, they won’t need any luck.
“There is no elite guy, but there is balance in this draft,” Saunders tells the Pioneer Press. “We might get a better player at nine or 10 this year than teams in the past.”
Bleacher Report recently ranked the Wolves as the second most unlucky team in lottery history. In fact, the Wolves have twice had the best chance to land the No. 1 pick in the draft, but the lottery didn’t work in their favor either time. One of those year’s (1992) resulted in Shaquille O’Neal, who turned out to one of the greatest players in NBA history.
Those draft picks the Wolves ended up using didn’t exactly result in stardom.
This year, the Wolves have a 1.7 percent chance to land the No. 1 overall pick. If they do, the Pioneer Press reports they’ll have to roll the dice on the player they pick.
Saunders had just seven weeks to prepare for the draft when he was hired to coach the Wolves 18 years ago. That draft resulted in Kevin Garnett.
