Skip to content
Sixers
Link copied to clipboard

NBA draft: Facts, fun and frivolity about the top prospects

The Knicks have their highest pick in more than 30 years, and Manute Bol's son is autographing kitchenware.

De'Andre Hunter (Friends' Central), right, will likely become the first Virginia player taken in the top 10 of an NBA draft since Olden Polynice was the eighth pick in 1987.
De'Andre Hunter (Friends' Central), right, will likely become the first Virginia player taken in the top 10 of an NBA draft since Olden Polynice was the eighth pick in 1987.Read moreMichael Conroy / AP

Hold onto your sneakers (especially you, Zion). Here are some mildly meaningful tidbits about the top players in tonight’s NBA draft.

♦ Zion Williamson almost surely will be the fourth Duke player chosen No. 1 overall. Art Heyman (1963, Knicks), Elton Brand (1999, Bulls) and Kyrie Irving (2011, Cavaliers) are the others. Guessing it’s been brought up on Tobacco Road that it’s been 33 years, and counting, since a North Carolina player (Brad Daugherty, Cavaliers) was taken No. 1 overall.

♦ New Orleans has the first pick. The Sixers, currently, are at No. 24.

♦ Stanford’s KZ Okpala’s first name is “Chikezie.” In high school, he went from 5-10 as a freshman to 6-8 as a junior.

♦ Vanderbilt point guard Darius Garland is considered a top-10 pick despite playing only five games last season because of a knee injury. His father, Winston, played seven seasons in the NBA, starting with Golden State in 1987-88. Vanderbilt was 4-0 before Darius got hurt early in that fifth game. It went 5-23 the rest of the way.

♦ The Lakers are officially picking fourth, but they traded that pick to New Orleans in the Anthony Davis deal. They’ll select whomever New Orleans wants and send the Pelicans that player when the deal is officially completed on July 6, the first day of the new league year. The only other time the Pelicans had the first overall pick was in 2012, when they selected Davis.

>>THURSDAY’S DRAFT: Time, TV, Sixers picks, first-round order

♦ Four teams have had two picks in the top four since 1977, the last being the 2011 Cavaliers, who took Kyrie Irving first overall and Tristan Thompson fourth.

♦ If Cleveland takes Jarrett Culver at No. 5, it will be a reunion of sorts. Culver had 22 points when Texas Tech rolled Michigan in the NCAA Tournament. It was new Cavs coach John Beilein’s final game for the Wolverines.

♦ Culver will be just the third Texas Tech player drafted in the first round. Tony Battie (1997) and Zhaire Smith (2018) are the others.

Duke’s Cam Reddish (Westtown School) and Virginia championship-game hero De’Andre Hunter (Friends’ Central) are each projected to go in the top 10.

♦ Nickeil Alexander-Walker could become the second Virginia Tech player drafted in the first round. The other was Dell Curry, Steph and Seth’s dad, in 1986.

♦ Washington’s Matisse Thybulle, the national defensive player of the year, tied Christian Welp’s 31-year-old school record with 186 career blocked shots. Welp, a 7-foot center, was the Sixers’ first-round pick in 1987.

>>MOCK DRAFTS: Keith Pompey | Sarah Todd | David Murphy | Marc Narducci

♦ If the Knicks stay at No. 3, it would be their highest pick since selecting Patrick Ewing No. 1 overall in 1985. Their last top-5 pick was Kristaps Porzingas (fourth overall) in 2015.

♦ Coby White is the only freshman in North Carolina history with three 30-point games.

♦ Tacko Fall, a 7-6 center from Central Florida, has a wingspan of 8 feet, 2.25 inches. It was the largest such measurement ever at the NBA draft combine. Joel Embiid’s wingspan, in 2014, was 7 feet, 5 inches.

♦ Michigan’s Ignas Brazdeikis learned physical fitness from his father, a former amateur MMA fighter. “I do remember him at age 7 or 8 he could do seven chin-ups already,” Sigitas Brazdeikis told the Ann Arbor (Mich.) News last season. “Proper ones.”

♦ Carsen Edwards, who dropped 42 points against both Villanova and Virginia in NCAA Tournament games, is projected to be picked in the second round.

♦ Speaking of high IQs, Yale’s Miye Oni could be the first Ivy Leaguer drafted since Penn’s Jerome Allen went in the second round in 1995. Oni, who shot just 2-for-16 in an NCAA Tournament loss to LSU, is not projected to go in the first round, either.

♦ Gonzaga’s Rui Hachimura will be the first Japanese national ever drafted in the first round. He’s going to be huge during next summer’s Olympics in Tokyo, even if Japan has never medaled in basketball.

♦ Bol Bol, who played just nine games at Oregon (21.0 pts., 9.6 reb., 2.7 blocks), is a 7-2 center. He’s five inches shorter than his late father, Manute, and (like his dad was in 1983 and 1985) one of the biggest unknowns in this draft.