2024 NBA Draft: Winners and losers from the first round, featuring the Spurs, Grizzlies and France

Many learned scholars of NBA basketball have said that you can’t judge a draft until at least five years down the line. But as I am not a learned scholar — I am, in fact, Just Some Guy — I say, very respectfully, “Nuts to that, poindexters.”

What follows is a stab at a first draft of history — a thumbnail sketch of who had a pretty good first night of the 2024 NBA Draft, and who might wind up looking back at the evening wistfully, with some regret, perhaps while looking out contemplatively at a body of water.

There will be more winners than losers, because for one thing, hope should spring eternal on draft night, and for another, I am a big ol’ kind-hearted softy. (Also because, if we’re being honest, I can only feel so comfortable speaking with authority about a group of young people I have yet to see play NBA basketball.)

We begin, as so many things in our world do, with the effects of globalization:

Zaccharie Risacher and Alex Sarr were the top two picks in the 2024 draft. (Photo by Steven Freeman/NBAE via Getty Images)

WINNER: France

L’invasion a commencé!

One year after Victor Wembanyama and Bilal Coulibaly came off the board with the first and seventh picks in the 2023 NBA Draft, two of their countrymen came off the board first and second in 2024: 6-foot-9 swingman Zaccharie Risacher, chosen by the Atlanta Hawks with the No. 1 pick, and 7-1 big man Alexandre Sarr, taken second overall by the Washington Wizards.

C’est la France frère 🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷

— Wemby (@wemby) June 27, 2024

Just four picks later, they were joined by 6-9 forward Tidjane Salaün, whom the Charlotte Hornets nabbed sixth overall, marking the first time in NBA history that three players from a country outside the United States have gone in the first 10 picks of the draft.

“Three French players in the top 10,” Salaün told reporters on Wednesday. “It’s not nothing.”

A couple of hours after that, the New York Knicks tapped 6-8 wing Pacôme Dadiet — like Salaün, one of the youngest players in the 2024 player pool — with the 25th overall pick. And Melvin Ajinça — the cousin of former NBA center Alexis…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/2024-nba-draft-winners-and-losers-from-the-first-round-featuring-the-spurs-grizzlies-and-france-073839597.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-06-27 07:38:39

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