NBA draft 2017: Why so many teams don't have 1st-round picks

A lot of teams made foolish trades that will now come back to bite them.

The 2017 NBA draft is regarded as one of the deepest classes since LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh entered the NBA back in 2003. Yet many of the teams with so much to gain don’t even reserve the rights to their own pick this year.

How is that possible? In the NBA, to get better now, you have to sacrifice the future. And multiple teams are suffering from what they thought was a chance to get better years ago.

Hindsight is undoubtedly 20/20, and odds are the teams probably wouldn’t have as bad a record had it not been for those trades years ago. Still, we revisit why certain teams have picks this summer and other teams don’t:

Brooklyn Nets

The Nets would have the best odds of landing the No. 1 pick this season had they not mortgaged their future years ago. But hey, when you move to Brooklyn, the biggest thing you can do is make a splash.

The Nets did just that in the summer of 2014, trading for the Boston Celtics’ senescent group of veterans in Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry. In doing so, they gave up their 2016 first-round pick — which turned into Jaylen Brown at No. 3 — and a swap option for their 2017 first-round pick. Boston, which would have picked 27th this season, will switch picks with Brooklyn because, who wouldn’t?

Oh, and the Celtics also own the Nets’ unprotected pick in 2018 as part of the same trade. Well done, Nets.

Los Angeles Lakers

There’s a long version of the lottery implications for the Lakers that you can read here.

Here’s the short version: Kobe Bryant was getting old, so the Lakers wanted to go for one last championship run before the window slammed shut. They flushed their future down the toilet to bring Steve Nash and Dwight Howard to Los Angeles.

It looked great on paper, but we all know how that ended.

Los Angeles dealt a first-round pick to Phoenix that was top-five protected in 2015 and 2016 and top-three protected in 2017. The Suns turned around and dealt that pick to the 76ers in the deal for Brandon Knight. They also traded a future first-round pick to Orlando in the massive Dwight Howard deal.

The Lakers took D’Angelo Russell and Brandon Ingram second in the last two summers. If the pick lands in the top three this season, Philly gets Los Angeles’ 2018 pick no matter what. If it falls below No. 3, Philly gets their pick this season and Orlando gets their 2019 first-rounder as part of the Howard trade. But if the Lakers keep their pick this year, that 2019 pick stays with them and Orlando receives two second-rounders instead, due to the original terms of the Howard trade.

Safe to say, the Lakers have a whole lot riding on the pingpong balls this time around.

Philadelphia 76ers

The 76ers initially dealt their first-round pick to Orlando as part of the Howard trade. They then got this pick back along with Dario Saric in exchange for Elfrid Payton. That was a genius move on their end given Saric’s progression this season. As we covered above, they could also receive the Lakers’ first-rounder if it falls out of the top three.

But the 76ers also have the ability to swap first-round picks with the Sacramento Kings in this draft. That’s because the Kings, in a foolish move to dump salary in the summer of 2015, sent Nik Stauskas, Carl Landry, Jason Thompson, swap rights on their 2017 pick and an unprotected first-rounder in 2019 to Philly for the draft rights to players who might never come to the NBA from overseas. They then used the salary cap money to sign Rajon Rondo, Marco Belinelli, and Kosta Koufos. Oops.

So in the event the Kings’ own pick darts up the draft board and into the top three, it’ll be Philly that’s licking its chops — unless the 76ers also get lucky.

Sacramento Kings/New Orleans Pelicans

The Kings aren’t just in a bind with the 76ers. In fact, if the lottery is especially harsh to them, they could be rendered pick-less, though that scenario is highly unlikely.

Along with the deal they made with Philly, the Kings also sent a protected first-round pick to the Cavaliers as part of a long-forgotten trade for J.J Hickson in 2011. The pick has been top-10 protected for the last six years, but the Kings haven’t even been able to clear that threshold of incompetence. Cleveland eventually dealt that pick to the Chicago Bulls in the Luol Deng deal.

That pick is top-10 protected again this season, and the Kings have a near-zero percent chance of their pick falling to No. 11. But in the event that it does, it’s going to Chicago. And in the event their pick shoots up above Philly’s, they two teams swap places.

The Kings did a good deed, though. They traded DeMarcus Cousins to New Orleans for a package that includes the Pelicans’ top-three protected first-rounder. The Pels have a 4 percent chance of leaping into the top three, though, so their pick is as good as gone.

There are also teams outside of the lottery that don’t have their picks either

• The Grizzlies (picking 20th) dealt their first-round pick to the Cavaliers in a salary dump involving Marreese Speights, Josh Selby and Wayne Ellington back in 2013. Cleveland turned around and traded that pick to Denver, who shipped it to Portland as part of the Jusuf Nurkic trade.
• The Wizards (picking 22nd) sent their first-rounder to the Nets midseason in the deal that brought Bojan Bogdanovic to Washington.
• The Clippers (picking 23rd) sent their pick and Jared Dudley to the Milwaukee Bucks back in 2014 in an ill-conceived salary dump. In exchange, they got Carlos Delfino, Miroslav Radjulica and a second-round pick that became Marcus Paige. Milwaukee traded that pick and the rights to Norman Powell to Toronto for Greivis Vasquez. Well done, Masai Ujiri.
• The Raptors (picking 25th) traded their first-round pick and Terrence Ross to Orlando as part of the Serge Ibaka trade.
• The Cavaliers (picking 26th) traded their first-round pick to Portland to receive their own 2018 first-round pick back. They originally dealt the 2018 pick away as part of Anderson Varejao’s salary dump to Portland and needed it back to trade for Kyle Korver this season. So Atlanta will own the Cavaliers’ 2018 first-rounder.
• The Celtics (picking 27th) will swap picks with the Nets (picking No. 1 overall) as part of the deal that sent Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Jason Terry to Brooklyn.
• The Rockets (picking 28th) traded their first-round pick along with Corey Brewer to the Lakers in exchange for Lou Williams.
• The Warriors (picking 30th) sent their first-round pick to the Jazz back in 2013 in a salary dump that also sent Richard Jefferson, Andris Biedrins, and Brandon Rush to the Jazz. That gave them cap room to sign Andre Iguodala.