The 2019 NBA draft which will take place on June 20th, 2019 is already being deemed one of the most talented and exciting draft class since 2003, a draft that included Lebron James, Dwyane Wade, and Carmelo Anthony.  The three generational talents in the draft this year are college teammates at Duke, Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett, and Murray State’s Ja Morant.

“The question remains if teams will still find loopholes or if tanking is really gone,” said Adam Israelevitz ’19.

Another reason this draft is exciting is because it is the first year of a new lottery system which was made by the NBA officials to combat “tanking.” Tanking is when a team purposely loses games in order to receive a higher draft pick and a better college prospect and this year the odds for gaining the top pick are the same for the worse three teams.  These new odds were evident as the Knicks who were projected the first overall pick, ended up at three, and the Cavaliers and Suns, who were also projected top three picks, fell to fifth and sixth overall.

Adam Israelevitz ’19, a Bronx Science varsity basketball player and NBA watcher offered his opinion on the new lottery system, “Obviously the intention of the new system is stop tanking and if you just look at the results this year it looks like it worked. The question remains if teams will still find loopholes or if tanking is really gone.” He added on, “It’s unfortunate as a Knicks fan that we dropped down to three because Zion (Williamson) is a generational talent that has a bright future in the league.”

Other notable players are the 7’2″ son of NBA legend Minute Bol, Bol Bol; NCAA champion De’Andre Hunter; Russian player Sekou Doumbouya; four year senior Jarrett Culver; and Israelevitz’s sleeper pick “Nicolas Claxton, a 7 foot center from Georgia. “He’s rising and he is going to be very good,” Israelevitz said.

My top ten projected mock draft is:

1. Zion Williamson

2. Ja Morant

3. RJ Barrett

4. Darius Garland

5. Jarrett Culver

6. De’Andre Hunter

7. Cam Reddish

8. Bol Bol

9. Rui Hachimura

10. Sekou Doumbouya

Overall, this will be a very exciting draft that will bring a lot of new talent to the NBA, which will lead their respective teams to great success.