Andrew Schlecht and Alex Speers are joined by Mike Vorkunov to discuss the NBA lottery, reform and the sale of the Blazers. Then they do a championship draft. Then they are joined by Caitlin Cooper of Basketball, She Wrote to discuss the Indiana Pacers and their run to the East Finals Then they play a fun edition of Andrew vs. the Beat, a trivia game where Andrew is pitted against a beat writer.Host: Andrew Schlecht and Alex SpeersWith: Mike Vorkunov and Caitlin CooperExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio/Video Editor: Gonzalo Torres Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Full Episode
Welcome to the Saturday Slammin' Jam here on the Athletic NBA Daily. On today's show, we're talking to Mike Vorkanoff about the NBA lottery, and then Kaitlin Cooper stops by to talk about the Indiana Pacers, and then we'll do some Pacers trivia. I'm your host, Andrew Schleich. With me, I have Alex Spears and our buddy, Mike Vorkanoff from The Athletic. Mike, what's up?
going on i'm happy that i'm the opening act for caitlin because that's the way it should be like yeah everyone's like get through this guy let's get to the actual star please she's so good every time i talk to her i'm like man i know less about basketball than i thought i did you know me too me too
Looking forward to that. So Mike, this week you got to witness one of the most dramatic and bizarre draft lotteries in NBA history. You're one of the media members invited to the lottery drawing room where the actual draft order is determined in front of team officials and other media members. What were some of the highlights from that overall experience for you?
I think firstly, it was, you know, just like I think when Dallas won the lottery, everyone, everyone's everyone's reaction and like the theme of the night was just utter disbelief. Right. Like it was a combination of shock.
surprise laughter uh you know you had execs saying like nico traded cooper for luca for cooper right like i think everyone i don't say they were in on the bit but like everyone had the same thoughts pretty much uh because it was such a wild outcome that i think was probably the most unpredictable way the lottery could have gone i know they didn't have the longest odds but it was probably the most like chaotic uh potential outcome
And then, you know, there's, there's a lot going on aside from San Antonio and number two pick, there's the rollercoaster ride of what happened with the Sixers and the Thunders picks, which are kind of, uh, you know, conjoined there. And it was really funny, uh, When you're in this room, you're in there, the first 15 minutes, all your communications are taken away. Your phone's taken away.
If you have a digital watch, they take that from you. And so you're in there for like 75 minutes, hour and a half. And the lottery's done in 15 minutes. Like it's just, it goes like quick. And the rest of the time, you're just there to talk to people. And at some point, the broadcast, the ESPN broadcast of the lottery comes on.
And usually people don't watch it because they know what's going to happen already. And sometimes they do. Like, I remember in 2019, the year that the Knicks were one of the three teams with the highest odds, they kept playing up the Knicks angle on the broadcast and, like... So can the Knicks win the number one pick? And inside, everyone knew it was already not going to happen.
And there was just some laughter at that. This time, the broadcast was about how, if you remember, Kevin Nagande at some point says the Sixers lost their first overall pick. And there was some grumbling about it and some laughter about it. And then when he comes back around, he's like, oh, wait, never mind. They now have a top four pick. It was the same type of reaction.
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