We have just a couple of months left in the NBA regular season, and the playoff position battles in both conferences are as close as they have been in recent memory. And while the race to the top promises to be a barn burn until the final games of the season, the race to the bottom is just as competitive.
The reward for receiving the No. 1 overall pick in 2023 will be the rights to Victor Wembanyama, who is touted by some as the best basketball prospect ever. It’s currently a four-team race, all of them within 1.5 games of each other. The fifth-worst team currently has 8.5 more wins than the rest of the bottom, finishing off the finalists as we head down the stretch.
What teams are participating?
What NBA teams bet on Wembanyama?
san antonio spurs
It’s strange to see Greg Popovich leading a losing group, but that’s how the San Antonio Spurs find themselves in 2023. They and the Rockets have been battling all season for contention for the “Worst Team in the West” designation, as they both of them have less than 15 wins at the time of writing. They are currently on a 13 game losing streak.
Popovich picked a good time to go through his first tank in almost two and a half decades, as the idea of ​​Wembanyama under the tutelage of one of the greatest of all time is a scary thought for other teams.
houston rockets
The other of the Terrible Texas Two, the Houston Rockets, currently have the fewest wins of any NBA team at 13. A stretch in late November saw them win 6 of 10 games, and it looked like they might get out of the race. . for Wembanyama, but they have only won three games since December 27, including a 13-game losing streak and a current five-game one. None of its five starters is older than 22, and it’s probably designer.
charlotte hornets
The team on the roster that was probably supposed to be better than it really is, the Charlotte Hornets, have a chance to clinch the first overall pick and the rights to Wembanyama. The off-court issues have certainly contributed to the deterioration of the on-court product, and a series of injuries to their depth chart haven’t helped one bit. But another botched season may finally turn out to be the grand prize in 2023 for Michael Jordan and company, who couldn’t possibly mess up this particular draft pick, could they?
detroit pistons
It seems like the Pistons have been mainstays in the tank game longer than any other team at this point. All that losing hasn’t exactly turned into the most fruitful of rewards, as Detroit has drafted the likes of Killian Hayes, Luke Kennard and Jaden Ivey with lottery picks over the past 6 years.
They’re back in 2022, and they could have an advantage over the others because of their schedule down the stretch. 7 of the last 100 games of the season for the Pistons will be played outside of Detroit, and many of them against teams that should be fighting to make the playoffs, including the Raptors, Thunder, Heat and Bulls. They had the No. 1 overall pick in 2021, and it could happen again for the Pistons two years later.
