One of the best Cleveland Cavaliers players in their history, in Brad Daugherty, will be representing them in the 2020 NBA Draft lottery.
On Thursday at 8:30 PM Eastern on ESPN and on ESPN streaming apps, the 2020 NBA Draft lottery will be conducted. The lottery will happen virtually, due to novel coronavirus concerns, but it will be interesting to find out what selection the Cleveland Cavaliers will be having.
The Cavs 2019-20 campaign is over in terms of games obviously, and the Wine and Gold’s last one of this now-past season, in their case, was on March 10 in a close loss to the Chicago Bulls. As far as lottery odds for the Wine and Gold, they are guaranteed to have a top six selection, per Tankathon.
Cleveland, given that they ended out with the league’s second-worst record at 19-46, is tied with the Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves for having the highest 14.0 percent chance of landing the first overall pick.
Cleveland, Golden State and Minnesota are also tied in terms of their odds for landing the second and third picks, which is straight forward, and those are at 13.4 percent and 12.7 percent, respectively. The same goes among those three for the fourth pick, at 12.0 percent.
In terms of the other odds, per Tankathon, the Cavs have a 27.8 percent chance of landing the fifth pick and 20.0 percent chance of landing the sixth pick. They have a 47.8 percent chance of having either a fifth or sixth selection, for context, and we’ll ultimately see on Thursday again what pick they’ll end up having.
They are essentially in the second place position it would seem, though, based on their lowest possible pick being sixth, as opposed to Golden State, whose lowest possible pick being fifth. So who will rep the Cavs then?
The representative for the Cleveland Cavaliers should be a cool one, though, in Brad Daugherty.
More from King James Gospel
- 3 possible starting lineups for Cleveland Cavaliers in 2023-24
- The Cavaliers may have snagged a hidden gem in Craig Porter Jr.
- 4 players the Cavaliers should pursue in 2024 free agency
- 6 players Cavaliers might replace Jarrett Allen with by the trade deadline
- This stat is one to keep an eye on for Cavaliers’ Max Strus in years ahead
It was cool to hear that Brad Daugherty will be repping the Wine and Gold during the 2020 NBA Draft lottery, albeit virtually again due to COVID-19 guidelines, per a Cavaliers team announcement.
Daugherty, who was one of five number one overall picks in Cavs history in 1986, was a heck of a player for the Cavaliers in his day in the mid-to-late 1980’s-early-to-mid 1990’s. He is rightfully one of the Cavs players to have his number 43 jersey retired, most notably.
Daugherty was one of the best players on Cleveland during their fun run with pieces such as Mark Price, Larry Nance, the late John “Hot Rod” Williams, Craig Ehlo and Ron Harper for some of it, and Daugherty was the best center in Cavs history.
In eight seasons with the Wine and Gold, Daugherty 19.0 points, 9.5 rebounds and 3.7 assists per contest, and was a key cog on that Cavaliers squad that regularly made postseason appearances.
Daugherty was a five-time All-Star as well, and rightfully so. He was such a productive low-post player, quality roller, mid-range shooter and was a very good passing big, too. It was unfortunate that Brad Daugherty was often injured throughout his career, and essentially cut that to eight seasons, but he was again, a great player in his tenure with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Daugherty has done a terrific job from a commentating perspective in some appearances in play-by-play of Cavs games, and we saw that some during last season for the Cavs’ 50th season in 2019-20, as Fear The Sword’s Evan Dammarell noted. I love when the Cavaliers/Fox Sports Ohio would have him join in broadcasts, and it’s cool that he’ll be repping them in the 2020 NBA Draft lottery.
In terms of a potential selection for the Cleveland Cavaliers to come down the road, we could feasibly see Cleveland go with LaMelo of the NBL’s Illawarra Hawks, who is a gifted playmaker and had 6.8 assists per game in NBL play.
Another could be James Wiseman, who played briefly at Memphis, along with Georgia’s Anthony Edwards (though I’m not a huge fan of either personally but the Cavs are reportedly very high on), and Isaac Okoro of Auburn, who would be such a quality defensive piece, could be another.
USC’s Onyeka Okongwu, who had 2.7 blocks and 1.2 steals per game in his lone collegiate season as a Trojan, could be a defensive tone-setter player for the Cavaliers that I could see Cleveland strongly considering, too. We’ll have to see what plays out, and the 2020 NBA Draft lottery will be intriguing to see.
Again, though, it’s cool that Daugherty, who has shown so much love to the Cavs and who was a heck of a player and is quite the alum, will be representing them virtually in the upcoming draft lottery Thursday.