The book seemed written on the 2019 NBA Draft after just two seasons. Zion Williamson looked like a generational superstar, the kind of player who could be the face of the league and a perennial MVP candidate. Ja Morant was an exciting second fiddle, and the referendum on the rest of the draft began at No. 3.
One year later and things don’t look so clear. Williamson missed the entire season with a mysterious injury recovery, Morant became the MVP candidate, and the field behind those two not only mixed itself up, unexpected players pushed to the top and perhaps beyond. Does Darius Garland push into the top 2? How high does Steph Curry’s new protege Jordan Poole rise?
Darius Garland went fifth to the Cavs in the 2019 NBA Draft. When we redraft the entire 2019 lottery how high does he go?
Let’s turn back the clock and evaluate the 2019 draft class. If it was 2019 again, and the same teams were picking in the same order, how would the order change if they were granted the knowledge of today? If each team had a scout travel back in time from May of 2022, which players would go higher and which would go lower?
In that spirit let’s redraft the 2019 lottery, the top fourteen picks of a draft class that continues to develop and surprise. Names like Terance Mann and Max Strus won’t make the cut here, but the fact that they were in consideration shows how wild a ride it has been. Let’s start at No. 1 and answer the most important questions: who goes first, and where do we slot the oft-injured and uber-talented Zion Williamson?
Drafting at the very top of the NBA Draft brings a lot of pressure. Settling for a rotation player is not good enough; this is often a team’s sole chance at a true difference-making star. Zion Williamson originally went first overall, and he absolutely has the potential to be that star that the New Orleans Pelicans drafted him to be.
He also has played only 85 games in three seasons, and just missed all of last year with a foot injury that the organization either lied about or was surprised in that it lingered all year. The Pelicans hope he can return next season and be the centerpiece of a playoff push, but there is the chance he never gets fully healthy for a long period of time. They hope he is Joel Embiid, but he could certainly instead be Greg Oden.
That leaves the door open for a new No. 1 pick, and Ja Morant is the one to step through and seize the prize. The point guard out of Murray State originally went second overall, so this is not some sort of unexpected rise. It has certainly been a rise, though; Morant went from 19.1 points per game last season to 27.4 this year, leading the Memphis Grizzlies to the second-best record in the entire league and finishing on the All-NBA Second Team.
Morant is not without injury concerns, as he has missed time in all three seasons of his career and couldn’t finish the NBA playoffs this season due to a knee injury. Yet he has played more than 100 games more than Williamson, and proven he can excel at the highest level with his speed and relentlessness driving to the rim. The Pelicans are building a different team by taking Morant first in this redraft, but not necessarily a worse one.
The Memphis Grizzlies made the no-brainer pick to take Ja Morant three years ago, and they haven’t looked back. They were a play-in game away from the playoffs in Morant’s rookie season, won a play-in game to get a taste of the playoffs last year, and were a legitimate threat to beat the Golden State Warriors in the second round this year. There is no regret from their selection of Morant.
That being said, their team is not much worse for taking Darius Garland here in the redraft instead. While Morant won the Most Improved Player award this season, Garland finished third after breaking out in a major way in his third season.
The offensive centerpiece of a Cleveland Cavaliers team that defied expectation this season in finishing eighth in the Eastern Conference, Garland averaged career-highs in points, assists, rebounds, steals, 3-pointers and free throws, improving across the board and taking full advantage of the vacuum left when Collin Sexton went down with a knee injury 11 games in.
Garland has become a pinpoint passer, especially in lob situations, and his perimeter shooting (38.3 percent this season on 6.7 attempts per game) makes him an ideal pick-and-roll guard. He also thrived off-ball alongside Ricky Rubio early this season, which would unlock plenty of options for the Grizzlies in running Garland off screens while Tyus Jones, Desmond Bane or Kyle Anderson handled. He made his first All-Star Game this season and would be an excellent consolation prize for Memphis here in the lottery redraft.
We’ve already discussed the concerns with taking Zion Williamson first overall, and in fact he drops to third here in our redraft. On pure talent alone he is tops in this class, and the same for demonstrated impact. A healthy Williamson is probably already a top-20 player in this league.
The issue is health, and even though he was recently cleared for basketball activities it looms over Williamson and the Pelicans like a storm cloud. Yet at No. 3 the talent and impact are too great to ignore, especially for a team in the New York Knicks looking for a marketable star to put under the lights at Madison Square Garden.
The Knicks’ original choice with the third pick does not fall far, with the Atlanta Hawks scooping him up here with the fourth pick. Despite playing in New York he has someone stayed under the radar as a national product, but the reality is that Barrett has improved in each of his three seasons in the league and is on the cusp of the All-Star conversation entering his fourth year.
In the midst of the Knicks’ dysfunction last season Barrett averaged 20 points per game with 5.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists. He didn’t shoot well, but he is still a 35.7 percent career 3-point shooter and has defensive intangibles, even if the ecosystem around him blew up last year. He could start alongside Trae Young in Atlanta and defend opposing guards to help Young survive, while his ball-handling could shift Young off-ball to run more Stephen Curry actions. It’s a fun pairing that develops from this redraft.
Here we have our first major divergence from the original draft. Thus far the original draft position of the new top four was 2, 5, 1, 3. Now Jordan Poole splashes down from the 28th pick as a dynamic and impossibly fast guard with a sniper from outside and an endless motor. Somehow the Golden State Warriors took a player at 28th and in three years turned him into a near-approximation of Stephen Curry.
Poole is a year younger at 22 than Curry was in their third seasons, which for Curry was marred by ankle injuries. Yet it’s telling that while Curry shot better from deep, Poole’s per-game numbers significantly outstrip Curry, from his 2.8 3-pointers per game to his 18.5 points per contest.
The Cleveland Cavaliers can’t draft Darius Garland here, as he went second overall, but instead they get a dynamic offensive guard who can play a similar role. Poole is not the passer than Garland is, but he is probably a better defender at 6’4″ and can play easily at either guard position. His shooting is right there with Garland’s and his speed is insane. The Cavs would have to be quite satisfied with their consolation prize of a guard.
With De’Andre Hunter falling from fourth to sixth in our redraft, the top five players are off the board. That’s an astonishing level of accuracy for the teams picking high in the 2019 NBA Draft; each of those five teams “hit on” their pick, even if the order was a little jumbled. That works out great for the Minnesota Timberwolves here in the redraft, as they whiffed in taking Jarrett Culver out of Texas Tech with the original sixth pick.
Hunter came out of Virginia with a strong defensive reputation, and that has mostly come through. He is the Hawks’ wing stopper, able to defend 1-4 with his combination of size, strength and speed. His offensive game has come along more slowly, but he hit a career-best 37.9 percent from deep last season. If Hunter can stay healthy he will likely hold his spot as a top-6 player in this draft class and the Hawks will have a chance at more sustained success.
The draft starts to get more discombobulated from here. Originally the Chicago Bulls drafted North Carolina point guard Coby White with the seventh pick, and he is not appearing in this lottery redraft as injuries and a lack of development have kept him from returning the value the Bulls were hoping for when they drafted him.
Instead the Bulls get the combo forward they need now in Keldon Johnson, who has played very well for the San Antonio Spurs and even earned a (somewhat nepotistic) spot on the U.S. Olympic Team last summer. He is a reliable two-way forward who averaged 17 points per game last season in his largest role yet.
The Phoenix Suns were widely panned three years ago when they drafted Cameron Johnson 11th overall. Now he won’t even be available for them as the New Orleans Pelicans scoop him up here with the eighth pick. Johnson has been a super-sub for the Suns and played a key role throughout their dominant run these past two seasons. He was certainly an older rookie at 23 when he entered the league, but he has been able to step in as a sharpshooter and surprisingly solid defender backing up both Mikal Bridges and Jae Crowder.
The Pelicans took a swing with Texas project center Jaxson Hayes with this pick originally, and while Hayes started much of the season he would likely struggle to go in the first round in a redraft. With Johnson, the Pelicans get an excellent forward to pair with Zion Williamson as he could space the floor around “Point Zion” drives. A major upgrade for the Pels.
The second Kentucky player to go in the Top 10 of our redraft, Tyler Herro originally went 13th to the Miami Heat and just won Sixth Man of the Year with the Heat. He is the epitome of a microwave scorer, with excellent speed and a deep bag of finishing tricks, and averaged 20.7 points per game despite starting just 10 of his 66 games.
The Washington Wizards have made a serious of decisions that did not work out at the point guard position over the past few seasons, and perhaps having Herro on board would do nothing to solve that. Yet by taking Herro and not Rui Hachimura here, the Wizards give themselves another bite at the apple for building a backcourt around Bradley Beal. Herro’s defense is atrocious and he’s not a great fit as a starter in most places, but he is an extremely talented offensive threat that moves up a few spots to ninth in our redraft.
The Boston Celtics originally took Grant Williams with the 22nd pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, trading down with the Philadelphia 76ers, who took Matisse Thybulle. At the time and for much of the time since, the Celtics’ were mocked for such a decision. Yet notice that Thybulle has not had his name called in this redraft, and also note Thybulle was barely playable in the playoffs while Grant Williams has been the secret weapon for a Boston Celtics team that may win the NBA championship this year.
Williams has developed a lethal outside shot, hitting 41.1 percent of his 3-pointers this season on solid volume. Defense is where he butters his bread, as the former Tennessee star has the core strength to take on opposing bigs, including some of the best one-on-one defense against Giannis Antetokounmpo the league has seen. Instead of an uncertain upside play with Cam Reddish, the Hawks get a reliable rotation player at No. 10 in the redraft.
There are some options here on the board for a team wanting to swing for the fences with a high-upside prospect; there are also some reliable starters waiting to be plugged into a lineup, and Lugentz “Lou” Dort fits the bill perfectly for the second. The formerly undrafted wing has been a bulldog on defense for the Oklahoma City Thunder and isn’t afraid to take big shots.
He replaces a very different kind of player in Cam Johnson, who is already gone in our redraft, but can play a similar role, coming off the bench as something close to a sixth starter. His strength on the wing would also give the Suns some lineup flexibility as he can switch onto bigger players or stay in front of faster guards. He doesn’t have much upside to be anything more than what he already is, but every team in the league could use what that is right now.
An analytical darling coming into the draft, Brandon Clarke has settled in somewhere between “Top 5 star” that some models screamed and “old big who can’t shoot” that the mainstream narrative seemed to be. Clarke is a strong defender, excellent finisher and overwhelming rebounder who has vacillated between starting and coming off the bench for one of the league’s deepest teams in the Memphis Grizzlies. He replaces P.J. Washington, who falls…well, not very far.
P.J. Washington, the third Kentucky Wildcat to go in the lottery of our redraft (apparently they occasionally get NBA talent there) is a switchable big with a decent perimeter shot and good passing skills for his position. The Miami Heat lose out on Tyler Herro’s shotmaking here but instead get a solid complement to Bam Adebayo in the frontcourt who would fit right into Miami’s switchable scheme.
There are a few different players in consideration here, which represents something of a tier break from the Top 13 in this draft. Cam Reddish, Nassir Little and Kevin Porter Jr. represent players with plenty of upside still remaining, while Daniel Gafford, Terance Mann and Max Strus have proven themselves to be reliable role players.
In the end it’s Matisse Thybulle’s insane defensive skillset that slides into the final slot. He is far from a perfect defender and is at times a harmful offensive player, but his ability to wreak havoc on an opponent with steals and blocks has the potential to single-handedly turn a game,
From chalk near the top to havoc in the middle, the lottery of our 2019 NBA Redraft highlights which players have really come through for their teams. If Zion Williamson and Ja Morant stay healthy, the fight for the top player in this class will be fun to watch for the next decade. Keep an eye on Darius Garland and Jordan Poole as the offensive firepower of this class continues to impress.