In conjunction with the first two days of the 2020 NFL draft, Pelicans.com is featuring draft-related articles.
If you were to pick a word that most concisely describes the status of the 2020 NBA Draft, it might be “uncertain,” in more ways than one. Not only were the league’s 30 teams deprived of a sometimes-significant component of player evaluations – college basketball postseason tournaments, including the conference and national varieties – but due to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s impossible to conduct in-person interviews and workouts with player prospects. Furthermore, since the 2019-20 regular season is not yet completed, the 30 NBA teams do not know exactly where their picks will fall in the two-round event, or even an exact date for when the draft will take place. The highly-anticipated annual gathering was scheduled to occur June 25, but right now the entire basketball calendar is “to be determined” (by the way, the ’20 lottery was supposed to be May 19).
At the moment, mock-draft prognosticators are going by how the NBA standings looked when play was suspended March 11. For New Orleans, that means a temporary projection of owning a total of four picks, with one in the first round (the Pelicans would theoretically hold the No. 13 pre-lottery slot) and three choices in the second round (picks 39, 43 and 60, according to NBADraft.net’s mock draft).
As Pelicans Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations David Griffin put it during an April 9 conference call with local media, the current 2020 draft situation is difficult to compare to any other since he’s been part of NBA front offices over the previous 20-plus years.
“We’ve got less to go on this year than we have in the past, simply because we saw less of the college basketball season coming down the stretch,” Griffin said, referring to the lack of tournaments. “(But) we certainly feel like if the draft were held tomorrow, we’d be prepared to do so based on how we go about the process (of) scouting.”
Another facet of the normal draft process that may not be possible this year is the combine, which in recent years has been the held the same week of the draft lottery in Chicago. Without the combine and the opportunity to meet with potential draftees in person, it could be a bit more challenging for teams to get an intimate feel for players off the court.
“Absolutely, between now and when the draft is held, our reality has changed quite significantly in terms of the way we go about it,” Griffin said. “This is where we’re trying to be as creative as possible. We’ve talked about having more Zoom interviews (via video chat), but maybe we try to incorporate some other activities in those things than we have in the past.”
NBA teams also often hold draft workouts for players in their respective cities and practice facilities, but that also appears to be a potential no-go this year. However, Griffin indicated that he has not put a great emphasis or significance on them. Teams putting too much stock into them are subject to mistakes, based on extremely impressive or poor performances during workouts, which usually last only a couple hours.
“We’ve never been a team that puts a lot of credence in the workout anyway; (the pre-draft process is) really more about learning about the human,” Griffin said. “But maybe there’s some things we can do interactively with the draft-eligible (players this year) that we haven’t done in the past.”
Owning four draft picks gives New Orleans enviable flexibility and the potential to go in a number of different directions. One thing seems fairly certain about the ’20 draft for the Pelicans, however: They’d love to have as positive of a night as they did last June, when the talented and promising haul included No. 1 pick Zion Williamson, No. 8 Jaxson Hayes, No. 17 Nickeil Alexander-Walker and second-round wing Didi Louzada, who spent the season developing in Australia’s pro league.
