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Tim BontempsESPN
NEW YORK — Welcome to the NBA, Zion Williamson.
The superstar forward out of Duke was selected No. 1 overall by the Pelicans in Thursday night’s NBA draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, confirming what had been inevitable once New Orleans won the draft lottery last month.
Williamson, a generational talent because of his combination of size, strength, speed and skill, was the dominant force in college basketball last season. As a freshman, he averaged 22.6 points, 8.9 rebounds, 2.1 steals and 1.8 blocks, all while shooting 68% from the field as he wowed with one spectacular highlight play after another en route to being named the Wooden Award winner as the nation’s top player.
“I don’t know what to say. I didn’t think I’d be in this position,” an emotional Williamson said while often pausing to compose himself. “My mom sacrificed a lot for me. I wouldn’t be here without my mom. She did everything for me. I just want to thank her.”
Williamson immediately steps in as the centerpiece for a new-look Pelicans team that agreed to trade star big man Anthony Davis to the Los Angeles Lakers last week.
Like Williamson, the second and third picks also went according to plan. Murray State point guard Ja Morant went second to the Memphis Grizzlies, and Williamson’s teammate at Duke, swingman RJ Barrett, went third to the New York Knicks.
Morant, an explosive athlete with a solid 3-point shooting stroke, led the Racers to the second round of the NCAA tournament, averaging 24.5 points and 10.0 assists per game while going from a mid-first-round pick before the season began to the clear No. 2 prospect entering draft night, according to ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmitz.
Morant steps in to a Grizzlies team that on Tuesday agreed to trade point guard stalwart Mike Conley to the Utah Jazz for forwards Jae Crowder and Kyle Korver, the No. 23 pick Thursday night and a protected future first-round pick.
Barrett, meanwhile, had been hoping to join the Knicks all along. Barrett’s mother, who is from Brooklyn, met his father, Rowan, while she was a track star and he was a basketball star at St. John’s in Queens.
“It would mean a lot,” Barrett, who was born in Canada, said Wednesday of getting the chance to play for the Knicks. “My late grandfather, rest in peace, he was the biggest Knicks fan. He’d always tell me I’d play for the Knicks. It would mean a lot to me.”
The presumptive No. 1 pick entering the college basketball season, Barrett’s star was surpassed by the comet that is Williamson. Still, the 6-foot-7 forward was seen as a part of the three-player tier considered a cut above the rest of the draft prospects after averaging 22.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists at Duke last season.
Now he’ll get a chance to prove he’s up to the challenge he wanted to take on: reviving the Knicks, who had the league’s worst record in 2018-19.
“I’ve given this game all I’ve got for a long time,” he said after his selection. “I’m just ready for this. I wanna embrace the city and embrace the team.”
The real excitement at the draft began with the No. 4 pick, which still technically belonged to the Los Angeles Lakers but has been traded twice in the past week. First, it was sent to the New Orleans Pelicans Saturday as part of the Lakers’ package for Davis. Then, a couple hours before the draft began, it changed hands again, going to the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for the No. 8, 17 and 35 picks in this year’s draft, plus a protected first-rounder from the Cleveland Cavaliers next year.
Atlanta made that move to take Virginia forward De’Andre Hunter — and that’s precisely what the Hawks did (via the Lakers) adding the rangy forward to an intriguing young core that includes Trae Young, Kevin Huerter and John Collins.
Hunter, who was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Year last season, will shore up an Atlanta team that struggled on defense last season, posting the fourth-worst defensive efficiency in the league. No player under contract with the Hawks for next season ranked in the top 150 in ESPN’s defensive plus-minus this past season.
The move marks the second year in a row that Atlanta general manager Travis Schlenk has made a big move in the lottery. Last year, it was to trade down two spots to select Trae Young while also acquiring the No. 10 pick in this year’s draft.
With Hunter off the board, that left the Cleveland Cavaliers with the chance to take Vanderbilt point guard Darius Garland with the fifth pick. Despite being in the middle of lots of trade discussions leading up to the selection, the Cavaliers wound up hanging onto it and taking Garland, an intriguing prospect who played only five games for the Commodores last season before suffering a season-ending knee injury. Those five games are the second-fewest by a college player drafted in the top 10 since the one-and-done era began in 2006.
That put the Minnesota Timberwolves on the clock, after they had traded forward Dario Saric and the No. 11 pick to Phoenix to move up five slots to No. 6. With the pick, Minnesota took Texas Tech forward Jarrett Culver, who entered the draft fresh off leading the Red Raiders to within a few bounces of winning this year’s national championship.