The View From the Room as Trail Blazers Play Bystanders to Chaotic Draft Lottery

📍CHICAGO — Even by the standards of the silliest annual event on the NBA calendar, what happened on Monday evening was another level of silliness.

This was a level beyond Atlanta jumping from the 10th-best odds in the lottery to the No. 1 overall pick last year. It was beyond New Orleans being bailed out of Anthony Davis' public one-team trade request in 2019 with Zion Williamson. Maybe even beyond Cleveland getting the first pick three out of four years after LeBron James' departure.

And if the shock from ESPN's studio audience came through to you on TV, try being locked away in a room with a few dozen NBA team and league representatives and reporters without phones, knowing that Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison was about to get the ultimate life raft three months after he made one of the most universally ridiculed trades in league history.