NBA Mock Draft 1.0: Brooklyn Nets hunting shooting with size

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Brandon Clarke NBA Mock Draft Brooklyn Nets (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /

The Brooklyn Nets currently hold 3 picks between No. 17 and No. 31 in the 2019 NBA Draft and in our first look at a mock draft, size that can shoot is key.

The NBA Playoffs are just getting under way, but the NBA Draft looms large on the horizon for the Brooklyn Nets and the rest of the teams in the NBA. So that makes it a perfect opportunity to get our first NBA mock draft out.

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The draft order outside the lottery is set after the tiebreakers were conducted last week and the Nets will have three picks in the top 31 selections.

They lost the tiebreaker to the Orlando Magic and will pick 17th overall with their own first-round pick –the first time Brooklyn will make a selection with its own first-rounder since 2013.

The Nets also have the Denver Nuggets’ first-round pick at No. 27 overall thanks to last summer’s deal that brought in Kenneth Faried in a salary dump.

Finally, Brooklyn will lead off the second round at No. 31 overall with a pick that originally belonged to the New York Knicks and was acquired from the Philadelphia 76ers in the deal that brought — however briefly — Jahlil Okafor and Nik Stauskas to the Nets.

Brooklyn’s own second-rounder at No. 46 overall goes to the Magic. It was originally dealt to the Charlotte Hornets in June 2015 and later wound its way through Memphis before landing in Orlando in a June 2017 trade.

This will also be the first year for the revamped draft lottery, where the bottom three teams all have the same odds of getting the No. 1 overall selection and the odds for everyone else except the best team in the lottery improved.

So that means the New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers and Phoenix Suns all have a 14 percent chance at the top pick.

The rest of the lottery odds, per Tankathon. include the Chicago Bulls (12.5 percent), Atlanta Hawks (10.5 percent), Washington Wizards (9 percent), New Orleans Pelicans/Memphis Grizzlies/Dallas Mavericks (all 6 percent), Minnesota Timberwolves (3 percent), Los Angeles Lakers (2 percent) and the trio of the Hornets, Miami Heat and Sacramento Kings all at 1 percent.

Memphis has a top-eight protected pick it would dearly love to convey to the Boston Celtics this year, before the protection falls to just top-six in 2020 and becomes unprotected in 2021.

The Mavericks will give up their pick to the Hawks if it is outside the top eight, while the Sacramento pick will either go to the 76ers if it is No. 1 overall or to the Celtics in any other scenario.

At a 99 percent probability of the pick landing between No. 2 and No. 4 or No. 14, you have to like Boston’s odds.

Memphis has a 42.6 percent chance of surrendering the pick to the Celtics somewhere between No. 9 and No. 12, but a 57.4 percent chance of it landing between No. 1 and No. 4 or at No. 8.

The odds of the Mavericks sending their pick to Atlanta are 73.7 percent (between No. 9 and No 13).

This NBA mock draft will focus heavily on the needs of the Brooklyn Nets, but we’re going to go through all 60 picks just for argument’s sake.

We’ll update things after the NBA Draft Lottery (set for May 14), again after the NBA Draft Combine and its fallout in late May and then several days prior to the actual draft festivities set for June 20 at Barclays Center.

So let’s do some NBA mock drafting!