Every year heated debates are bound to take place when the NBA draft lottery is about to happen. The lottery system features those teams that did not make it to the playoffs battling for the pick order of the NBA draft, the main source of young talent. However those teams who finished at the bottom of the league are not automatically awarded the top picks, but are rather given a higher percentage chance of landing them. Thus, it is inevitable to see some disappointed General Managers while others are happy that their franchise may be able to add a new cornerstone to their team.

This season the Los Angeles Clippers came out on top winning the lottery despite only having a 17.7% chance of getting away with the number one pick. According to Clippers’ General Manager Mike Dunleavy the franchise is planning on drafting college star Blake Griffin who arguably is the best player around this year. Given the fact that Griffin is a natural power forward some interesting trade scenarios are likely to emerge. The Clippers already have three excellent big men in Chris Kaman, Zach Randolph and Marcus Camby. Thus, it seems likely that Dunleavy would be looking into trading one of them for more depth in their backcourt.

While the Los Angeles Clippers have the luxury of figuring out what to do with all their decent centers and power forwards, some other teams were very disappointed with the lottery results. Especially the Sacramento Kings missed out on a big opportunity by dropping to the fourth pick despite having the worst record and thus the best odds prior to the draft lottery. Although in some years the fourth pick can provide a player just as talented as the number one pick, this season everybody seems to agree that there is a huge drop off after the third pick. More specifically, the Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma City Thunder ended up with the second and third draft spot respectively. Considering the aforementioned scenario it seems like an almost certain bet that they will chose to go with Spaniard Ricky Rubio and Tanzanian Hasheem Thabeet. Another implication of the gap in talent after the third pick will be the possibility of draft picks being traded or sign-and-trade actions to occur.

You can watch all games of the Los Angeles Clippers and their number one draft pick right here on www.watchlivenba.com, the home of live NBA streaming.