The San Antonio Spurs won the 2023 N.B.A. draft lottery on Tuesday, giving them the No. 1 pick in June’s draft and the right to select the most anticipated prospect since LeBron James: the 19-year-old French star Victor Wembanyama.
The No. 2 pick went to the Charlotte Hornets, the third to the Portland Trail Blazers and the fourth to the Houston Rockets.
Peter J. Holt, the chairman of the Spurs, jumped up to celebrate the moment it became apparent the Spurs had obtained the top pick. The lottery was held in Chicago, and the picks were revealed during a broadcast on ESPN.
“I might faint,” Holt said on the broadcast. “I’m so excited. The city of San Antonio, our fans, man — we just have so many people that love the Spurs so we’re pumped.”
Wembanyama, a 7-foot-3 center with an eight-foot wingspan, can handle the ball and shoot like a guard. He plays for Metropolitans 92, a professional French league team, where he is averaging 21.6 points and 10.5 rebounds per game. The N.B.A. G League hosted his team for a two-game exhibition near Las Vegas in October, and the N.B.A. has broadcast some of his games. The hype about him rivals that surrounding James in 2003, when the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted him No. 1 overall out of high school.
The draft order is decided by a lottery that grants teams with worse regular-season records better odds for the No. 1 pick. This system has led to teams being accused of tanking — not prioritizing winning to position themselves for high draft picks. The three teams with the best chance — 14 percent — to get the top pick this year were the Detroit Pistons, the Houston Rockets and the San Antonio Spurs. The 11 other teams in the lottery had lessened odds, ranging from the Charlotte Hornets at 13 percent to the New Orleans Pelicans at 0.5 percent.
In recent years, the N.B.A. has moved to curb tanking by introducing a postseason play-in tournament and flattening the chances for the No. 1 pick among the three worst teams.
But with Wembanyama on the horizon, N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver told reporters in the fall, “I know that many of our N.B.A. teams are salivating at the notion that potentially through our lottery, they can get him, so they should all still compete very hard next season.”
Wembanyama is certainly not the only potentially franchise-altering prospect available on June 22. Scoot Henderson, a 19-year-old guard who played for the G League Ignite and faced Wembanyama in Henderson, Nev., in October, is widely expected to be drafted at No. 2 overall after Wembanyama. Henderson averaged 16.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists in 19 games with the Ignite this season.
