Academy Award winner Michael Douglas loves basketball. He’s a big Miami fan, mainly because of his relationship with Heat President Pat Riley. He’s followed the game for decades.
He’s gone to a couple French league games in recent weeks for one reason: Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-3 French phenom who is already capturing the basketball world’s imagination and attention.
“I’ve seen Victor play twice in person and twice on television,” Douglas, who has been working near Paris playing the role of Benjamin Franklin, told The Associated Press. “And I went specifically to just see him play.”
As Douglas said in his famous role as Gordon Gekko, “I wanna know where he goes.”
So does everybody else. Finally, the answer is coming. On Tuesday night, Chicago plays host to the NBA draft lottery, an event where 14 ping-pong balls go into a hopper, and the numbers of the first four balls to pop out will be matched to a combination assigned to a team.
That team wins the No. 1 pick. Spoiler alert: They’ll use it to choose Wembanyama on June 22.
“Pray for Victor,” Houston owner Tilman Fertitta told Houston television station KPRC back in February at a Mardi Gras celebration, when the Rockets were in the second half of their dreadful season and with the team well on its way to the lottery at that point.
Boulogne-Levallois’ Victor Wembanyama prepares to shoot during the Elite basketball match Boulogne-Levallois against JDA Dijon at the Palais de Sports Jean-Michel Geoffroy in Dijon, central France, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023. Credit: AP/Laurent Cipriani
He didn’t say Wembanyama. He didn’t have to. Everybody knows what he meant.
The Rockets, San Antonio and Detroit all have the best chance of landing Wembanyama — 14% apiece, or about 7-1.
The odds decrease a bit as one goes down the line of the other lottery hopefuls: Charlotte (12.5%), Portland (10.5%), Orlando (9%), Indiana (6.8%), Washington (6.7%), Utah (4.5%), Dallas (3%), Chicago (1.8%), Oklahoma City…
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