Potentially juicy assets.
The Hawks (35-36) are in a strange position heading into draft season — one in which they will have either one or two picks in the upcoming NBA Draft, but neither of them will be their own.
By virtue of the original Dejounte Murray — one that sent out their unprotected first-round picks in both 2025 and 2027 plus first-round pick swap rights in 2026 to the San Antonio Spurs among other assets — Atlanta will hope they can make the playoffs and not surrender a lottery pick to the team in silver, black and white. So far, the Hawks are trending towards hosting a Play-In game as the 7-seed giving them two bites at the apple to make the Playoffs.
But elsewhere around the league, Hawks fans should still keep an eye on the Western Conference picture. Where the Kings and Lakers land in the final standings — as well as any draft lottery outcomes — will tell the Hawks how much draft capital they’ll have in June.
Sacramento Kings
The Kings (35-36) are floundering in the West having built around DeMar Derozan, Domantas Sabonis and Zach LaVine — the latter of whom was involved in the midseason De’Aaron Fox trade to the San Antonio Spurs. With their record hovering around .500 all year, and typical Kangz turmoil with a coaching change mixed in, they have been unable to crack the top class of teams despite their all-in moves.
Back in the summer of 2022, the Hawks shipped out Kevin Huerter to Sacramento for a future protected first-round pick. The pick didn’t convey at top-14 protection last season, but this season it’s looking increasingly likely to finally make it’s way back to Atlanta.
Because the pick is top-12 protected, the Hawks can still have it convey even if the Kings miss the playoffs.
In this scenario, the Kings need to be no worse than tenth in the West — thereby making the Western Conference Play-In Tournament — and better than all of the top-10 teams in the East (including the climbing Hawks which is an interesting wrinkle). Then if the Kings were to lose in that tournament, they would enter the 2025 NBA Lottery with either the 13th or 14th best odds.
At that point, Hawks fans would need to just sweat out the lottery. If the Kings finished with the 13th worst record (assuming no record ties), they would have a 4.8% at jumping into the top-4 and keeping their pick. If they finished 14th (again, no ties), they would have a 2.4% chance at striking it rich. Otherwise, the Hawks get that pick with 95.2% and 97.6% certainty, respectively.
Logically, if the Kings make it out of the Play-In Tournament, that pick will convey to Atlanta but outside of the lottery no higher than 15th in the 2025 NBA Draft.
As of March 25, the Kings sit at ninth place in the West after a loss to the Boston Celtics, perilously close to falling to 10th behind the Phoenix Suns. But the eleventh-place Dallas Mavericks are a walking hospital and probably don’t have the juice to make a run at it, even with Anthony Davis returning to action.
Verdict: Root for the Kings to stay in the top-10 for a likely lottery pick heading Atlanta’s direction.
Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers (43-28) have had quite the wild ride in the past few months. At first, it looked like the Lakers hadn’t improved after a first-round exit last spring, having added just Dalton Knecht and Bronny James in the offseason as their only additions around an aging core of LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
And then a minor trade that no one talked about involving Davis happened. With ‘LA’ seemingly building for the future, along with a rescinded Mark Williams trade, it looked as though their roster was too incomplete to battle with the elites in the West.
But somehow, they managed to rocket up to second in the West standings at one point, putting the Hawks’ unprotected pick essentially out of lottery range. A recent James injury derailed some of their momentum, but it’s looking extremely unlikely for the Lakers to fall out of the top-6 in the West, guaranteeing them a playoff appearance and guaranteeing the Hawks a pick outside the top-14.
This Lakers unprotected first-round pick, you’ll remember, came via the New Orleans Pelicans in the most recent Dejounte Murray deal — even if the best asset in that trade has clearly been one Dyson Daniels.
But if the Lakers collapse, it’s possible that they slide out of the top-6 in the West. And if they enter the Play-In Tournament, it only takes two losses to end their season and surrender a lottery pick to the Hawks.
This is all just wishful thinking, however. The odds of that happening are rather slim with the end of the season quickly approaching.
As of March 24, Basketball-Reference simulates that the Lakers will make the playoffs around 95% of the time:
Basketball-Reference
But with the loss to the Magic on Monday night, maybe you can still hold onto hope that things avalanche against the Lakers in their final 11 games of the season.
Verdict: this pick will almost certainly be in the 20s, but first-round picks in a strong class are always welcome.