 Basketball's next big thing will learn his NBA destination tonight | | | Eight days after Chicago's NHL team won the right to select Connor Bedard, another teenage phenom touted as a generational talent is up for grabs in tonight's NBA draft lottery. The big (and we do mean big) prize is Victor Wembanyama, the 19-year-old French phenom who many are calling the best basketball prospect since LeBron James went pro two decades ago.
Wembanyama's exact height remains something of a mystery after he didn't attend the draft combine. But he's listed between 7-foot-3 and 7-foot-5, which would make him one of the tallest players in the NBA. Like a traditional centre, Wembanyama's height (and eight-foot wingspan) create nightmares for opposing scorers as he can block or alter their shots without even leaving his feet.
What really sets this big man apart, though, is that he plays offence like a guard. Wembanyama can handle the ball, create shots for himself and his teammates, shoot threes from anywhere, hit stepbacks and throw down highlight-reel dunks. "Kevin Durant crossed with Rudy Gobert," is how the Ringer's Kevin O'Connor described him, implying Wembanyama is a mix between one of the most unstoppable scorers in NBA history and a three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Wembanyama put his extraterrestrial array of skills on display last fall in Las Vegas, where his French-league club Metropolitans 92 played a pair of exhibition games against the NBA's G League Ignite — a developmental team featuring guard Scoot Henderson, expected to go No. 2 in the draft. Wembanyama scored 37 points with seven 3-pointers and five blocked shots in the first game before deploying his full arsenal of inside-the-arc moves to score 36 in the next one — all with the pressure of NBA scouts, executives and players eyeing him from courtside.
Some of the sport's greatest players can hardly believe what they see. Durant, who might be considered the inspiration for Wembanyama's game, called the teenager "inspiring." Steph Curry compared him to a video-game character. "He's like a [NBA] 2K create-a-player… cheat code-type vibes." LeBron invoked mythical creatures. “Everybody’s been [called] a unicorn over the last few years, but he’s more like an alien. No one has ever seen anyone as tall as he is but as fluid and as graceful as he is out on the floor.”
The best odds of winning tonight's Wembanyama sweepstakes belong to the Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs, who each have a 14 per cent chance after finishing with the three worst regular-season records.
Unlike the NHL version, every team in the NBA draft lottery is allowed to win the No. 1 pick. The group of 14 includes the Toronto Raptors, who have the second-lowest probability at just 1 per cent. It's a long shot, for sure, but teams in that range do win the lotto from time to time. Most recently, Cleveland had just a 1.6 per cent chance in 2014 when it won the right to select Canada's Andrew Wiggins first overall.
While Wembanyama won't make his NBA debut until the fall, we might see him in this summer's Basketball World Cup in Asia, where France and Canada will face off in the group stage. Though it's not certain that Wembanyama will participate in the tournament, there are good signs: he played in European qualifiers last fall and winter, and the head coach of the French national team also happens to be Wembanyama's coach at Metropolitans 92.
The draft lottery takes place tonight at 8 p.m. ET, right before Game 1 of the Western Conference final between Denver and the Los Angeles Lakers. The Eastern final, featuring Boston and Miami, opens Wednesday night.
In other NBA news, the Philadelphia 76ers fired coach Doc Rivers today after losing Game 7 of their second-round series vs. Boston. | | |  | Victor Wembanyama is widely considered the most exciting basketball prospect since LeBron James entered the NBA 20 years ago. (Ranck Fife/AFP via Getty Images) | | | Quickly… | | | Some other things to know:
1. Penny Oleksiak is back.
Nine months after surgery to fix a torn meniscus in her left knee, the 22-year-old swimming star returns to competition this week. Oleksiak is among the Canadians competing at a Mare Nostrum Swim Tour meet on Wednesday and Thursday in Barcelona, where she's slated to swim in four individual events.
This will be Oleksiak's first competition since the world championships in Budapest last June. She'd hoped to make it back for the Canadian trials in her hometown of Toronto in early spring but opted for more recovery time with another world championships coming up in July in Japan.
Oleksiak helped her relay teams to two silver and two bronze medals last year in Budapest, giving her a Canadian-record nine career world-championship medals (all in relays and none of them gold). In Tokyo the year before, she won three medals to become the most decorated Canadian Olympian ever with seven, including an individual medal of each colour.
The other Canadian stars competing in Barcelona are Maggie Mac Neil, the current Olympic and former world champion in the 100m butterfly; and Kylie Masse, a three-time individual world champ and winner of three solo Olympic medals.
Sixteen-year-old phenom Summer McIntosh and 20-year-old rising star Josh Liendo are not competing after racing last weekend at a meet in Atlanta. Taylor Ruck is out after breaking her hand last month in a skateboarding accident.
Read more about Oleksiak's return and the other Canadians to watch in Barcelona in this story by CBC Sports' Devin Heroux. Watch the meet live on Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. ET to 1 p.m. ET on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.
2. The WNBA suspended coach Becky Hammon for comments she made toward a player about her pregnancy.
Hammon, the head coach of the WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces, was banned for two games by the league after a monthslong investigation stemming from former Aces player Dearica Hamby's allegation that she was "bullied" and "manipulated" by the organization. Hamby, who was traded this off-season to the Los Angeles Sparks, said in an Instagram post after the deal that "being traded is a part of the business. Being lied to, bullied, manipulated, and discriminated against is not." She did not say who was responsible for the alleged mistreatment.
The Aces were also stripped of a first-round draft pick after the investigation found they promised impermissible benefits to Hamby during contract extension negotiations with her.
Hammon was reportedly a candidate for the Toronto Raptors' head coaching job, which remains vacant after Nick Nurse was fired last month.
3. The Blue Jays are hanging in there in a brutal division.
After last night's series-opening home loss to the Yankees, Toronto stands at 24-17 a quarter of the way into the season. The Jays' .585 winning percentage would put them in first place in two of baseball's other five divisions. But in the cutthroat American League East, it's only good for third behind the majors-best Tampa Bay Rays (31-11) and the surprising Baltimore Orioles (26-15).
New York and Boston, the blue bloods who ruled the AL East for years, are lurking right behind at 24-19 and 22-20, respectively, making this the only division where everyone has a winning record.
The good news for Toronto is that baseball's new scheduling format sees each team play the other 29 clubs at least once, meaning the Jays have 24 fewer games against AL East foes. Also, due to the off-season renovation of the Rogers Centre, Toronto has played just 16 of its 41 games at home, where it has a stellar 12-4 record. Read more about the Jays' outlook at the quarter-season mark here. | | | And finally… | | | Wear a hat and don't forget to apply sunscreen for the NHL's conference finals.
The Dallas Stars' Game 7 win over Seattle last night completed what the league is billing as its "southernmost" final four ever and the first time in Stanley Cup playoffs history that all of the semifinalists are based in Sun Belt states.
The Eastern Conference final opens Thursday night with the Florida Panthers visiting the Carolina Hurricanes. Game 1 of the Western final goes Friday, with Dallas visiting the Vegas Golden Knights to begin a rematch of the 2020 conference title series that the Stars won in the Edmonton bubble.
The four remaining franchises have combined for two Stanley Cup wins, by Carolina in 2006 and Dallas in 1999. | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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