How the NBA Draft Lottery results affect the Spurs

The 2022 NBA Draft Lottery has taken place, and the San Antonio Spurs will be picking 9th with their first pick, as expected. They were unable to cash in on their 20.2% chance to move up into the top four, meaning they'll be missing out on one of the three bigs widely considered the best prospects in the class.

The overall winners were the Orlando Magic, who will be drafting first overall for the first time since they selected Dwight Howard in 2004. Rounding out the top four will be the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, and Sacramento Kings, the latter of which had the biggest jump in the lottery from 7th to 4th.

The full results are as follows:

ESPN NBA Draft analyst Jonathan Givony shared his early picks for who might be taken with the first five picks after the teams were decided.

These selections will likely change in the coming weeks, as there's still the NBA Combine coming on Thursday and Friday, and many other variables could affect things. Still, it's safe to say the top three are all set in stone while everyone from 4th through 30th in the first round will be a mystery.

What the results mean for the San Antonio Spurs

This is exactly what we expected from the Spurs in the Draft Lottery. They had a 50.7% chance to land at 9th and that's what happened. There was a 25.9% chance they'd slip to 10th, but that spot ended up being claimed by the Washington Wizards.

The Spurs can now say goodbye to having Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren, or Jabari Smith on their squad next season unless one of the top three teams makes a trade, and that's highly unlikely.

Instead, San Antonio will likely be looking at prospects that could fall to their range like Jalen Duren, Keegan Murray, or some unknown that we've all somehow missed. The 9th slot should still have promising talent, and the Spurs have generally been great at drafting throughout their existence, save for a few mistakes like Luka Samanic and Nikola Milutinov.

Although they didn't pass up the Pelicans as I'd hoped they would, the fact that New Orleans didn't jump ahead is great news for San Antonio. Worse news for the Spurs is the fact that the Rockets, Thunder, and Kings will all get top-end talent, but there was very little chance at least a couple of them wouldn't end up in the top four anyway.

It's going to be an interesting few weeks leading up to the 2022 NBA Draft on June 23rd, in which the Spurs are scheduled to select 9th, 20th, 25th, and 38th overall.