NBA Mock Draft 3.0: The New Orleans Pelicans Land the Best Shooter

The NBA Draft Lottery was scheduled for May 19th, but it looks like the New Orleans Pelicans are going to get more time to study.

With the NBA announcing that the NBA Draft Lottery has been postponed indefinitely, the New Orleans Pelicans and rest of the NBA will have more time to do their homework.

This is probably a good thing, as the cancellation of March Madness and the Chicago combine means teams didn’t get the same opportunity to see the NCAA’s best players in high-pressure situations.

This might cause teams like the New Orleans Pelicans to play it safe in the draft and take guys who have lower ceilings but higher floors.

With the salary cap likely to go down, teams may rely more heavily on players from the draft, G-League and their own bench to offset the loss of revenue and cap space.

There is no way of knowing how this draft will turn out, as some of the best players are likely to fall out of the top ten after not getting to showcase their talents on a national stage.

There are usually players who make huge jumps after having strong tournaments, Stephen Curry is a recent example.

Without the conference tournaments and March Madness, some of these guys are going to go under the radar, which means the New Orleans Pelicans still have a chance to get a good player at the back-end of the lottery where they will likely be picking.

The uncertainty around this draft is compounded by the fact that there isn’t a consensus number one guy.

The top-five could go a lot of ways and there could be a record number of draft day trades as teams try to swap this year’s uncertainty for next year’s more heralded draft class.

We used the Draft Simulator at Tankathon to choose this draft’s order and as usual it didn’t disappoint.

Without further delay, here is our Mock Draft 3.0, one in which the New Orleans Pelicans may get the hidden gem of the draft.