2019 NBA Draft Lottery: Under Old Format, Atlanta Hawks Would Have Won #1… and Zion Williamson

A rather painful potential scenario for the Atlanta Hawks regarding the 2019 NBA Draft lottery, which took place on Tuesday night.

As we all know now, the New Orleans Pelicans shocked the world and moved up six spots in the 2019 NBA Draft lottery – which left the Atlanta Hawks in the cold all the way back at #8 overall.

While things could’ve been worse (the Dallas Mavericks could’ve moved up, removing their pick obligations this season to the Hawks), falling that far in the lottery is definitely less than ideal.

Adding insult to the injury is the fact that many objective parties wanted the Atlanta Hawks to win the lottery so that the NBA could have Zion Williamson, Trae Young and John Collins all on the same team – an NBA League Pass masterpiece waiting to happen.

Before the lottery even began, a video leaked of Zion Williamson double-tapping the Atlanta Hawks logo in the lottery room in a move to try and land in the promised land of the ATL:

That added fuel to the fire, which was fanned vociferously all across the internet, to the point that Zion to Atlanta seemed like a semi-viable outcome. Of course, as with all Atlanta sports outcomes, it was destined to disappoint, and instead the Hawks left the 2019 NBA Draft lottery with two Top 10 picks.

Sure that’s not bad, but it’s also not Zion. Furthering this pain is reporting from Peachtree Hoops’s Jeff Siegel, which outlines a shocking truth after poring over the lottery results in-depth:

Man, that really, really hurts. It seems by reworking the NBA’s lottery odds, the league cheated the Atlanta Hawks out of a chance at landing the best prospect in recent memory in the 12th-largest media market in the NBA per @AmericanNumbers on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/AmericanNumbers/status/1128794783332392961

What can you do? Sometimes the ping-pong balls fall your way, and sometimes they don’t. If this lottery had occurred before the rules had changed, the Hawks would be all set. Sadly, that wasn’t the case, which leaves Atlanta Hawks fans pondering that age-old question of “What if?”

There will be plenty more 2019 NBA Draft coverage regarding the Hawks, so keep it locked to Soaring Down South all summer long.