SEATTLE — The NBA draft lottery will, in part, determine which players are picked by which teams, because every franchise has different needs. But a consensus is forming regarding which two players will hear their names called first. Both are freshmen. Both are point guards. On Saturday night, they will share the court at Hec Edmundson Pavilion before what is expected to be the Washington Huskies’ first sellout of the season.
DraftExpress projects the Boston Celtics will select UW guard Markelle Fultz with the No. 1 overall pick, and that Phoenix will follow by picking UCLA guard Lonzo Ball. NBADraft.net foretells the same situation. ESPN’s Chad Ford lists Fultz and Ball as the top two prospects in the draft, in that order. CBS Sports also projects Fultz and Ball as No. 1 and No. 2. (For what it’s worth, Celtics general manager Danny Ainge was in attendance for UW’s game Wednesday night against USC.)
The Huskies aren’t any good this season. The Bruins, at 20-3 overall, are ranked 11th nationally and have a loaded roster capable of a deep run in the NCAA tournament. So while this matchup isn’t likely to tantalize from a team perspective, it should at least provide a fine spectacle for fans curious to see how the nation’s top two draft prospects fare against one another.
Ball, a 6-foot-6 graduate of Chino Hills High School, is a superstar distributor who leads the Pac-12 in assists (eight per game), scores 14.8 points per game and seems as comfortable tossing alley-oop lobs as he is catching them and dunking. He has made a fan out of UW coach Lorenzo Romar, who compared Ball’s influence on UCLA’s offense — the Bruins lead the country in adjusted offensive efficiency, per Ken Pomeroy — to what Magic Johnson did with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Bruins already had a pair of senior guards, Bryce Alford and Isaac Hamilton, capable of scoring 30 points on a given night. And the Lakers already had Kareem Adbul-Jabbar.
But, Romar said, “they get Magic Johnson, and within a year, it’s ‘Showtime,’ and guys are passing the ball and chest-bumping, and that’s what Lonzo Ball has brought to that team, to me. In one year, it’s just changed. … The ball does not stick in one person’s hand for a very long time, and I think he has a lot to do with that.”
Fultz, the Pac-12’s leading scorer, said he knows Ball a little, though not particularly well. The two played against each other in the McDonald’s All-America game, and Fultz said “I met him a couple of times at camps and stuff like that. He’s a great player,” Fultz said. “He’s a good point guard. He can pass the ball really well. He can score the ball. He sees the game good. So I’ve got a lot of respect for him.”
Still, Fultz prefers to view Saturday’s matchup as Washington vs. UCLA, not Fultz vs. Ball.
“I don’t really worry about them,” Fultz said. “I worry about more the team. If I do that, (everything) will take care of itself. That’s mostly what I do with everything that goes on. I don’t ever worry about myself. I’m more worried about doing what I can do for the team to win. And usually if I do that, it makes myself look even better.”
Fultz has looked good all season. The rest of his team, not so much. The Huskies have lost four consecutive games for the second time this season, and are 2-8 in conference play for the first time in Romar’s 15 seasons at UW.
They seemed on the cusp of a breakthrough on Wednesday against USC, leading 37-27 at halftime, then 66-69 with a little more than seven minutes remaining. But the Trojans outscored them 23-8 in the final 6:17, winning 82-74 after holding UW to just two made field goals in the final seven minutes.
Washington’s defense, active and effective in the first half, allowed the Trojans to shoot 68.0 percent in the second. And now here come the Bruins, who shoot 53.1 percent from the field and have scored 100 or more points in seven games this season.
Ball, transcendent as he is, will not be Washington’s only problem.
“If we don’t get stops, it won’t look good for us. We must get stops. We don’t have to force them to shoot 25 percent or anything like that, but we’ve got to be able to contest their shots, and we’ve got to make it hard on them. We’ve got to try and make them work to get good shots. We’re going to have to do that.”
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