ESPN’s Vincent Goodwill Talks NBA Draft, Giannis & More

The NBA draft's most persistent comedy is the wrong hat, and ESPN senior NBA writer Vincent Goodwill says the league took a baby step toward fixing it. On Hoop Streams, the three-hour show he worked with Brian Windhorst, Vanessa Richardson and Amin Elhassan, a few players actually got handed the correct cap before the cameras found them. Most still did not.

Goodwill offered the night's best example. A player picked 21st by Detroit was being rerouted to Memphis, and when the panel kept asking him about the Grizzlies, he stared at them "like we grew a third nostril." He had just learned the news the same moment they had.

Why does any of this still happen? Goodwill pointed to the calendar, the league year, the rules on when picks and contracts can be moved. But he is not buying it as an excuse.

"When I'm the CEO of common sense, we're going back to that type of stuff," Goodwill said, recalling Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison swapping hats on live television, and Penny Hardaway and Chris Webber doing the same. He floated the absurd image of Luka Dončić as an Atlanta Hawk "for maybe one day" before the trade went through.

The basketball was bigger than the hats. Goodwill called this a generational draft, the kind people compare to 1996 and 2003, and said the suspense at the top was real. He polled roughly 25 executives on the first two picks and got a near-even split, somewhere around 13 to 12. Nobody was certain. Some questioned whether one prospect's introverted nature fit the face-of-the-franchise role, a read Goodwill found a little unfair.

He drew a clear talent line at the top. Four players profile as can't-miss franchise types, and after that, he said, "everything else becomes a crapshoot." When he asked executives where Cooper Flagg would land in this class, the answer came back instantly: number one, no doubts.

Then there is the arms race in the East, reshaped by Giannis Antetokounmpo landing in Miami. Goodwill put New York, Detroit, Boston and the Heat in the top tier, with the champion Knicks setting the standard.

"If I'm a Knicks fan, I'm still basking in the glow of June," Goodwill said. But he flagged the danger of standing still, especially with owner James Dolan signaling he won't cross into the second apron and Mitchell Robinson's free agency looming. The lesson of becoming champions, Goodwill noted, is that everyone now builds to beat you.

Boston is the trickier case. Goodwill relayed Windhorst's framing that the Celtics decided they cannot beat the Knicks as currently built. Jaylen Brown, a Finals MVP who carried Boston to 60 wins in a so-called gap year, now knows publicly he was nearly shipped to Milwaukee for Giannis. The salve, Goodwill said, is cash, a possible two-year, $140 million offer, though tying up that much against Jason Tatum's deal is its own question.

On the Timberwolves, Goodwill was blunt about the optics of dumping Julius Randle for a trade exception after dealing Karl-Anthony Towns for Randle. "Karl-Anthony Towns got a ring. You got a trade exception. That don't look good." With Donte DiVincenzo out most of next season, Minnesota has to do something with its exceptions to stay in the West.