The Athletic’s John Hollinger Talks NBA Draft, Giannis & More

With the NBA draft a day away and a Giannis Antetokounmpo trade looming, The Athletic's senior NBA writer John Hollinger came on the show with guest host Kirk Morrison and set expectations early: the top of the draft is going to be chalk.

Hollinger expects Dybantsa and Peterson to be the first two players off the board, with the only real intrigue being whether the Wizards surprise everyone and take Peterson first. After that he sees Boozer to Memphis at three and Wilson to Chicago at four. "The draft will begin at five," he said, with the Clippers holding optionality on a deep group of point guards.

On the talent itself, Hollinger offered a clean frame. There is no Wembanyama in this draft, "but there are four Harpers at the top." The class is deep down to about pick 20, "and then it falls off a cliff because everyone after 20 took the NIL money and went back to school."

Because most of the top landing spots, Memphis, Washington and Chicago, are rebuilding, Hollinger expects more of a Cooper Flagg situation than instant winning for those rookies. Utah is the exception. Whether it lands Peterson or Dybantsa, that "might be a playoff team right away."

The coaching side drew attention too, with Dusty May leaving a national-championship program to take the Dallas job. Hollinger likes the fit. May is still young and has "shown he can win in different environments," from Florida Atlantic's Final Four run to Michigan. Dallas is not built to win now, so May can grow alongside Cooper Flagg and Derek Lively.

The biggest domino is Antetokounmpo, with the field reportedly down to Boston and Miami. Hollinger has leaned Miami the whole time, but now wonders if Jaylen Brown is "just too tempting" for the Bucks. He tied it to a change in the tanking rules: in the past Milwaukee might have done a full reset, but now that option is "kind of out the window," pushing the Bucks to build at least a halfway decent team. He would rather do that with Brown than a Tyler Herro-led package.

Wherever Antetokounmpo lands, Hollinger does not see him as a backseat option. In Miami he is the clear number one. In Boston it is trickier with Jayson Tatum already there, "a 1A-1B situation," and the adjustment would be Antetokounmpo embracing being a screener and playing off the ball as much as on it. Either way, he remains a top-five MVP candidate.

Morrison pressed on a dark-horse team crashing the talks. Hollinger leaned on two truisms from his front-office days: a deal is never done until it is done, and big trades often expand to a third or fourth team. He would not be surprised if this one grows, and does not expect it executed until early July. Still, he doubted a third team swoops in now, because if one had a compelling package, "by this time they would have called Milwaukee."

Asked about the Knicks as a blueprint, Hollinger pushed back on magic-bullet thinking. New York's path was "stacking about 15 straight really smart moves on top of each other," from draft picks that became trade chips to the DiVincenzo signing that helped land Towns. The lesson, he said with a laugh, is simply to make a bunch of smart moves and bring in good players.

His draft sleeper to watch: Santa Clara's Allen Graves, an analytics standout who Hollinger expects to go in the second half of the first round.

On LeBron James, Hollinger sees Lakers or Warriors as the likeliest landing spots, with Cleveland a sentimental option limited to a minimum deal. The first key is the Lakers' cap space, which they need to sort soon to chase a rim-running big for Luka Doncic and re-sign Austin Reaves and Jackson Hayes.