The 2023 NBA Draft Lottery is set to take place on Tuesday night, and it's clear there is a lot on the line for the top teams looking to see how the ping-pong balls bounce. Everyone is expecting the team that lands the top pick in the draft to select Victor Wembanyama, and one such team that will be jostling for the top spot in the draft is the Houston Rockets.
The Rockets will enter the draft lottery with a 14 percent chance to land the number one overall pick, which is tied with the Detroit Pistons and San Antonio Spurs for the best odds of any lottery team. The lottery is a spot Houston is quite familiar with, but they have missed out on the top pick in the past two years, landing the second overall pick in the 2021 draft and the third pick in the 2022 draft.
Despite their recent inability to land that top pick, the Rockets have put together an interesting young core group of players that could be looking to make a jump forward in the 2023-24 season. Adding Wembanyama into that core group would further heighten their expectations, and when you also consider the potential James Harden rumors floating around, it's clear Houston would be the best fit for the young French phenom.
Why the Rockets would be the best fit for Victor Wembanyama
The allure surrounding Wembanyama has been going on for months, and it's not exactly hard to see why. Standing at 7'2, Wembenyama has the height to play center, but the speed and agility to play as a forward too. Right off the bat, that's versatility that not many other players in the NBA possess, but Wembanyama is clearly a rare breed.
Wembanyama spent the 2022-23 season playing with Metropolitans 92 in the LNB Pro A, which is the highest professional basketball league in France. Wembanyama's per game numbers were very strong (21.6 PPG, 10.5 RPG, 2.5 APG, 46.8 FG%, 3.1 BPG) and showcased his elite offensive and defensive abilities.
Based on what we have seen from Wembanyama so far, it's safe to expect him to immediately make whichever team drafts him better for the upcoming season and beyond. But for the most part, Wembanyama is likely going to join a rebuilding team that will struggle, even despite adding him to their ranks. That's why the Rockets are such an interesting potential landing spot for Wembanyama.
Despite finishing in a tie with the Spurs for the second-worst record in the NBA at 22-60 last season, the Rockets have a lot of talented young players on their roster. Jalen Green was the second overall pick in 2021, and Jabari Smith Jr. was the third pick in last year's draft. Add in other young guns such as Kevin Porter Jr. and Alperen Sengun, and that's already a decent group of young talent for the Rockets to build around.
Adding Wembanyama could help elevate this group to a level that they haven't been able to reach early on in their careers. The Rockets could certainly use some veteran leadership to help them out, but adding an elite scorer who can also play excellent interior defense is just what Houston needs.
Beyond this group of players, there's also a chance that the Rockets could reunite with their longtime star guard in Harden over the offseason. Harden admittedly is coming off an extremely strange Eastern Conference semifinals series with the Philadelphia 76ers, in which he had two 40-point games and game-winning shots, but struggled mightily otherwise. Despite that inconsistency, Harden could be the veteran leader Houston so desperately needs.
There are a lot of hypotheticals here, but if everything were to go Houston's way this offseason, they would almost immediately become a playoff contender in the Western Conference, which is saying a lot considering how they only won 22 games last season. There are already some decent players worth building around on this team, but Wembanyama would be the crown jewel of the bunch.
The same potential doesn't really exist with other top lottery teams such as the Pistons and Spurs. Detroit has a lot of young talent too, and will be getting Cade Cunningham back after he missed virtually the entire 2022-23 season, but they are probably a year or two behind Houston. The Spurs, meanwhile, are going to be rebuilding for quite some time even if they add Wembanyama it seems.
The Rockets have a lot of young talent that still has room to grow already, and the potential to add Harden as well also looms. Right off the bat, that makes them a potential dark horse Play-In team in the West, but when adding Wembanyama to the mix, this team looks incredibly dangerous. Considering that, and this team would have a lot of growth ahead of them, that makes the Rockets the best fit for Wembanyama in the upcoming 2023 NBA Draft.
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