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Draft pick: Houston’s 2015 first-rounder
Stipulation: Lottery protected
The biggest move the Lakers made this summer was the acquisition of Jeremy Lin (and his enormous contract) with the pot sweetener being Houston’s first round pick. While it came with stipulations, they are lenient enough to expect the Lakers to get the pick this year.
For this season, the pick is lottery protected. Should, for some reason, the Rockets fail to make the playoffs, the pick would be top ten protected in 2016 and 2017, with the stipulations becoming lesser and lesser until the pick would be unprotected in 2021.
The bad side to this is that the Lakers have to root for Dwight Howard to win. If the Lakers are to keep the pick, which remains most likely out of all the scenarios, they need the Rockets to win. However, they would ideally want them to finish with a low playoff seed, the eighth seed being ideal.