NEW YORK -- If the Sacramento Kings are to be believed, 1993 should be a very good year.
It is generally considered to take three years to assess an NBA draft class and with four picks in the first round, the Kings have almost wholly staked their future on young stars rebuilding the franchise.
Sacramento took La Salle forward Lionel Simmons with with its seventh pick, Texas guard Travis Mays at No. 14, Temple center Duane Causwell at No. 18 and St. Louis forward Anthony Bonner with the 23rd selection.
Only eight teams have had as many as three first-round picks since the draft was instituted in 1947. The first time it happened was 1977 when the Los Angeles Lakers took Ken Carr, Brad Davis and Norm Nixon, and Milwaukee took Kent Benson, Marques Johnson and Ernie Grunfeld. The last time was 1989, when Chicago selected Stacey King, B.J. Armstrong and Jeff Sanders.
The Kings completed two major trades leading up to the draft to become the first team in the NBA to have four first-round selections. The Kings traded away Pervis Ellison, taken with the overall No. 1 pick in the 1989 draft, in a three-way deal to get the 23rd pick.
And on Tuesday they traded Rodney McCray to Dallas for the Mavericks' two first-round picks, the 14th and 18th. Dallas, apparently didn't put much stock in this year's crop of college players, trading away three first round picks to get Lafayette Lever from Denver and McCray.
'We set out to rattle the tree a bit, but it looks like we rattled the league,' said Kings Coach Dick Motta.
Sacramento also made a draft-night deal, selecting guard Bimbo Coles in the second round and then sending him to the Miami Heat for veteran guard Rory Sparrow.
There were also a couple of deals made involving Dennis Scott, selected fourth by the Orlando Magic. Actually, they were non-deals. Orlando sent a pair of future second-round picks to Seattle for the Sonics not taking Scott with their overall second pick. And Seattle sent New Jersey a future No. 2 for doing the same thing with their No. 1 pick.
As expected, guards and forwards were the darlings of the draft. The Nets took forward Derrick Coleman of Sryacuse with the first pick and Seattle followed with guard Gary Payton of Oregon State. Denver then took guard Chris Jackson of LSU with the third pick.
The selections of Payton and Jackson marked the first time since 1973 that two guards (Doug Collins and Ernie DiGregorio) were among the first three picks.
Centers, an always sought after commodity in the draft, were bypassed for the most part in the first round. In all just three pivotmen were taken among the first 27 picks (No. 6 Felton Spencer of Louisville by Minnesota, Causwell by the Kings, and No. 24 Dwayne Schintzius by San Antonio).
There was much jockeying in the draft as 11 of the first 23 picks were traded to other teams. Of the ninth through 16th selections, only the Houston Rockets at No. 12 kept their original pick.
The Kings put the most faith in the draft class of 1990, taking four players in the first round. They selected forward Simmons, the College Player of the Year, at No. 7, shooting guard Travis Mays of Texas No. 14, Causewell at No. 18 and forward Anthony Bonner of St. Louis at No. 23.
'I think the No. 1 thing they will ask me to do is score points,' Simmons said. 'But I'll want to do some other things for them like passing and rebounds.'
The Kings went about revamping their lineup the past week, trading the No. 1 pick in last year's draft, Pervis Ellison, as part of a three-way deal. On Tuesday they sent Rodney McCray to Dallas for the picks that turned into Mays and Causwell.
The NBA champion Detroit Pistons had the next-to-last pick in the first round, choosing guard Lance Blanks of Texas.
The draft produced its usual jockeying. Houston traded the rights to No. 12 forward Alec Kessler of Georgia to Miami for the rights to No. 15 guard Dave Jamerson of Ohio University and their second-round pick guard Carl Herrera of Houston. The Heat then sent guard Rory Sparrow to Sacramento for the rights to second-round pick guard Bimbo Coles.
Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Indiana, Philadelphia, Utah and Washington did not have first-round picks. Dallas traded three first-round picks before the draft.
Two foreign players were selected. Chicago chose Yugoslavian forward Tony Kukoc with the 29th pick and Cleveland went for Italian forward Stefano Rusconi with the 52nd.
