Basketball On The Internet.

BOB'S CORNER: THE first round of the NBA playoff play-in round is over with the Chicago Bulls coming from way down to nip Toronto 109-105, behind 39 points from all-star Zack LaVine, and the Oklahoma City Thunder downing New Orleans 123-118. 

Aussie star Josh Giddey paced OKC with a 31-point (equalling his career-high), 10-assist, 9-rebound haul, reinforcing his bona fides.

Additionally, Atlanta dumped the Miami Heat 116-105, and the Lakers survived a bonehead play by Anthony Davis at the end of regulation, but still managed to win out in OT over Minnesota 108-102. 

With LA up by three and essentially no time left, Minnesota's Mike Conley took a deep three from the left corner as the Lakers' Davis flew at him.  The shot missed but Davis crashed into Conley and knocked him out of bounds with 0.1 seconds on the clock.  Conley then calmly made all three free throws to send it into OT.  Fortunately for the Lakers, they won anyway.

The WNBA held its annual draft this past Monday with the Indiana Fever having the top, pick and taking 194cm post Aliyah Boston of South Carolina U, a three-time All-American and former NCAA Player of the Year. 

The second pick went to Minnesota who chose U. of Maryland guard Diamond Miller.  Dallas had the third pick and chose Villanova's Maddy Siegrist, the NCAA's leading scorer this past year.

An interesting pick was made by the LA Sparks, who used the second pick in Round 2 to take 19-year-old Aussie guard Shaneice Swain of the Uni of Canberra Capitals in the WNBL. 

This will be a "draft-and-stash" pick. That is, she will not sign and play in the 2023 season but will wait until next year to do that, as LA retains her signing rights until next season. 

The Seattle Storm have done the same thing with Aussies the last couple of years, first with budding star Ezi Magbegor, and then again this past year with guard Jade Melbourne.

Everybody in the league will be looking to find gold somewhere in the draft, as all teams will be very hard put to compete this coming season with the two "super teams" in the league - Las Vegas and New York, both of whom are fully loaded with multiple All-Stars and former league MVP's.

Locally, the Seattle Storm, a perennial playoff team historically, lost eight of their top 10 scorers from last year.  They have not done a lot on the free agent market, either, so it's likely to be a somewhat trying season for them. 

The local press had very nice things to say about the three Aussies on their roster this year -  Magbegor and newcomer Jade Melbourne are already signed for the upcoming year, and they also brought back the veteran Sami Whitcomb to (hopefully) take over point guard. 

They've also brought in guard Kia Nurse, the best player on the Canadian national team and an MVP of the WNBL with Canberra.  Still, it'll be a struggle in the view of most for them to make the playoffs, or to advance very, even if they did.