Add the 2024 NBA Draft lottery to the list of things that didn’t go the way the Memphis Grizzlies hoped.

The Grizzlies, as you may be aware of by now, had the seventh-best odds to get the No. 1 pick, and wound up with the No. 9 overall pick once the pingpong balls were drawn Sunday afternoon. Even worse: Two Southwest Division rivals — the San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets — were among the teams that made the leap into the top four Memphis wanted to take.

So what’s a team coming off an injury-ravaged gap year with urgent playoff aspirations to do?

I hope it can trade the pick.

I hope all of the upcoming research done on prospects like Stephon Castle, Matas Buzelis, Nikola Topic, Ron Holland, Dalton Knecht and whoever else might be in play in this wide-open draft turns out to be a waste of time.

I hope maybe packaging the No. 9 pick, Santi Aldama and (if we’re lucky) Ziaire Williams is enough for the Grizzlies to get the missing big man general manager Zach Kleiman spoke about right after this season ended last month.

Sign Luke Kennard to a new deal with a smaller average annual value — as opposed to picking up his $14.8 million team option — and suddenly the Memphis rotation will be mostly set before free agency even begins in July.

Wishful thinking? Probably.

It’s hard to pull off meaningful trades, especially considering this franchise hasn't been able to catch a break this season. Feel free to tweak the transaction suggested above to your liking.

This isn’t so much an argument against the Grizzlies relying on the draft — because it has yielded some strong results in the past — as much as it’s a reflection of the circumstances.

If Ja Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. are as good as this organization and city believe they are together, if they can all string together relatively healthy seasons at the same time, this might be the franchise’s best asset for some time.

The feeling here is the Grizzlies have enough inexperienced players with upside. They don’t need another one, not when there are only two seasons guaranteed with Morant, Bane and Jackson all signed. The time to act is now because, should this go as planned, Memphis won’t be slated to pick this high for the rest of its core’s prime years.

Let’s be clear: This isn’t a disaster. Being the Detroit Pistons — having the league’s worst record for the second year in a row and dropping to No. 5 in the lottery for the second year in a row — is a disaster.

Standing pat and using another top-10 pick on the best player available to help the bottom of the rotation now (and maybe grow into something more in the future) is a perfectly sound decision. So is trading down in the draft. The Grizzlies may not have had much luck lately, but they do have some options.

The optimistic sort will point out the top of this draft class is considered particularly weak. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski called this “the most unsettled draft” since 2013, when Anthony Bennett became an all-time bust at No. 1, but there were players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rudy Gobert and C.J. McCollum to be had later. The value this year is also presumably to be found later on, if the so-called experts are right.

Teams have struck gold in this slot. Since 1997, Dirk Nowitzki, Tracy McGrady, Shawn Marion, Amar’e Stoudemire, Andre Iguodala, Joakim Noah, DeMar DeRozan, Andre Drummond and Kemba Walker all were taken at No. 9 overall in the NBA draft. More realistically, Memphis simply could get someone whose rookie contract will be increasingly valuable when Jackson gets another lucrative deal in a couple of years.

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The pessimistic will note that picking No. 9 likely takes Memphis out of the running for the center who seems best to fill the void left by Steven Adams: UConn’s Donovan Clingan. He could fall, but the NBA doesn’t appear to be banking on that, given he was one of five players who attended Sunday’s draft lottery proceedings.

It’s hard to imagine, at the moment, that the Grizzlies can count on anyone else who might be available in this draft to contribute in a playoff series next season. That’s really what this is about now. Memphis could use another player it can count on in the postseason, particularly inside.

Here’s hoping this draft pick can be traded away to get him.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on X: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: NBA draft lottery: Why Memphis Grizzlies should trade No. 9 pick