Enes Kanter, who is good friends with John Wall after spending the past year enrolled at Kentucky, said on Thursday that the Wizards are one of the teams that he would like to play for next season.

“If I had the choice, I like Washington,” Kanter said.

Kanter is projected as a top 5 pick.

John Wall is optimistic that the Wizards will find the right pieces this offseason, but he has big plans for his team and himself.

“Next year, I just want to be in the playoffs,” Wall said.

“Everything I didn’t do good this year, you’re going to see me get better at next season, making jump shots, being more confident, less turnovers. But studying a lot, being a better defender, all those things. That’s the same thing Derrick said, ‘I want to be MVP.’ It might not happen next year, but at least by my third year, I want to be in the race.”

Ten months after LeBron James left the team as a free agent, the Cavaliers took a major step toward rebuilding their franchise by winning the first overall pick in Tuesday's draft lottery.  

Ironically, the ping pong ball that bounced Cleveland's way was attached to the Clippers' selection, which the team acquired in the Baron Davis trade, not their own. The latter pick fell to fourth despite the Cavaliers having the second-best chance at taking one of the top three spots, given that the team owned the league's second-worst record.   

The Wolves, with the NBA's worst record, took the second selection and the Jazz will pick third, by way of the pick Utah acquired from New Jersey in the trade of Deron Williams to the Nets.

Full lottery results are as follows:

1.  Cleveland (via Clippers)

2.  Minnesota

3.  Utah (via Nets)

4.  Cleveland 

5.  Toronto

6.  Washington

7.  Sacramento

8.  Detroit

9.  Charlotte

10.  Milwaukee

11.  Golden State

12.  Utah

13.  Phoenix

14.  Houston

Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld believes that John Wall should’ve claimed top rookie honors.

While discussing the Wizards’ prospects in the draft lottery, Grunfeld expressed his excitement with picking Wall as the franchise cornerstone last summer and said, “He should’ve been rookie of the year...except for the rule of a second-year player being eligible.”

Griffin wasn’t exactly a second-year player since he missed the entire 2009-10 season after suffering a fractured left patella in the Clippers’ preseason finale.

John Calipari has already extended an invitation for John Wall to work out in Lexington if the league, as expected, has a lockout.

“I told him, if there is a lockout. You come back with us,” Calipari said on Wednesday in Chicago, where he watched another former pupil, Derrick Rose, accepted the Maurice Podoloff trophy as the league’s most valuable player at age 22. “I said, ‘Use our building. We’ve got facilities here. Whatever you want, if you need to, if there is a lockout, stay here. Be here in the mornings.’ ”

Wall finished out his studies after his only season at Kentucky and was a member of the Southeastern Conference freshman academic honor roll. Calipari added that if Wall were to re-enroll at Kentucky — which one of Wall’s representatives, Dwon Clifton, said on Thursday was unlikely but “still a possibility” — he could practice with the Wildcats as well to stay in basketball shape.

“He can be on the court with us. He can be a student assistant going back to school, you can put him on the court. I’m going to invite all of our guys, John, [Bulls guard and District native Keith] Bogans,” he said after watching Rose score 25 points and dish out 10 assists to lead the Bulls to an 86-73 win over the Atlanta Hawks in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference semifinal. “I even said to Derrick, you didn’t go there, but if you want, you can come down. But hopefully, there isn’t a long stoppage, but if there is, I want to make sure our guys know they can come back with us.”

Blake Griffin is the recipient of the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy as the 2010-11 T-Mobile NBA Rookie of the Year, the National Basketball Association announced. Griffin is the first unanimous Rookie of the Year selection since David Robinson in 1989-90, receiving 118 first-place votes (590 points) from an equal number of sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada. Other than Griffin and Robinson, the only other unanimous selection since the award’s inception was Ralph Sampson in 1983-84.

"Foremost Blake is a team first guy, which was evident in all 82 games this season,” stated Vice President of Basketball Operations Neil Olshey. “His work ethic, production and commitment to his coaches and teammates during his rookie campaign was unparalleled in my eight year tenure with the Clipper organization. I know being named Rookie of the Year was one of the individual goals he set for himself when we drafted him and I'm thrilled that all of his hard work has been recognized."

Finishing second was John Wall with 295 points, followed by DeMarcus Cousins, Landry Fields, Gary Neal and Greg Monroe.