With the first pick in the 2015 N.B.A. draft, the Minnesota Timberwolves selected Karl-Anthony Towns.
From that point forward, it was anybody’s guess.
The manic opening minutes of Thursday’s draft at Barclays Center spawned one of the most entertaining first rounds in recent memory, as months of speculation was upended in a matter of picks.
After Towns was selected to the surprise of almost no one, the Los Angeles Lakers, picking second, did not wait long to toss the night’s first curveball. They took the Ohio State guard D’Angelo Russell instead of Duke’s star big man, Jahlil Okafor, the player that most analysts expected to go second.