CHICAGO — This Sunday’s NBA draft lottery could deliver top picks to teams that spent the season deliberately losing games, with Washington guaranteed a top-five selection and Brooklyn and Utah positioned for premium picks after enduring some of the worst seasons in franchise history.
The lottery process involves drawing four ping-pong balls from a secured container, witnessed by team representatives and select media members in a private room. These balls create a numerical combination that corresponds to one assigned to participating teams, determining who receives the first overall pick in next month’s draft.
“June 23rd, I’ll know where I’m at,” said AJ Dybantsa, the BYU standout who declared for the draft after leading college basketball in scoring this past season.
Dybantsa will likely learn his destination Sunday, as he joins Kansas’ Darryn Peterson and Duke’s Cameron Boozer among the projected top three selections.
Washington, Brooklyn, and Indiana each hold identical 14% chances of securing the number one pick — though those remain relatively modest odds.
The Wizards compiled a dismal 3-26 record following the All-Star break, including allowing Miami’s Bam Adebayo to score 83 points in a single contest. Washington cannot drop below fifth position and faces essentially even odds of landing exactly there, with a 52.1% probability of a top-four selection versus 47.9% for fifth place.
“This was going to be a season of development and opportunity,” said Wizards coach Brian Keefe during his end-of-season press conference. “And that is something that we really focused on all the way up to Game 82.”
Washington anticipates significant improvement next season after acquiring Trae Young and Anthony Davis through trades, making another basement finish unlikely with a potential top pick added to the roster.
Accusations of tanking — intentionally losing to improve draft position — have surrounded Washington, Brooklyn, and Utah this season.
Brooklyn suffered their worst point differential in franchise history, being outscored by 975 points and losing 43 games by double digits. Utah endured their own historic low, getting outscored by 858 points with 41 double-digit defeats.
Nets owner Joe Tsai acknowledged the rebuilding approach before the season began.
“We hope to get a good pick,” Tsai stated at the All-In Summit last fall. “So, you can predict what kind of strategy we will use for this season.”
The league fined Utah $500,000 during the season for benching top players in fourth quarters, though the Jazz still managed to win one such game in Miami. Their poor finish secured a top-eight pick that otherwise might have transferred to Oklahoma City.
Remaining lottery odds for the top selection include Utah and Sacramento at 11.5%, Atlanta at 9.8%, Memphis at 9%, Dallas at 6.7%, Chicago at 4.5%, Golden State at 2%, Oklahoma City at 1.5%, Miami at 1%, and Charlotte at 0.5%.
Atlanta’s percentage combines two separate scenarios that could deliver them the first pick.
In a potentially controversial outcome, the defending champion Thunder could claim the top pick despite their success. If the position typically belonging to the Clippers wins the lottery, it transfers to Oklahoma City through the trade that brought Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to the Thunder.
The Clippers maintain a 48% chance of moving up if Indiana lands in fifth or sixth position, as those picks would convey to Los Angeles rather than staying with the Pacers.
“Call it a coin-flip chance of getting a high, high lottery pick in a loaded draft,” said Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank.
The NBA expects to implement a revised lottery system next season, with framework established last month to further discourage tanking behavior. The Board of Governors will likely approve these changes in coming weeks, following Tuesday’s general manager meeting in Chicago.
This season featured an unprecedented race to lose, with five teams — Washington, Indiana, Utah, Memphis, and Brooklyn — posting sub-.180 winning percentages after the All-Star break, marking the first time in league history so many franchises performed this poorly in the season’s final stretch.
“The incentives are not necessarily matched here,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in February regarding teams with the worst records receiving the best lottery odds. “I think the tradition in sports where the worst-performing team receives the first pick from their partners, when any economist comes and looks at our system, they always point out you have the incentives backwards there. That doesn’t necessarily make sense.”
