A handful of ping pong balls will determine the futures of multiple billion-dollar franchises Tuesday at the NBA Draft Lottery. While the league’s most competitive teams battle for spots in the NBA Finals, the league’s worst teams from this season will be hanging on the order of every pick announced by deputy commissioner Mark Tatum.
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With one of the most-hyped prospects in recent history available this year in Victor Wembanyama, the annual lottery event will draw more attention than most years. Here’s what you need to know before the event:
When is the NBA Draft Lottery?
Live coverage of the 2023 NBA Draft Lottery will begin Tuesday at 8 p.m. on ESPN.
NBA Draft Lottery team odds for No. 1 pick
- Detroit Pistons: 14 percent
- Houston Rockets: 14 percent
- San Antonio Spurs: 14 percent
- Charlotte Hornets: 12.5 percent
- Portland Trail Blazers: 10.5 percent
- Orlando Magic: 9 percent
- Indiana Pacers: 6.8 percent
- Washington Wizards: 6.7 percent
- Utah Jazz: 4.5 percent
- Dallas Mavericks: 3 percent
- Chicago Bulls: 1.8 percent
- Oklahoma City Thunder: 1.7 percent
- Toronto Raptors: 1 percent
- New Orleans Pelicans 0.5 percent
The draft order for the remaining 16 teams is set based on regular-season record.
(Photo: Jeff Haynes / NBAE via Getty Images)
How does the NBA Draft Lottery work?
In the current lottery setup, 14 ping pong balls are placed in a lottery machine and four are drawn out at a time. There are 1,001 possible combinations of the four balls (regardless of order), and 1,000 of those combinations are assigned to the 14 teams. The number of assigned combinations is in alignment with the team’s odds to win the lottery. For example, the teams with the worst, second-worst and third-worst records have 140 assigned combinations (aligning with their 14 percent chance to win the lottery).
After being placed in the machine, the balls are mixed for 20 seconds, then the first ball is taken out. Then the remaining balls are mixed for another 10 seconds before the second ball is taken out, which repeats for the third and fourth balls. The team with that assigned combination of four balls will receive the No. 1 pick.
The process then repeats with the same balls for picks No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4. If the one unassigned combination is drawn, the result of that drawing is discarded and the balls are drawn again.
After the fourth pick is drawn for, draft slots five through 14 are assigned in inverse order of regular-season record. Thus, a team with the worst record can’t select lower than fifth, the second-worst record can’t select lower than sixth and so on.
The entire lottery drawing process is overseen by officials from Ernst & Young. Those officials are responsible for sealing and delivering the envelopes to Tatum for the broadcast. Neither Tatum nor the team representatives present on the broadcast are aware of the draft order.
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As the broadcast announces the draft order from 14 to one, any reveal that a team has slipped back in the draft is a sign that another team has leaped up.
What’s it like for a team to win the lottery?
Pelicans in 2019:The Zion Williamson draft lottery was like a storybook moment for a New Orleans franchise that was in desperate need of a fresh start. With Anthony Davis about to be traded, the Pelicans needed a new face of the franchise. By landing Williamson, they got much more than that. They were in position to land the most famous prospect since LeBron James. Williamson’s presence was not only supposed to lift up the team on the court. The excitement around his arrival was a financial boon for an organization that struggled for years to gain traction in the local market. — William Guillory
#PELICANS TICKET OFFICE IS WILDIN!!’ 🔥🔥🔥 #BirdStrikes pic.twitter.com/meihqCrWdd
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) May 15, 2019
Timberwolves in 2020: The Timberwolves and their fans were desperate for any kind of good news. They were coming off of a 19-win season, Karl-Anthony Towns had just lost his mother to COVID-19 and it was getting difficult to see the team’s path out of their struggles and back into relevance in the West. Winning the lottery gave everyone some hope, but it was tempered by the fact that there was not a Wembanyama in that year’s class, a clear-cut No. 1 who most believed could elevate a franchise on his own. It was a three-player field with Anthony Edwards, James Wiseman and LaMelo Ball, and they all carried big question marks into the pre-draft process. So while there was excitement for the opportunity to pick first, there wasn’t quite the electricity of this lottery or, say, when New Orleans won and drafted Williamson. If anything, Wolves fans underreacted to the good fortune because Edwards has shown himself to be face-of-the-franchise material in his first three seasons. — Jon Krawczynski
Pistons in 2021: Winning the 2021 lottery was the first time in a long time that Detroit and its citizens felt like the Basketball Gods didn’t hate them. The legacy franchise had been going on close to 15 years of bad luck and struggles. The No. 1 pick, Cade Cunningham, has everyone hoping that the Motor City may actually one day be back to its championship ways. —James Edwards III
Who are the top NBA Draft prospects?
Wembanyama has long been the presumed No. 1 pick and has been the top projected selection in The Athletic’s mock drafts. The 19-year-old 7-footer is currently leading France’s top-tier league in points at 21.5, rebounds at 10.1 and blocks per game at 3.1 while leading Metropolitans 92 to a 20-10 record.
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The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie has Scoot Henderson of the G-League Ignite, Alabama’s Brandon Miller, Amen Thompson of Overtime Elite and Villanova’s Cam Whitmore rounding out the top five in his 2023 draft top 100.
Beyond that tier of talent, prospects Kobe Bufkin, Taylor Hendricks and Leonard Miller have seen their stocks rise the most according to Vecenie’s evaluations.
(Photo: Chris Unger for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
History of the NBA Draft Lottery and its changes
The NBA instituted a draft lottery in 1984 for non-playoff teams beginning with the 1985 draft. In the initial lottery system, envelopes for the non-playoff teams were placed in a hopper and then removed one at a time, with every team having the same odds to land the top pick. The Knicks’ envelope was drawn first and they selected Patrick Ewing with the top pick.
In 1987, the system was altered to only determine the top three picks. After those first three envelopes were pulled, the remaining non-playoff teams were ordered in reverse order of regular-season record. This change ensured that the teams with the worst, second-worst and third-worst records could pick no lower than fourth, fifth and sixth.
In 1990, the envelope system was replaced by the weighted lottery system. In this system, there were 66 total chances and the team with the worst record had 11 chances to win, giving them a 16.67 percent chance to win the lottery, up from 14.29 percent when every team had even odds. The team with the second-worst record had 10 chances (15.15 percent), third-worst had nine (13.64 percent) and so on (there were 11 non-playoff teams before the league’s expansion).
In 1993, the league tweaked that system for the 1994 draft, increasing the lottery winning probability for the league’s worst team from 16.67 to 25 percent, increasing the odds for the three other worst teams and decreasing the odds for teams five through 11.
In 1995, the lottery expanded to 13 teams to account for the recently added Grizzlies and Raptors franchises. It would be expanded again in 2004 with the Bobcats.
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The most significant lottery update in decades came in 2017 when the league approved changes to flatten the lottery winning odds of the three worst teams to discourage tanking. In the new system, which went into effect with the 2019 draft, the bottom three teams share a 14 percent chance of winning the No. 1 pick. Drawings are now conducted for the first four picks, with slots five through 14 determined by inverse order of regular-season record.
(Photo: David Dow / NBAE via Getty Images)
Lottery history for this year’s top teams
Pistons
- Won lottery: Once (Cade Cunningham in 2021)
- Luck history: Have drafted above their pre-lottery position one time (won No. 1 pick with second-worst record in 2021)
- Unlucky history: Have drafted below their pre-lottery position seven times (most recently in 2022, winding up with No. 5 pick despite third-worst record)
Rockets
- Won lottery: Once (Yao Ming in 2002)
- Luck history: Have drafted above their pre-lottery position one time (won No. 1 pick with fifth-worst record in 2002)
- Unlucky history:Have drafted below their pre-lottery position two times (most recently in 2022, picking No. 3 despite league-worst record. Also had worst record in 2021 and picked No. 2)
Spurs
- Won lottery: Twice (David Robinson in 1987 and Tim Duncan in 1997)
- Luck history:Have drafted above their pre-lottery position three times (won No. 1 pick in 1987 with fourth-worst record, won No. 1 pick in 1997 with third-worst record, moved up to No. 3 pick in 1989 with fourth-worst record)
- Unlucky history:The Spurs have never drafted lower than their pre-lottery position
Hornets
- Won lottery: Once (Larry Johnson in 1991)
- Luck history: Have drafted above their pre-lottery position four times (won No. 1 pick in 1991 with fifth-worst record, moved up to No. 2 with eighth-worst record in 1992, moved up to No. 3 with 13th-worst record in 1999, moved up to No. 3 with eighth-worst record in 2020)
- Unlucky history:Have drafted below their pre-lottery position six times (most recently in 2013, picking No. 4 despite second-worst record. Also fell to No. 2 in 2012 despite league-worst record)
Trail Blazers
- Won lottery: Once (Greg Oden in 2007)
- Luck history: Have drafted above their pre-lottery position two times (won No. 1 pick in 2007 with seventh-worst record, moved up to No. 3 with fourth-worst record in 2005)
- Unlucky history:Have drafted below their pre-lottery position two times (most recently in 2022, picked No. 7 despite sixth-worst record. Also fell to No. 4 in 2006 despite league-worst record)
Required reading
- 2023 NBA Draft Top 100 Big Board: Wemby still No. 1; Taylor Hendricks among big risers
- Redrafting the 2022 NBA Draft class: Is Paolo Banchero No. 1? Where does Chet Holmgren land?
- 2023 NBA Draft: Writers mock the top-5 picks after one Tankathon spin
(Photo: Jeff Haynes / NBAE via Getty Images)
