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The NBA Draft Lottery is an annual event held by the National Basketball Association (NBA) to determine the draft order. The teams who had missed the playoffs the previous year participate in a lottery process, with the winner getting the first selection in the draft. The 2024 NBA Draft Lottery took place on May 12, and the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery will be held after the conclusion of the 2024-25 regular season. The NBA Draft Lottery is typically conducted during the first or second round of the NBA Playoffs in May.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Date of the next NBA Draft Lottery | May 12, 2024 |
| Number of ping-pong balls used | 14 |
| Number of teams participating | 14 |
| Teams with the highest odds of winning | Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards |
| Odds of winning for Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards | 14% each |
| Criteria for participation | Teams that did not make the playoffs |
| Number of picks decided by the lottery | 4 |
| Criteria for picks 5-14 | Based on the regular-season record of the remaining lottery teams |
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What You'll Learn
The NBA draft lottery process
The NBA draft lottery is an annual event held by the National Basketball Association (NBA) to determine the draft order. The teams that missed the playoffs the previous year participate in a lottery process to determine the order in the NBA draft. The NBA draft lottery started in 1985. The teams obtain the rights to amateur U.S. college basketball players and other eligible players, including international players. The winner of the lottery gets to pick first in the draft. A lottery pick denotes a draft pick whose position is determined through the lottery, while a non-playoff team involved in the process is often called a "lottery team".
The NBA introduced the lottery system in 1984 after the Houston Rockets won a coin flip. This was done to counter accusations that the Rockets and several other teams were deliberately losing their remaining regular-season games to secure the worst record and the chance to obtain the first pick. The lottery system involved randomly drawing an envelope from a hopper. Inside each envelope was the name of a non-playoff team. The team whose envelope was drawn first would get the first pick. The process was then repeated until the rest of the lottery picks were determined. In this system, each non-playoff team had an equal chance of obtaining the first pick.
Starting in 1987, the NBA modified the lottery system so that the first three picks were determined by the lottery. In 1990, the NBA changed the format of the lottery to give the team with the worst record the best chance of landing the first pick. The worst non-playoff team that season would have 11 chances out of 66 to obtain the first pick. The NBA further modified the lottery system in October 1993 to increase the chances of the worst team obtaining the first pick in the draft from 16.7% to 25%. At the same time, the chances of the best non-playoff team obtaining the first pick were decreased from 1.5% to 0.5%.
Under the current rules, only the top four picks are decided by the lottery, and these are chosen from the 14 teams that do not make the playoffs. The teams with the three worst regular-season records will each have a 14% chance of winning the lottery. The drawings are conducted for the first four picks, after which the other lottery teams will continue to pick in inverse order of their regular-season record.
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How the lottery drawing works
The NBA draft lottery is an annual event held by the National Basketball Association (NBA) to determine the draft order. Teams who have missed the playoffs the previous year participate in a lottery process. The NBA draft lottery started in 1985. In the NBA draft, teams obtain the rights to amateur U.S. college basketball players and other eligible players, including international players. The lottery winner gets to select first in the draft. A lottery pick denotes a draft pick whose position is determined through the lottery, while a non-playoff team involved in the process is often called a "lottery team".
Under the current rules, only the top four picks are decided by the lottery and are chosen from the 14 teams that do not make the playoffs. The teams eligible for the Draft Lottery are the 14 teams that miss out on the NBA Playoffs. The final odds are determined after the regular season is completed and after tie breaks are settled between teams with identical regular-season records. The default odds are as follows: Team > Odds for No. 1 Pick. When teams have the same regular-season record, tie-breaking procedures are enacted, which can slightly shift the odds.
The NBA introduced the lottery system in 1984 to counter accusations that teams were deliberately losing their remaining regular-season games to secure the worst record and the chance to obtain the first pick. The lottery system involved a random drawing of an envelope from a hopper. Inside each of the envelopes was the name of a non-playoff team. The team whose envelope was drawn first would get the first pick. The process was then repeated until the rest of the lottery picks were determined. In this system, each non-playoff team had an equal chance of obtaining the first pick.
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% 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. 5 through 14 in inverse order of their regular-season records.
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Teams eligible for the lottery
The NBA draft lottery is an annual event held by the National Basketball Association (NBA) in which teams that did not make the playoffs in the previous year participate in a state-lottery-style process to determine the draft order. The NBA draft lottery started in 1985. The 2025 NBA Draft Lottery will be held on May 12, 2025, in Chicago.
The teams eligible for the Draft Lottery are the 14 teams that miss out on the 2025 NBA Playoffs. The final odds will be determined after the 2024-25 regular season is completed and after tie-breaks are settled between teams with identical regular-season records. Each team will be assigned the following odds for teams starting with the reverse order of the regular-season record. The default odds are as follows: Team > Odds for No. 1 Pick.
The NBA introduced the lottery process in 1985. The league was attempting to counter accusations that certain teams were purposefully losing in order to gain a chance to participate in the annual coin flip, where the worst team in each division (each conference starting in 1971) flipped a coin to see who would receive the first pick in that year's upcoming draft. In the lottery system, the league uses "a lottery-style ping-pong ball machine with 14 balls numbered 1–14, and 1,000 four-digit combinations are assigned to the 14 lottery teams."
The NBA Board of Governors approved changes to the lottery system on September 28, 2017. Under the revamped format (which began with the 2019 Draft), the NBA Draft Lottery will ensure that the team with the worst record will receive no worse than the fifth pick. Under the pre-2019 system, the team with the worst record would pick no lower than fourth. The new system will level the odds at the top of the NBA Draft Lottery so that the teams with the three worst regular-season records will each have a 14% chance of winning the lottery. In the pre-2019 structure, the top seed had a 25% chance of winning the lottery, the second seed had a 19.9% chance, and the third seed had a 15.6% chance.
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The history of the NBA draft lottery
The NBA draft lottery is an annual event held by the National Basketball Association (NBA) to determine the draft order for the NBA draft. The NBA draft lottery started in 1985, and the process involves teams that missed the playoffs the previous year. These teams participate in a lottery to obtain the rights to amateur U.S. college basketball players and other eligible players, including international players. The winner of the lottery gets the first selection in the draft, and this is known as a "lottery pick".
In 1987, the NBA modified the lottery to include the first three picks, with the rest of the first-round picks determined by the reverse order of win-loss records. The New York Knicks were the first winners of the lottery in 1985, selecting Patrick Ewing with their first overall pick. However, there was speculation that the NBA had rigged the lottery in the Knicks' favour. This led to the introduction of the weighted lottery system in 1990, which gave the team with the worst record a higher chance of landing the first pick.
Over time, the NBA has continued to refine the lottery system. In 1993, the NBA modified the lottery again to further increase the chances of the worst-performing team obtaining the first pick while decreasing the chances of the best non-playoff team. The introduction of expansion franchises, such as the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies, also led to agreements about their eligibility for obtaining the first overall pick in certain drafts.
The NBA Board of Governors approved significant changes to the lottery system in 2017, which took effect with the 2019 Draft. Under the new format, the team with the worst record will receive no worse than the fifth pick, levelling the odds for the top picks. The NBA draft lottery is a dynamic process, with the league regularly adjusting the odds and procedures to maintain competitiveness and fairness among the teams.
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The odds of winning the lottery
The NBA draft lottery is an annual event held by the National Basketball Association (NBA) in which the teams that missed the playoffs the previous year participate in a lottery process to determine the draft order. The NBA draft lottery started in 1985. The lottery winner gets to pick first in the draft. A lottery pick denotes a draft pick whose position is determined through the lottery, while a non-playoff team involved in the process is often called a "lottery team".
The NBA has changed the lottery system multiple times since its introduction in 1985. The original system involved a random drawing of an envelope from a hopper. Inside each of the envelopes was the name of a non-playoff team. The team whose envelope was drawn first would get the first pick. The process was then repeated until the rest of the lottery picks were determined. In this system, each non-playoff team had an equal chance of obtaining the first pick.
In 1987, the NBA modified the lottery system so that the first three picks were determined by the lottery. In 1989, the envelope system was replaced by the weighted lottery system. The 1990 format gave the team with the worst record the best chance of landing the first pick. The worst non-playoff team that season would have 11 chances out of 66 to obtain the first pick. The second worst would have 10 chances, and so on.
In October 1993, the NBA modified the lottery system again to give the team with the worst record a higher chance to win the draft lottery and to decrease the better teams' chances to win. The new system increased the chances of the worst team obtaining the first pick in the draft from 16.7% to 25%, while decreasing the chances of the best non-playoff team from 1.5% to 0.5%. In the new system, 14 numbered table tennis balls were used. Then, a four-number combination from the 14 balls was drawn to determine the lottery winner.
In 1996, the team with the worst record would continue to have a 25% chance of winning the first pick. Teams two through six would have slightly fewer chances, team seven would have the same chances, and teams eight through 12 would have slightly more chances. The number of chances for team 13 did not change.
In 2014, the NBA Board of Governors voted on a proposed reform to the lottery. If the proposed changes had passed, the four worst teams in the league would have been given identical odds (around 11%) at winning the top pick. The fifth team would have had a 10% chance, and the odds would have decreased for each team picking after.
Beginning with the 2019 NBA draft, the NBA implemented a new lottery system that gave the worst three teams equal odds at the first overall pick and expanded the lottery to the top four picks. In the new system, the teams with the three worst regular-season records will each have a 14% chance of winning the lottery.
The 2025 NBA Draft order will be determined at the completion of the NBA regular season and the conclusion of the NBA Draft Lottery. The participating teams and final lottery odds will be determined at the conclusion of the 2024-25 regular season.
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