2025 Lottery Reaction & the Results of Traded Picks

I say it every year, but lottery is always one of the most fun dates on the NBA calendar...even if I absolutely hated this year's results. Whether it's winning the game of capture the Flagg with the #1 pick this year or a team's pick moving in or out of its crucial protection range, it's amazing to see front offices that meticulously plan and maneuver be at the mercy of random ping pong ball combinations. And after I described last year's edition as absolute chaos, this year's was was pure pandemonium with all of the movement.

As has become custom, here's a rundown of rapid fire reactions to the drawing, followed by a final tally of how all of the previously traded 1st rounders turned out. There have been so many picks dealt over the last handful of years that over half of those league's selections are not with their own teams in each round.

• To start things off, Dallas aficionado Marc Stein pointed out that this is the first time in Mavericks history that they even moved up at all in the lottery. Them winning the #1 pick was probably the most controversial result possible after stunning the basketball world with the Luka Doncic trade earlier this year...and then continually compounding it by badmouthing his work ethic afterwards and making idiotic statements like not knowing how important he was to the fan base. You hate to see stupidity rewarded, especially when there was just a 1.8% chance of this outcome.
  
  
• Amazingly, Dallas made that trade with a win-now mindset yet gets the long-term gift of Duke forward Cooper Flagg after they ended up only making the Play-In tournament. They finished tied for the 11th-best lottery odds and won a coin flip as the tiebreaker to have 18 of the 1,000 four-digit ping pong ball combinations. Chicago received 17...and the wrong half of the set of numbers that were divided between the two teams, it turns out. 
  
  
• The 10 spot jump tied the 1993 Magic for the highest among lottery winners, and that team famously winning back to back years, despite just a 1.52% chance, prompted the league to change the format. The only other teams to win with longer odds than the Mavs' 1.8% were the 2008 Bulls and 2014 Cavaliers (also back to back winners), who both hit the 1.7% chance of moving up from the #9 pick in the previous system.
  
  
• There's naturally going to be talk of the NBA rigging the system to give Dallas a new star in exchange for putting Luka in the glamour LA market like how New Orleans won the 2019 lottery to set up Anthony Davis going to the Lakers in the first place. Watching the videos of the actual drawing that the league posts every year, though, I have no idea how they would actually do it.
  
  
  
  
• I've mentioned before how the lowest number of the four balls drawn is often the key since the combinations are assigned in order, with 1-2-3-4 assigned to the worst team and so on. Since the bad teams have so many of the potential combinations with low numbers, 10, 14, and 11 being the first balls drawn was an indicator of the surprisingly big jump about to happen. 7 was the lucky number for Dallas, and Zach Lowe broke down the other possibilities this morning. A 1 would've given it to Washington, who were tied for the best odds at 14%; a 2 would've meant a win for New Orleans (12.5%); a 3 meant Brooklyn (9%); a 4 meant Toronto (7.5%); a 6 meant Portland (3.7%); 8 meant Chicago (1.7%); 9 meant Sacramento (0.8%), to keep their pick; and either a 5, 12 or 13 would've meant San Antonio (6.7% between their own pick and Atlanta's).
  
  
• More double-digit numbers came up again in the drawing for the #2 pick, with 12, 13, and 11 as the first balls before a relatively low 5 meant did San Antonio in fact move up from the 8th spot. There was a 6.34% chance of that pick landing at #2, which is pretty low compared to odds ranging from 12.23%-13.42% over the last five years, but between their own pick and Atlanta's that they have, they had a 29.66% chance of coming out of the night with a top-4 pick. There's already been buzz that they could be the team that wins the Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes, and this windfall capped a day that started with his camp soft-launching a trade request by leaking to Shams Charania that there will be a sit down with the Bucks to discuss his future. That report coming on the morning of the lottery is likely no coincidence, and the #2 pick could become a key trade chip. Rutgers lead guard Dylan Harper is widely considered to be in a tier of his own after Flagg, but after drafting Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle and trading for De'Aaron Fox over the past 12 months, there would be some positional overlap if they kept the pick to take him.
  
  
• Two teams entered the day needing some luck to keep their picks based on them landing within protected ranges. We found out almost immediately that the Kings' slim 3.84% chance of moving into the top-4 and keeping their top-10 protected 1st didn't come through when the Hawks were announced at #13. The Trail Blazers coming up at #11 is when things became interesting since that was when we first knew that the Mavs moved up from so low in the order.
  
  
• After the Rockets (via the Suns) were subsequently #10, the Raptors moving down to #9 meant that the Spurs also jumped into the top-4, and two teams that low made things precarious for the 76ers. As I've previously mentioned as a big swing point of this lottery, they had a 63.93% chance of keeping their top-6 protected pick after tanking hard down the stretch into a bottom-5 record, but that of course meant a 36.07% chance of two or more teams moving ahead of them to give the league-best Thunder a top-10 pick. And at this point two lower teams already did rise.
  
  
• It didn't help that ESPN's Kevin Negandhi COMPLETELY butchered the scenarios by claiming that those two moves meant that the pick was already lost. I know he's a big Philadelphia guy and likely panicking about the situation, but we still hadn't heard teams 7 or 8 yet to know if the Sixers also moved up themselves to keep the pick. It took three more teams being announced with no further commentary before he made the correction after someone buzzed into his ear. The Pelicans dropping from #4 all the way down to #7 was the dead giveaway, man.
  
  
• The 76ers pick not being announced there meant that they also were among the top-4 teams, and then the Wizards being announced four spots early at #6 indicated that Hornets were the last of the four with the Jazz sure to be next at #5. With Charlotte announced at #4 after the break, this resulted in the four teams with the worst records in the league moving down in the draft order, including Utah, Washington, and New Orleans all dropping 3+ spots. Like I said, pandemonium.
  
  
• This is the third year in a row that saw the worst team in the league ending up with the #5 pick, and since the NBA flattened the odds starting with the 2019 draft, none of the seven bottom dwellers won the #1 pick. This comes after teams with the worst record went without it for 10 straight years after the odds changed in the 2005 draft. Ironically, that was then followed four straight years of the worst team getting #1 leading into this current format.
  
  
• The change to these rules were meant to discourage tanking since having the worst record only provides a 14% chance at the #1 pick compared to the previous 25%, but that hasn't stopped teams from, uh, "aggressively rebuilding." And Flagg is definitely worth front offices doing whatever they could to get him. I've been workshopping "more dynamic Scottie Barnes" as a comp, and he just measured pretty similarly at the combine: 6'7.75" without shoes, 221 lbs, and a 7'0" wingspan compared to 6'7", 225 lbs, and 7'2.75" for the former ROY. Flagg has already turned himself into a good shooter (38.5% on threes, 84% on free throws) in addition to everything else he brings as a defender, rebounder, passer, and by all accounts, a competitive leader...and he only turned 18 midway through this past season. Remember, he reclassified in high school to enter college a year early and get to the NBA right away yet is already this polished.
  
  
• 7/20 Update: After a week of listening to and reading discussion of this stunning lottery, two points that stood out to me were that the odds for bad teams might've shifted too much and that maybe Play-In teams shouldn't be eligible to win. The latter being changed would obviously affect the former, but a thought that I haven't seen mentioned with this is that the looming specter of expansion (potentially in Las Vegas and back in Seattle) will change all of the odds again. Since two more teams in the lottery would then require dividing the possible combinations among 16 teams, perhaps that will be the impetus to remove the four Play-In teams who missed the playoffs from the equation? Then with 12 teams in the running, they would each get a larger slice of the pie than the current set up, and in theory only the "bad" teams have that real shot of improving. The NHL lottery (which had a fun new broadcast of the actual drawing this year with live odds updates) has 16 teams and pretty different rules, but perhaps one that the NBA could adopt is limiting how many spots a team could move up (and/or a cap to how often you can move up). I don't think this year's results will lead to immediate change like what happened after the aforementioned 1993 Magic's draw, but since expansion is seemingly coming soon, it could be the perfect time to re-assess everything. 

As mentioned above, so many teams don't have their own pick due to prior trades, and you can see it below in this look at the full draft order on Tankathon.com. Mostly out of my own curiosity, I really dug into how each 1st rounder wound up where it did.

Rockets swap the #27 pick for #10 from the Suns, via the Nets

Brooklyn's maneuvering last year really worked out for Houston with how things played out. As a reminder, the Rockets had swap rights on the Nets' 2025 1st rounder along with the 2026 1st outright as part of the James Harden trade between them in 2021, and the Nets controlled multiple Suns picks from the Kevin Durant trade in 2023. 

After Brooklyn decided to trade Mikal Bridges and fully rebuild, they regained their picks in these next two drafts by giving Houston swap rights on this year's Suns 1st, the 2027 Suns 1st, and control of the Mavericks and Suns 2029 1st rounders. That allowed Brooklyn to tank en route to the 6th-worst record, but between Phoenix imploding this season and the crazy lottery results, Houston wound up with a pick just two spots later while picking up all of that draft capital.

Hawks receive the #13 pick from the Kings

The Hawks "lost" the tiebreaker with the Kings, but because Atlanta's pick is going to San Antonio from the Dejounte Murray trade and Sacramento's is going to Atlanta, that was actually a result in favor of the Hawks. Both of these transactions were made by Atlanta in the summer of 2022 with Kevin Huerter being sent out in order to provide cover for one of the picks that they dealt, and that move did just that with the two picks being right next to each other. The Kings barely held onto the #13 pick last year with top-14 protection, but that shifted down to only the top-12 this time.

Spurs receive the #14 pick from the Hawks

In addition to receiving this pick in the Murray trade mentioned above, San Antonio still holds swap rights for Atlanta's 1st next year and their 2027 pick outright. They also received a heavily protected Charlotte 1st in this deal that they eventually included in the Fox trade a few months ago, but as I'll get to later, it's going to simply convert to two 2nd rounders instead.

The Hawks have since made a Murray trade of their own that resulted in a pick eight spots below this, a 2027 1st, and Dyson Daniels, who just won the Most Improved Player Award with them.

Thunder receive #15 pick from the Heat

This one has an interesting origin. First in 2019, Miami first sent a 2023 1st round pick with top-14 protection through 2025 to the Clippers as part of the Jimmy Butler sign-and-trade that involved four teams. LA then included it a few days later in the huge package that landed them Paul George (and thus, Kawhi Leonard), which will also come into play with the #24 pick below.

Fast forward nearly three years to the 2022 trade deadline when Miami made a new deal with OKC. They gave up a 2026 2nd rounder to dump KZ Okpala's expiring salary for room under the luxury tax and move the 1st rounder to 2025 while keeping it with just the one year of top-14 protection. This helped spread out all of the picks that the Thunder owned and allowed the Heat more flexibility. Thanks to Miami becoming the first #10 seed to win two Play-In games to make the playoffs, they now send this #15 pick instead of risking an unprotected 1st next year, and the future 1st that they owe Charlotte from another trade stays top-14 protected in 2027 instead of being unprotected in 2028.

Timberwolves receive #17 pick from the Pistons

Detroit originally dealt this heavily protected pick to Houston, along with Christian Wood in a sign-and-trade, as part of a package for the draft rights to the #16 pick, Isaiah Stewart, way back in the 2020 draft, with Robert Covington going to Portland. During the next draft, the Rockets then packaged the pick with another future 1st to acquire the #16 pick that was used on Alperen Sengun, who just made his first All-Star team this year.

Then again in the next draft, it was part of a package of three protected 1st rounders that the Thunder sent to the Knicks for the #11 pick, used on Ousmane Dieng...but that was really to make sure no one jumped in front of them taking Jalen Williams at #12. Finally, New York sent this pick to Minnesota as part of the Karl-Anthony Towns trade, and after falling within its top-16 protections for four drafts, it's conveying at long last.

Wizards receive #18 pick from the Grizzlies

Compared to that last pick, this one is a cakewalk: Memphis used it in the Marcus Smart salary dump just three months ago. It was top-14 protected, so their victory in the second stage of the Play-In Tournament just for the right to get smashed by OKC in the first round cost them this selection. They did receive the Warriors' 2nd round pick, #48, along with a 2028 2nd in that deal, so it ended up being a 30 pick drop this year. 

The Griz would have had different lottery odds thanks to a better record, but if they had lost to the Mavs in that last Play-In game, Memphis would've only sent two 2nd rounders to Washington while Dallas wouldn't have won the #1 pick.

Nets receive #19 pick from the Bucks

This was originally from the Jrue Holiday trade, and as I mentioned last year, Milwaukee can't have any complaints since that helped them win the title immediately. Then at the 2022 trade deadline, New Orleans included it in a package for CJ McCollum. Just a few months later, Portland used this pick as the top asset in their acquisition of Jerami Grant the day before the draft, and then Detroit turned around and flipped it to New York for the rights to the #13 pick, Jalen Duren. Finally, it was part of the big package that Brooklyn received in the aforementioned Bridges trade.

Heat receive the #20 pick from the Warriors

Another one from just this past trade deadline when Golden State acquired Jimmy Butler. As mentioned in my end of season notes, they went 23-8 once he debuted, and they wouldn't have made their current Second Round matchup without him. Funnily enough, the Warriors own the Heat's 2nd round pick, #41, as a result of the trade for Dennis Schroder, whose salary wound up involved in the multi-team trade for Butler.

Jazz receive the #21 pick from the Timberwolves

This was part of the massive haul that Utah received from the Rudy Gobert trade in 2022, which still has two more picks and a swap after this year. It has so far resulted in Walker Kessler, the pick that became Keyonte George, and an additional future 1st from eventually flipping Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt. On the other side, Minnesota is one win away from making their second-straight Western Conference Finals after a rocky first year with Gobert. 

Hawks receive the #22 pick from the Lakers

This is the last piece of the monumental Anthony Davis trade all the way back in 2019 that helped LA win the championship that season. New Orleans could have had the #17 pick in last year's class that was viewed as weak (Dalton Knecht ended up selected in that spot), but they instead deferred it to now with the idea that the Lakers could bottom out with Davis and LeBron James another year older, making it more appealing.

Four weeks after making that decision to defer it, the Pelicans included it as part of the package for Dejounte Murray that I noted above. Since Daniels has already emerged as the gem of that trade, the fact that the Lakers finished with this low of a pick isn't too bad, and there's still another to come.

Thunder swap the #30 pick for #24 from the Clippers

I touched on the PG13 trade earlier with the #15 pick, and this pick swap is also a part of that trade, along with the 2022 pick that I mentioned becoming J-Dub. At least the other pick swap involved didn't come to fruition in 2023, and next year's 1st will finally close the book on the final return.

Magic receive the #25 pick from the Nuggets

This is from the Aaron Gordon trade four years ago that didn't amount to much else for Orlando. Considering all of the big postseason moments that he's had with Denver, including the 2023 championship and two game-winning buckets this year, they really won this deal even more than I first thought in that write up.

Nets receive the #26 pick from the Knicks

Like with the #19 pick above, this also comes from the Bridges trade. This time it's much more straightforward coming directly from New York. With Brooklyn also owning #27 that Houston swapped up from to give them four total 1st rounders (plus #36 in the 2nd), I'd expect a trade or at least a draft-and-stash involved somewhere.

Suns receive the #29 pick from the Cavaliers, via the Jazz

Two months after the Gobert trade that provided #21 above, Utah acquired this pick in the trade for Donovan Mitchell, who obviously played a key part in them having the best record in the East to make this such a late selection. Phoenix acquired it, along with two other low-value 1st rounders (the worst of the Cavs, Jazz, or Wolves each time), four months ago in exchange for their juicy 2031 1st with no protections. As I wrote at the time, it was a fascinating value proposition that allowed the Suns to avoid the Stepien Rule of not having a 1st in back to back drafts and trade a 2026 1st in the Jusuf Nurkic salary dump. Time will tell if they make the best use of the picks available to them now to risk that asset so far down the line.

Picks that did NOT convey

Three of these have amazingly rolled over from each of the last two years that I've written these posts as the teams are still not good, so I can basically copy and paste them:

• The Knicks own a Wizards pick that originally came from the swap of John Wall for Westbrook before it was included in that group of picks I described at #17 above. It is still top-8 protected in 2026 before finally becoming 2026 and 2027 2nd round picks.
• During the 2021 draft, the Hornets sent a top-18 protected 1st to the Knicks to land Kai Jones at #19, and even as it moved to top-16, that hasn't come close to conveying either as Charlotte's finished with a bottom-four record the past years. The pick later went to the Hawks in the Cam Reddish trade, and as described in #14 above, it was moved to the Spurs as part of the Murray trade before landing with the Kings in the Fox deal. We already knew it was a fake 1st by that point, though, since it was lottery protected before now becoming 2026 and 2027 2nd round picks.
• Despite improving to almost being in Play-In territory, the Trail Blazers held onto the lottery protected 1st that they sent with Derrick Jones to Chicago in the 2021 three-way trade that landed them Larry Nance Jr. It's still lottery protected all the way through 2028 before becoming a 2nd rounder that year.

The Jazz were also mentioned last year because they sent a 1st to the Thunder back in 2021 to salary dump Derrick Favors' contract. They barely held onto its top-10 protection last year, but that wasn't in danger this time with them having the worst record. It goes down to top-8 protection next year and then extinguishes completely.

I already went into detail about how close the 76ers came to losing their top-6 protected pick, and not only did that 63.93% chance of keeping it come through, but 42.11% of that was the potential to move up. There was a 10.55% chance of them landing at #3 like they did, and now the protection shifts to only the top-4 for next years draft, in which case it would become a 2nd rounder. This obligation originally came about before the 2020 season when Philly sent this pick, the rights to the #34 pick that year, Theo Maledon, and the rights to Vasilije Micić to swap out Al Horford's huge salary for Danny Green and Terrance Ferguson. Once Tyrese Maxey got hurt on March 3rd and ended up shut down the rest of the way (along with Joel Embiid and Paul George), they went 3-20 down the stretch to ensure that old trade didn't cost them a top-10 pick.

To wrap things up, the Rockets owed a pick swap to the Thunder, but the latter moved up with the Clippers instead.