Utah Jazz had the NBA’s worst record but didn’t even get a top-four pick, all while the Mavs, a play-in team, got Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 pick. The NBA draft lottery needs to be reformed again.
The 2025 NBA draft lottery was a jarring, disorienting, what-the-heck-just-happened experience. The Dallas Mavericks had less than a two-percent chance of getting the No. 1 pick. They landed that top pick and will select Cooper Flagg of Duke.
The NBA draft lottery outcomes — not just the No. 1 pick — were so wildly improbable that fans and observers simply had a hard time processing what had happened. Plenty of basketball fans felt the lottery was rigged — yes, there were a lot of jokes about the topic, but some people really do believe the process is manipulated by Adam Silver’s league. Regardless of that point, the NBA should reconsider how it structures the lottery. The league has a well-intentioned plan to discourage tanking, but the desire to disincentivize losing games has to be balanced with an awareness that the only way bad teams rebuild is precisely through the draft.
When we consider the winners and losers of the NBA draft lottery, we can discuss and explore common-sense reforms to the event:
Nico Harrison traded Luka Doncic. He gets rewarded with Cooper Flagg. Life isn’t fair. Sports aren’t fair, either.
In past years, before the lottery process was reformed, the Jazz would have had much higher odds of getting the No. 1 pick. This year, they got the No. 5 pick. The team with the NBA’s worst record is guaranteed a pick no lower than No. 5. That might seem like a generous protection for such a team, but seeing the Jazz fall to No. 5, they surely don’t think they were protected.
The Spurs had the eighth-best odds of getting the No. 1 pick. They wound up getting the No. 2 pick. They weren’t as lucky as Dallas, but they were luckier than every other team at the lottery.
The Wizards were right there with the Jazz as one of the two worst teams in the league. Washington not only failed to get the No. 1 pick; it didn’t even get a top-five pick. This is where NBA draft lottery reform needs to enter the picture. Bottom-three teams should all be guaranteed top-five picks, and the worst team should be guaranteed a top-three pick. The NBA overcorrected in the attempt to balance out the lottery with its flattened odds.
Winner — Philadelphia 76ers
The Sixers had the fifth-best odds of getting the top pick. They wound up with the No. 3 pick, two spots better than what they had a right to reasonably expect.
Loser — Charlotte Hornets
The Hornets were the other bottom-three NBA team to not get a pick in the top three.
Winner — Anthony Davis
The Mavericks’ big man, who came to Dallas in the Luka Doncic trade, now gets Cooper Flagg as a teammate. Davis is surely very happy right now. Flagg is likely to space the floor in ways which should immensely benefit Anthony Davis.
Loser — Houston Rockets
The Rockets watched the Mavericks and Spurs — two in-state, in-conference rivals — get top draft placements. The Rockets’ future just became more difficult in the 2025 NBA draft lottery.
Winner — Eastern Conference
The NBA’s Eastern Conference won’t have to deal with Cooper Flagg or (most likely) projected No. 2 pick Dylan Harper as much as the Western Conference will. The Mavericks and Spurs are two teams which could become really good very quickly as a result of this lottery. The only Eastern Conference team which might be able to quickly improve is Philadelphia. The 76ers have the No. 3 pick. Yet, Philly has so many other roster questions. There’s no East team likely to make a big leap next season as a specific consequence of these lottery results. Only in the West do those kinds of teams exist, and they’re both in the state of Texas.
Loser — NBA
The NBA looks bad, even though it does not in actual fact rig its lottery. (If anyone has proof, go ahead and submit it. Believing the process is rigged is not actual evidence.) It’s clear the NBA has not calibrated its reform efforts properly. The league needs to go back to the drawing board and readjust the process in the other direction.
The Jazz, Wizards and Hornets have a right to feel this process is not fair, especially Utah and Washington. The Jazz should have had nothing less than the No. 3 pick, Washington nothing lower than No. 4. The “flattened odds” plan needs to give way to a less balanced approach which does tilt the playing field toward the worst teams in the league. Those are the teams which need the most help. Anti-taking measures are reasonable but — like all other things — need to have their own sensible limits.
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