{"id":698872,"date":"2026-04-05T02:03:47","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698872\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T02:03:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:03:47","slug":"utah-jazzs-draft-lottery-odds-improve-in-a-big-way-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698872\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah Jazz’s Draft Lottery Odds Improve in a Big Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

With under five games to go in their 2025-26 regular season, the Utah Jazz<\/a> might’ve snuck into some extremely fortunate circumstances in the NBA Draft Lottery<\/a> due to what transpired on Friday night’s late of games.<\/p>\n

And it’s not just because of how the Jazz took care of business themselves, but because they were able to get some extra help as well.<\/p>\n

Factoring in both the Jazz’s latest blowout loss to the Houston Rockets, 106-140, combined with the Sacramento Kings claiming a win over the New Orleans Pelicans, it places both Utah and Sacramento at a record of 21-57\u2013\u2013tied for the fourth-worst in the NBA, and thus the fourth-best for the top pick in the lottery.<\/p>\n

The late-season shift in the lottery comes both because of the Jazz’s own bleak stretch, but also thanks to a recent surge from the Kings’ behalf.<\/p>\n

As the Jazz have won only one of their past 10 games, the Kings have gone 4-6 across their own last 10 game slate. Therefore, it’s allowed Utah to make a subtle climb up the lottery standings.<\/p>\n

There’s still work to do before the Jazz can say they have top-four odds once again in this year’s lottery with a week to go in the NBA regular season. But if able to keep the losses coming, it’ll have some massively positive long-term implications for the offseason.<\/p>\n

Why a Top Four Pick is Important<\/p>\n

The biggest benefit of the Jazz claiming top four odds doesn’t center around the ceiling that pick could have. 11.5% odds at the number one pick certainly aren’t bad, but not a huge shift from the 10.5% chance that a potential fifth slot would hold. The real value is in the security it provides.<\/p>\n

If within the top four odds in the lottery, the Jazz’s top-eight protected pick currently with the OKC Thunder would have a 100% chance to be retained compared to the 99.4% in place with what the fifth-best odds would offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With under five games to go in their 2025-26 regular season, the Utah Jazz might’ve snuck into some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3785],"tags":[7,423,6,422,427,3972],"class_list":{"0":"post-698872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-jazz","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-jazz","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-utah","12":"tag-utah-jazz","13":"tag-utahjazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116349645877025848","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}