The NBA draft lottery is an annual event held by the National Basketball Association (NBA), in which the teams who had missed the playoffs the previous year participate in a lottery process to determine the draft order in the NBA draft. The NBA draft lottery started in 1985. In the NBA draft, the teams obtain the rights to amateur U.S. college basketball players and other eligible players, including international players. The lottery winner would get the first selection 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 team with the worst record, or the team that holds the draft rights of the team with the worst record, has the best chance to obtain a higher draft pick. After the top four positions are selected (from the lottery slotting system), the remainder of the first-round draft order is in inverse order of the win–loss record for the remaining teams, or the teams who originally held the rights if they were traded. The lottery does not determine the draft order in the subsequent round of the draft.
After the 2019 draft, the NBA changed the lottery odds (the bottom three teams will all have an equal 14% chance of winning the top pick) and increased the number of teams selected in the lottery from three to four.
History
1947–1965: Territorial picks
In the earlier drafts, the teams would draft in reverse order of their win–loss record. However, a special territorial-pick rule allowed a team to draft a player from its local area. If a team decided to use its territorial pick, it forfeited its first-round pick in the draft. The territorial pick, if used, would happen before the first pick in the draft.
1966–1984: Coin flip In 1966, the NBA revamped its draft system and introduced a coin flip between the worst teams in each conference to determine who would obtain the first overall draft pick. The team that lost the coin flip would get the second pick, and the rest of the first-round picks were determined in reverse order of each team's win–loss record.
While the coin flip system gave the worst teams in each conference an equal chance to have the first draft pick, if the two worst teams overall were in the same conference, the second-worst team overall would have no chance of obtaining the first draft pick.
1985–1989: Early lottery system After the 1984 coin flip, which was won by the Houston Rockets (who also won the coin flip in 1983), the NBA introduced the lottery system to counter the accusations that the Rockets and several other teams were tanking by deliberately losing their remaining regular season games in order to secure the worst record and consequently 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 to obtain the first pick. The rest of the first-round picks were determined in reverse order of the win–loss record.
Starting from 1987, the NBA modified the lottery system so that the first three picks were determined by the lottery. After the three envelopes were drawn, the remaining non-playoff teams would select in reverse order of their win–loss record. This meant that the team with the worst record could receive no worse than the fourth selection, and the second-worst team could pick no lower than fifth, and so on.
The New York Knicks were the first winner of the lottery in 1985. They selected Georgetown University standout Patrick Ewing with their first overall pick. However, speculation arose that the NBA had rigged the lottery so that the Knicks would be assured to get the first pick. Even though the envelope system was highly criticized, it was used until 1989 before being replaced by the weighted lottery system in 1990.
1990–2026: Weighted lottery system 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 second worst would have 10 chances, and so on. Similarly to the previous system, the weighted lottery system was also used only to determine the first three picks, while the rest of the teams selected in reverse order of their win–loss records.
Despite the weighted odds, the Orlando Magic managed to win the lottery in 1993 with only one chance to obtain the first pick as it was the best non-playoff team in the previous season. In October 1993, the NBA modified the lottery system 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 percent to 25 percent, while decreasing the chances of the best non-playoff team from 1.5 percent to 0.5 percent.
In the new system, 14 numbered table tennis balls were used. Then, a four-number combination from the 14 balls were drawn to determine the lottery winner. Prior to the draft, the NBA assigns 1,000 possible combinations to the non-playoff teams (the 11–12–13–14 combination is ignored and redrawn). The process was then repeated to determine the second and third pick. The table below shows the lottery chances and the probabilities for each team to win the first pick in the weighted lottery system in 1993 and 1994 drafts.
In 2014, the NBA Board of Governors voted on a proposed reform to the lottery. If the proposed changes passed, the four worst teams in the league would have been given identical odds (around 11 percent) at winning the top pick. The fifth team would have a 10 percent chance and the odds would decrease for each team picking after. The proposed changes were designed to disincentivize having the worst record in the league (at the time, the worst team was given a 25% chance at the top pick) and keep teams competitive throughout the entire season. The final vote was 17–13 in favor of the reform, short of the 23 votes in favor required to push the change through.
In 2016, Dikembe Mutombo made people question the draft's legitimacy when he prematurely tweeted a congratulatory message to the Philadelphia 76ers for receiving the first pick hours before the lottery was conducted. Philadelphia did indeed win the first overall pick. Further questions were raised when the NBA draft revealed that every spot remained exactly the same as it was before the event took place, which was the first occurrence in draft lottery history. A year later, Lakers executive Magic Johnson raised even further questions about the draft process with him assuring head coach Luke Walton that the Lakers would acquire a top-3 pick for the 2017 NBA draft after an interview Walton had on May 4, 2017, twelve days before the draft lottery commenced and moved up to the second pick.
In response to teams like the Philadelphia 76ers deliberately seeking high-loss season records in order to improve their draft odds, beginning with the 2019 NBA draft the NBA implemented a new lottery system giving the worst three teams equal odds at the first overall pick and expanding the lottery to the top four picks (up from the top three picks). As with the changes proposed in 2014, these changes were intended to disincentivize high-loss seasons by flattening the odds of getting the top pick and increasing the likelihood of the worst teams having to pick later in the draft.
1993 draft lottery1994 draft lotteryTeam1992–93recordChances(out of 66)ProbabilityTeam1993–94recordChances(out of 1,000)Probability1Dallas11–711116.67%Dallas13–6925025.00%2Minnesota19–631015.15%Detroit20–6216416.40%3Washington22–60913.64%Minnesota20–6216416.40%4Sacramento25–57812.12%Milwaukee20–6216316.30%5Philadelphia26–56710.61%Washington24–58949.40%6Milwaukee28–5469.09%Philadelphia25–57666.60%7Golden State34–4857.58%L.A. Clippers27–55444.40%8Denver36–4646.06%Sacramento28–54272.70%9Miami36–4634.55%Boston32–50151.50%10Detroit40–4223.03%L.A. Lakers33–4980.80%11Orlando41–4111.52%Charlotte41–4150.50%
In 1995, the NBA had an agreement with the two expansion franchises, the Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies that neither team would be eligible to obtain the first overall pick in the 1996, 1997 and 1998 drafts. The Raptors won the 1996 lottery but were forced to settle for the second pick. Another combination was drawn and resulted in the Philadelphia 76ers getting the first pick. Two years later, the Grizzlies won the lottery and likewise had to pick second in the draft, while the L.A. Clippers obtained the first pick. The Raptors did not pick first until 2006, when they won the lottery as the fifth-worst non-playoff team. The Grizzlies have yet to hold the first selection.
Starting in 2027: 3-2-1 format In 2027, the NBA will implement the "3-2-1 format", aiming to disincentivize tanking by expanding the lottery to 16 teams and reducing the odds of the teams with the worst records receiving the first overall pick. All teams that failed to reach the playoffs or the play-in tournament will receive three lottery balls, except the three teams with the worst overall records will be considered “draft relegated” and lose one ball, thus only receiving two. However, those three teams are guaranteed to pick within the top twelve to compensate for the penalty, whereas all remaining 13 others can fall down to 16th. The four teams that secure the ninth and tenth seeds in the play-in tournament will receive two lottery balls. Lastly, the two teams that lose in the play-in games between the seventh seed and the eighth seed will receive one lottery ball, both provisionally. However, any play-in team that makes the playoffs graduate out of the lottery completely.
The new format will also forbid teams from winning the first overall pick in consecutive drafts. It will also forbid teams from winning a top-five pick in three consecutive drafts. Additionally, protecting picks from the 12th pick to the 15th pick will no longer be allowed.
Process The lottery is normally held in the first or second round of the NBA Playoffs, typically during the first or second round of the main playoffs in May.
The pool of lottery contestants consists of the teams who failed to qualify for that season's postseason. Since the expansion of postseason from 16 to 20 teams with a Page-McIntyre tournament to eliminate four teams, the four teams eliminated in the Page-McIntyre system are also draft lottery eligible. They are seeded in order from worst record to best, with each team's seed determining the odds it will have of winning one of the top four draft picks.
The winners of the top four picks are determined by the following process, beginning with the first draft pick. Fourteen ping pong balls numbered 1–14 are placed in a standard lottery machine and four balls are randomly selected one at a time from the lot. The balls are placed in the machine for 20 seconds to randomize before the first ball is drawn. The remaining three balls are drawn after remixing for 10 seconds. Just as in most traditional lotteries, the order in which the numbers are drawn is immaterial; e.g., a drawing of 1–2–3–4 in that order is the same as 4–1–3–2.
There are a total of 1,001 possible combinations of four balls numbered 1 through 14, with one combination (balls 11–12–13–14, regardless of order) being deemed invalid: the balls are redrawn if this combination is drawn.