While some of the NBA’s best teams are fighting to extend their playoff runs, a few franchises will look to take a step towards reaching the playoffs later tonight. The NBA Draft lottery, which begins broadcasting at 7:00 PM eastern time on ESPN, will give one lucky team complete control over which member of this year’s class of star college players becomes a member of its franchise.
The fourteen lottery teams have the worst records in the league, with the exception of a few teams such as the Knicks who traded away their draft picks in a previous year. The worse a team’s record, the higher odds it has of being selected in one of the top three draft slots of the random drawing. Below are the Lottery odds for each team, which will be represented by the number of winning combinations held by each (25% = 250 total combinations out of 1000, and so on).
- Milwaukee Bucks 25.0%
- Philadelphia 76ers 19.9%
- Orlando Magic 15.6%
- Utah Jazz 10.4%
- Boston Celtics 10.3%
- Los Angeles Lakers 6.3%
- Sacramento Kings 4.3%
- Detroit Pistons* 2.8%
- Cleveland Cavaliers 1.7%
- New Orleans Pelicans* 1.1%
- Denver Nuggets (via New York Knicks) 0.8%
- Orlando Magic (via Denver Nuggets) 0.7%
- Minnesota Timberwolves 0.6%
- Phoenix Suns 0.5%
Tune in tonight to see which team gets its shot at the next Lebron James (#1 pick, 2003), Dwight Howard(#1 , 2004), or John Wall (#1, 2010). Also be on the lookout for a more detailed draft preview coming later today.
