Reverse standings: Lottery field, odds set ahead of May 20 draw
The NBA's regular season is over! For 16 teams, that means it's time to turn the focus ahead to the playoffs, but for the unlucky (or lucky, depending on your point of view) 14 teams on the outside looking in, attention now turns to May 20.
The NBA will hold its annual draft lottery on May 20 to determine the selection order for the June 26 NBA draft.
With the season in the books, we now know which teams have the best odds of nabbing the top selection. We also know, then, the odds for each team to land in the top-five and the top-ten, as well as how likely a team is to keep a pick that they owe to another team with protections.
The table below shows the final reverse standings and each team's odds of selecting in certain places. For more information on picks that have been traded, you can catch up with the storyline below.
Team | Record | #1 Pick | Top-5 | Top-10 | Pick Owned (% Chance to keep) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
MIL | 15-67 | 25.00% | 100.00% | 100.00% | Yes |
PHI | 19-63 | 19.90% | 100.00% | 100.00% | Yes |
ORL | 23-59 | 15.60% | 96.00% | 100.00% | Yes |
BOS | 25-57 | 10.35% | 69.05% | 100.00% | Yes |
UTA | 25-57 | 10.35% | 69.05% | 100.00% | Yes |
LAL | 27-55 | 6.30% | 21.50% | 100.00% | Yes |
SAC | 28-54 | 4.30% | 15.00% | 100.00% | Yes |
DET | 29-53 | 2.80% | 10.00% | 100.00% | Top-8 (82.4%) |
CLE | 33-49 | 1.70% | 6.10% | 99.60% | Yes |
NOP | 34-48 | 1.10% | 4.00% | 91.00% | Top-5 (4%) |
DEN | 36-46 | 0.80% | 2.90% | 2.90% | Yes (Higher of Den/NY) |
NYK | 37-45 | 0.70% | 2.50% | 2.50% | No (To Den/Orl) |
MIN | 40-42 | 0.60% | 2.20% | 2.20% | Top-13 (98.2%) |
PHX | 48-34 | 0.50% | 1.80% | 1.80% | Yes |
(Detroit's pick would be conveyed to Charlotte, New Orleans' to Philadelphia and Minnesota's to Phoenix.)
For you conspiracy theorists, there is a 1.42 percent chance that the lottery ends up with the Celtics and Lakers picking first and second in some order.