How the NBA Draft Lottery Works

The NBA Draft Lottery is an annual event in which the fourteen teams who did not make the playoffs vie for the right to choose first in the NBA draft.

Introduction

The NBA Draft lottery is an annual event in which the fourteen teams that did not make the playoffs during the previous season participate in a drawing to determine the order of selection for the NBA draft. The lottery has been held every year since 1985, when it was instituted as a way to discourage tanking (intentionally losing games in order to improve draft position).

The team with the worst record in the league is given the best chance of winning the lottery, and thus the first overall pick. The odds decrease incrementally for each of the other thirteen teams. The lottery does not determine all of the draft picks; it only determines the order of selection for the first fourteen picks. The remaining sixteen picks are determined by inverse order of finish for the non-playoff teams.

The lottery itself is a weighted drawing in which balls are drawn from a drum containing fourteenth Ping-Pong balls, numbered 1 through 14. There are 1,000 possible combinations when four balls are drawn out of fourteen, and each combination is assigned a certain number of chances, or ‘weight.’ The team with the worst record is given 250 chances, or a 25% chance of winning; this decreases incrementally so that teams with better records have less of a chance to win (but more than one chance).

To determine which team will receive each pick, four balls are drawn out of 14 without regard to weighting/order; these four numbers correspond to indicia on graphic display boards arranged in random order. The team represented by those indicia receives that pick; then, another ball is drawn to break any ties for earlier picks. For example: if two teams’ indicia match two of those drawn earlier for other picks—say, Balls 3 and 11 were earlier drawn—then Ball 10 would be drawn next to see who gets Pick 3 and who gets Pick 11; if that doesn’t break it—say, both Ball 10 and some other ball match another picked earlier—then Ball 12 would be next until somebody gets Pick 3 and somebody gets Pick 11. After all 14 first-round selections have been made this way (that is, after 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 10 balls have been drawn), then Balls 1–4 are placed back in and another round begins to fill Picks 15–28 using this same process; then Balls 1–3 are placed back in and used to fill Picks 29–30 using this same process because there can only be two losing playoff teams per conference (and therefore only two second-round selections per conference).

The NBA Draft Lottery Process

The NBA draft lottery is an annual event held by the National Basketball Association (NBA), in which the teams that did not make the playoffs are given the chance to win the first overall pick in the NBA draft. The lottery process is simple: the 14 non-playoff teams are each given a certain number of chances (out of 1,000) to win the first overall pick, with the team with the worst record being given the most chances and the team with the best record being given the fewest chances. The lottery process is used to determine the order of the first 14 picks in the draft; the remaining 14 picks are determined by the order of finish in the regular season standings.

The Lottery Drawing

The drawing to determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the NBA Draft will be held on Tuesday, May 14, 2019. The drawing consists of four drawing machines and 14 ping-pong balls numbered 1-14. There are 1,001 four-digit combinations that can be drawn. Before the lottery, a weighting system is applied to the 14 lottery teams that did not make the playoffs in order to give the highest odds of obtaining the No. 1 overall pick to the team with the worst record and the lowest odds of receiving a top-four pick to the team with the best record outside of the playoffs.

The four machines are used to draw four balls each. The first machine selects balls for picks No. 1, 7, 8 and 9; the second machine is for picks No. 2, 6, 10 and 11;
the third machine is for picks No. 3, 5 and 12; and
the fourth machine is for pick No. 4 and 13.
The ball selected first from each machine will correspond to picks one through four in inverse order of finish — meaning that if Team A has been determined to have finished with the worst record in the league during last season’s regular season standings, then it will receive pick No.1 overall (or whichever pick is available if Team A’s position has already been assigned through another means). If two or more teams have identical regular season records — e.g., 24-58 — then those teams will go into a separate drawing to determine which team(s) will select ahead of other Lottery teams with worse records.

The Three-Part Ping-Pong Process

To understand how the NBA Draft Lottery works, you need to understand the three-part ping-pong process.

1.The first part is the drawing of the ping-pong balls. There are 14 balls in the lottery machine, and they are numbered 1 through 14. The machine randomly selects four balls, and those four balls are placed in a separate drum. The order in which the balls are drawn does not matter.

2.The second part is the assignment of ping-pong balls to teams. The four balls drawn in the first part of the process are placed in a second lottery machine. This machine then randomly selects two balls. The team that has been assigned those two balls will receive the first pick in the NBA Draft. The remaining 12 teams will each be assigned one of the other Ping-Pong balls, and those teams will select in reverse order of their regular season record.

3.The third and final part of the process is the determination of who will get the last three picks of the first round. This is done by adrawing of Ping-Pong balls, with the three worst teams each getting a ball, and then having a mini-lottery to see who gets picks 13, 14, and 15.

The Draft Order

The first step in the NBA draft process is the Draft Lottery. The Draft Lottery is used to determine the order of selection for the NBA draft. The lottery is held every year, and the 14 teams that did not make the playoffs are entered into the lottery. The lottery consists of 14 ping-pong balls, numbered 1 through 14, which are placed in a hopper. The hopper is then turned and one ball is drawn. That ball will determine the first pick in the draft. The remaining balls are placed back in the hopper and the process is repeated until all 14 picks have been determined.

The team that gets the first pick does not always get the best player in the draft. In fact, the team with the worst record only has a 25% chance of getting the first pick. The odds decrease from there, with the second-worst team having a 19.9% chance of getting the first pick, and so on down to the 14th-worst team, which has a 0.5% chance of getting

Conclusion

Now that you know how the NBA Draft Lottery works, you can understand why some teams are better off than others. The worst team in the NBA has a 25 percent chance of getting the first pick, while the best team has just a 0.5 percent chance. This system gives the worst teams a better chance of improving, while still giving the best teams a chance to get the best players.