As the NBA season winds to a close, the three worst teams in the league have secured their position with the best odds to select first overall and take Duke Blue Devils’ Cooper Flagg.
Bottom Three NBA Draft Lottery Odds Finalized, as Hornets, Jazz, and Wizards Hold Best Odds to Select Cooper Flagg
Tanking within the NBA has been ongoing for a while with the main objective being an opportunity to select Flagg, who has long been the expected No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 draft.
Finalized after Wednesday night’s games, the three teams at the bottom of the league’s standings have been confirmed with less than a week to go in the regular season. Those teams include the Charlotte Hornets, Utah Jazz, and Washington Wizards, who — while not winning much early in the season — have especially taken nosedives post-All-Star break in order to be in this very spot.
While this may seem like one of these teams will land Flagg, that’s not necessarily the truth.
In fact, there’s only a 42% chance that either of the three organizations ends up with the top pick—meaning a 58% chance for the rest of the lottery teams combined. Last season, the Atlanta Hawks came into draft lottery night with the tenth-best odds to claim the first overall pick at 3%. Surprisingly, their name wasn’t called until the very end, when they were revealed as the owners of the top pick.
What securing a spot in the bottom three means is the highest odds, which still only stand at 14% for each of the Hornets, Jazz and Wizards.
While the Hawks selected Frenchman Zaccharie Risacher, who has had a solid rookie season, there is much more anticipation with the 2025 draft headlined by the Maine native in Flagg.
Widely expected to enter the draft — it would be an unprecedented return to college if he were to do so — Flagg had about as good of a year as could be expected, save for a national championship.
However, he led his team to the Final Four while producing a number of excellent performances in the NCAA Tournament.
Across the entire season, Flagg led the Blue Devils in scoring (19.2 ppg), assists (4.2 apg), rebounds (7.5 rpg), steals (1.4 spg) and blocks (1.4 bpg) — or, in other words, every major stat category. He was named the AP National Player of the Year for his efforts.
An extremely versatile player, Flagg would fit right into every team in the NBA, but especially with the bottom three teams who each lack a high-level player on the wing.
KEEP READING: ‘An Absolute Monster’ — ESPN Analyst Seth Greenberg Praises Cooper Flagg on The Pat McAfee Show
Whatever organization lands the top pick will surely be overjoyed as they’ll be poised to add a generational talent to their roster.
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