The NBA regular season has concluded, and now, it’s time for the teams to be selected for the draft lottery. The draft lottery for the 2026 NBA season will be conducted on May 10. It determines which team will pick at what spot for the first 14 picks in the first round. The 14 teams that miss the playoffs are awarded the first-round picks in reverse order of their regular-season standings, except for the top 4 picks, which are decided by drawing.
After the top four picks are selected through a ping pong ball system, the picks from No. 5 to 14 are selected in reverse order of the remaining teams’ standings. For the drawings, every team is assigned the winning odds in the form of a combination of four numbers as per their standing in the regular season.
Team odds for the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery
Considering their regular-season record, the three worst-performing teams are given 14% odds of winning the first pick. For 2026, they will be the Washington Wizards, Indiana Pacers (their pick can go to the LA Clippers), and the Brooklyn Nets.
The odds are further distributed in the order given below:
Utah Jazz: 11.5%
Sacramento Kings: 11.5%
Memphis Grizzlies: 9%
New Orleans Pelicans: 6.8%
Dallas Mavericks: 6.7%
Chicago Bulls: 4.5%
Milwaukee Bucks: 3%
Golden State Warriors: 2%
LA Clippers: 1.5%
Miami Heat: 1%
Charlotte Hornets: 0.5%
Date, time, and NBA Draft Lottery process
The NBA Draft Lottery process will commence on Sunday, May 10, at 3 p.m. ET and will be telecast live on ABC and the ESPN app. While the draft lottery is not always awarded to the worst team in the regular season, it does increase their chances of winning the top pick. Interestingly, the Dallas Mavericks won the 2025 lottery pick with just 1.8% odds.
For the drawing process, 14 balls numbered 1-14 are placed in a ping-pong machine with 1001 combinations of four digits. 14 lottery teams are given 1000 of those combinations in terms of their odds. After that, the balls are mixed in the machine for 20 seconds, and then a ball is drawn out. The remaining three balls are drawn after a 10-second mix between each ball.
The team that has been assigned that same combination of four balls, without any order, wins the top pick in the draft. The balls are then put back into the machine, and the same process is repeated for the other three picks. If the same team wins or the one unassigned combination appears, the round is discarded, and the process is repeated. Moreover, a timekeeper is assigned who faces away from the machine and signals when the mixing time is up.
The remaining picks of the first round (15-30) and the second round (30-60) are also determined as per the teams’ regular-season standings. Every team is allowed to pick once in both rounds. The draft process saw some changes in 2017 when the league reduced the odds to give the three worst teams equal chances of winning the NBA Draft Lottery. Time will tell who wins the top pick this time.
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