The Warriors have dominated the discussion around the No. 1 pick.
In some ways, that’s natural. Golden State had the NBA’s worst record. Therefore, no team has better odds of landing the top pick.
But it also runs counter to the math.
The Warriors have an 86% chance of NOT getting the No. 1 pick in tonight’s NBA Draft lottery. In fact, it’s nearly as likely Golden State draws the No. 5 as a top-four pick.
The Cavaliers and Timberwolves have the same – distant – odds of getting the top pick as the Warriors.
When accustomed to simply ranking teams by order, lottery odds can be difficult to process. Probabilities of any single team getting any single high pick are low and flat (even flatter since last year).
Hopefully, this makes it easier to fully grasp the chances of each result tonight.
Here are the lottery odds for all 15 teams* involved in the 2020 lottery. Picks a team cannot get are not displayed. If a team has a chance – but a less than 0.5% chance – of a pick, it’s rounded to 0%.
*In addition to the 14 teams that missed the playoffs, the Grizzlies owe the Celtics a top-six-protected first-round pick.
