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The 2023 NBA Draft Lottery will be held on May 16, 2023 in Chicago. It's sponsored by State Farm and will air at 8 pm ET on ESPN.
So, how does the lottery work? To start off, the lottery involves all 14 teams that miss the playoffs. Each team has different odds for the lottery, which are determined at the end of the regular season.
The Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs have a 14.0% chance of getting the first pick, being three of the worst teams in the NBA. The New Orleans Pelicans have the worst odds at 0.5% due to having the best record among the 14 teams that missed the playoffs.
Before the 2019 NBA Draft Lottery, there's no guarantee that the team with the worst record will be in a great position to get a sure top pick. However, the NBA and its Board of Governors approved a new ruling that the worst team in the regular season will receive the fifth pick or higher.
The odds for the first overall pick was also changed in 2019, with the three teams with the worst record having the same odds at 14.0%. The worst team in the league used to have a 25.0% chance of getting the top pick, while the second worst had a 19.9% chance and the third-worst 15.6%.
Once the draw for the first four picks is determined, the remaining lottery teams continue in reverse order based on their regular-season record. The league made these changes to combat tanking, but it wasn't necessarily successful in preventing that this season.
Other facts about 2023 NBA Draft Lottery
The 2023 NBA Draft Lottery will be shown live on ESPN, but did you know that the actual lottery will happen in a separate room just before the broadcast? League officials, lottery teams representatives and select media members will be present, with the accounting firm Ernst & Young monitoring it all.
There will be 14 ping pong balls numbered from 1 to 14 in the lottery machine. There are a whopping number of possible combinations (1,001 to be exact) when four balls are drawn out.
Each lottery team will be assigned certain combinations from the possible 1,001, depending on their odds. To avoid any irregularities, the company Smart Play properly weighs, measures and certifies all the ping pong balls in the lottery machine.
For this year's NBA Draft Lottery, the Dallas Mavericks and Chicago Bulls could lose their picks, depending on the results. The Mavericks will lose their pick to the New York Knicks if it falls outside the top 10, while the Bulls have a top-four protection with their selection.
Guess the Lakers players!
