I have a deep fascination with the NBA Draft Lottery. It’s the least-sports sporting event of the year. It’s literally just deciding which teams will select players in which order based on mathematical probabilities. It’s like, two steps removed from sports.

And yet, the lottery has become an incredible TV event, with each team’s destiny revealed one by one. People create conspiracy theories around it, even though the mathematical odds for every scenario are laid out in great detail before the event.

• The #1 pick went to the Washington Wizards, which is well-deserved for the team that had the worst record in the league at 17-65. It was actually the first time under the current lottery format that the league’s worst team got the first pick. The Wizards tanked especially hard this year, trading for Trae Young and Anthony Davis and playing them for five combined games before shutting them down for various injuries and ailments.

• But the biggest news of the lottery was Indiana losing a big bet. Knowing that they would be bad this year, the Pacers negotiated top-four protection for the first-round pick they sent to the Clippers as part of their trade for Ivica Zubac. They had a 52.11 percent chance of holding onto the pick … but the lottery balls didn’t pop their way and dropped out of the top four, meaning they lose the pick to the Clippers.

• It’s legitimately a huge blow for the Pacers. While most of the other teams at the top of the lottery are in years-long rebuilds, the Pacers decided to bottom out for one year after Tyrese Halliburton’s injury in hopes of adding an elite young talent. Now, 2025-26 has essentially become a wasted season. They won’t have a pick this high for years to come as long as Halliburton remains healthy.