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NBA Draft Lottery: Schedule, odds and how it works
The 2022 NBA Draft Lottery will take place on Tuesday, May 17.
NBA.comWhat teams will participate in the 2022 Draft Lottery?
The 14 teams that did not make the 2022 playoffs are eligible for the Lottery.What is the format for the Draft Lottery?
The NBA Board of Governors approved changes to the lottery system on Sept. 28, 2017. Under the revamped format (which began with the 2019 Draft), the NBA Draft Lottery will ensure that the team with the worst record will receive no worse than the fifth pick. Under the pre-2019 system, the team with the worst record would pick no lower than fourth.The new system will level the odds at the top of the NBA Draft Lottery so that the teams with the three worst regular-season records will each have a 14 percent chance of winning the lottery. In the pre-2019 structure, the top seed had a 25 percent of winning the lottery, the second seed had a 19.9 percent and the third seed had a 15.6 percent.
After drawings are conducted for the first four picks of the NBA Draft, the other lottery teams will continue to pick in inverse order of their regular-season record.
How specifically does it work?
The 38th annual NBA Draft Lottery will determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the 2022 NBA Draft. Drawings will be conducted to determine the first four picks in the NBA Draft. The remainder of the “lottery teams” will select in positions five through 14 in inverse order of their 2021-22 regular-season records.The actual lottery procedure will take place in a separate room just before ESPN’s national broadcast. A media member, NBA officials and a representative of the accounting firm Ernst & Young will be in attendance for the drawings.
Fourteen ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14 will be placed in a lottery machine. There are 1,001 possible combinations when four balls are drawn out of 14, without regard to their order of selection. Before the lottery, 1,000 of those 1,001 combinations will be assigned to the 14 participating lottery teams.
The lottery machine is manufactured by the Smart Play Company, a leading manufacturer of state lottery machines throughout the United States. Smart Play also weighs, measures and certifies the ping-pong balls before the drawing.
The drawing process occurs in the following manner: All 14 balls are placed in the lottery machine and they are mixed for 20 seconds, and then the first ball is removed. The remaining balls are mixed in the lottery machine for another 10 seconds, and then the second ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the third ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the fourth ball is drawn. The team that has been assigned that combination will receive the No. 1 pick. The same process is repeated with the same ping-pong balls and lottery machine for the second through fourth picks.
If the same team comes up more than once, the result is discarded and another four-ball combination is selected. Also, if the one unassigned combination is drawn, the result is discarded and the balls are drawn again.
The length of time the balls are mixed is monitored by a timekeeper who faces away from the machine and signals the machine operator after the appropriate amount of time has elapsed.
A partner from Ernst & Young oversees the entire lottery process and stuffs and seals the envelopes before bringing them to the studio for the broadcast. The announcement of the lottery results will be made by Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum. Representatives from each participating team will join virtually. Neither the Deputy Commissioner nor the virtual team representatives will be informed of the lottery results before the envelopes are opened.
The team whose logo is in the last envelope opened will have the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, which will be held on Thursday, June 23
What are the odds for each team in the Draft Lottery?
The changes implemented for 2021 will result in the following odds for teams starting with the reverse order of regular season record.Team > Odds for No. 1 Pick
- Team 1 > 14.0%
- Team 2 > 14.0%
- Team 3 >14.0%
- Team 4 > 11.5%
- Team 5 > 11.5%
- Team 6 > 9.0%
- Team 7 > 7.5%
- Team 8 > 4.5%
- Team 9 > 4.5%
- Team 10 > 4.5%
- Team 11 > 1.8%
- Team 12 > 1.7%
- Team 13 > 1.0%
- Team 14 > 0.5%
What about picks 15-60?
The Draft selections for the remainder of the first round (No. 15-30) and the entire second round (No. 30-60), are determined by reverse order of regular season record. Each NBA team gets one selection in the first round and one selection in the second round.The 2022 Draft order for the remainder of the first-round will be determined at the end of the regular season.
