NBA draft lottery results: Dallas Mavericks keep their pick, miss out on Wembanyama

CHICAGO — The Mavericks avoided disaster and gained clarity on their offseason options during the NBA draft lottery Tuesday night.

Dallas will hold the No. 10 overall pick in the June 22 draft — in line with their 10th-worst record this past NBA season (38-44) — and keep their pick from conveying to the New York Knicks this year.

In a sequestered room at the McCormick Place convention center, San Antonio Spurs won the lottery and the undisputed expectation to select French prospect and generational phenom Victor Wembanyama. The Charlotte Hornets, Portland Trail Blazers, Houston Rockets and Detroit Pistons round out the top five.

The Mavericks entered the night with a 79.8% chance of their first-round pick landing in the top 10.

While they missed their 3% chance of moving to No. 1 overall to select Wembanyama, the Mavericks will celebrate the confirmation that the Knicks will not receive the rights to their top-10 spot.

Not yet, at least.

Dallas would’ve sent its pick at No. 11 or below to the Knicks as final payment for the original Kristaps Porzingis trade in January 2019 if one of the four organizations below the Mavericks in the 14-team lottery standings jumped ahead of them in the top-four ping-pong ball drawings.

Instead, the Mavericks now owe the Knicks a top-10 protected first-round pick in 2024.

Should the 2024 selection also keep the protection — an outcome even more alarming than their tumble from 2022 Western Conference finals participant to purposeful tanking out of the 2023 play-in tournament — the Mavericks will owe the Knicks a top-10 protected first rounder in 2025 or, if they still remain stuck at the top of the lottery, a 2025 second-rounder.

Mission accomplished, at least for now, after the Dallas front office’s decision to rest most players and lose the final two games of the regular season, securing top-10 lottery odds instead of a potential No. 10-seed play-in berth.

Owner Mark Cuban likely considers the $750,000 fine from the NBA as punishment for violating anti-tanking rules to be worth the price.

The No. 10 overall pick will bolster the Mavericks’ limited offerings on the trade market this summer.

Dallas is widely expected to shop the draft-night rights to the No. 10 overall pick, perhaps in a package with other assets, to help rebuild the depth and rotation talent around Luka Doncic and free-agent-to-be Kyrie Irving, whom they hope to re-sign when free agency starts eight days after the draft.

League rules prohibit teams from trading first-round picks in consecutive seasons or more than seven years out.

The Mavericks now owe the Knicks a first in 2024 or 2025 and dealt the Brooklyn Nets an unprotected 2029 first in February for Irving, so their 2027 first is the only other first-round pick currently available for them to include in trades this offseason.

Dallas does not hold the rights to a second-round pick in the 2023 draft after including it in the November 2020 trade for fringe-rotation player James Johnson.

That the Mavericks kept the No. 10 spot meant they avoided the bad lottery luck that’s doomed their roster-building pursuits for years.

They had finished lower than the projected odds in seven of the franchise’s previous 15 lottery appearances and never moved up.

Capitalizing on their combined 13.9% chance to jump to Nos. 1-4 would’ve marked a major offseason twist in a top-rich draft class. But the Mavericks’ fortune to keep their pick from the Knicks provided what felt like their first true victory since losing 12 of their last 16 games to close the regular season.

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