The first of the NBA’s offseason events — the draft lottery — takes place on Sunday afternoon. Here’s everything that Utah Jazz fans need to know ahead of the Sunday festivities:
How to watch
The lottery is held in Chicago and precedes the NBA Draft Combine, which is also in Chicago. The lottery will be broadcast on Sunday at 1 p.m. MDT on ABC.
I will be one of 12 media members in the drawing room at the lottery and will bring a behind the curtain look at the days events here at Deseret.com.
This determines the order in which teams will draft players during the NBA Draft, which will be held on June 26 and 27.
What to expect
The lottery determines the top four picks in the draft. The Utah Jazz will go into the night with the eighth-best odds in the lottery, which means that they’re most likely to end up with the 8th overall pick (34.48% chance), but there is always the chance that they jump up and get a top four pick (about a 26% chance).
Importantly, the Jazz owe their draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it falls out of the top 10. That means if three teams that have worse lottery odds than the Jazz end up jumping ahead of them into the top four, it would push the Jazz into the 11th spot and they would have to send that draft pick to the Thunder.
It’s an incredibly unlikely scenario (0.38%), but one that is important to know about.
Outside of the lottery, the Jazz will have two more selections in the June 26 draft the 28th pick via Oklahoma City and the 32nd pick via the Washington Wizards.
After the lottery, many NBA executives, scouts, agents and coaches will remain in Chicago for the NBA Combine, where they’ll be able to watch prospects go through drills, scrimmages and various workouts as well as interviews.
How the NBA Draft Lottery works
The 14 teams that missed the playoffs are entered into the lottery. On Sunday, 14 pingpong balls numbered 1 through 14 are placed in a lottery machine. There are 1,001 possible number combinations when four balls are drawn. Prior to the lottery, 1,000 of the 1,001 combinations are assigned to the 14 lottery teams.
The number of combinations assigned to each team are determined by reverse order of regular-season record.
The number of combinations assigned to each team in this year’s draft lottery are as follows: Detroit (140), Washington (140), Charlotte (133), Portland (132), San Antonio (105), Toronto (90), Memphis (75), Utah (60), Brooklyn-to Houston (45), Atlanta (30), Chicago (20), Houston (15), Sacramento (8) Golden State (7).
The team that was assigned the number combination that matches the first four balls drawn gets the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. The team that was assigned the number combination that matches the next four balls drawn gets the No. 2 pick and this process is repeated for the No. 3 and No. 4 pick.
The remaining lottery teams that did not get a top-four pick continue to pick in inverse order of their regular-season record.
During the drawing, if a team’s number combination is drawn a second time after already being awarded a lottery pick, those balls are reset to draw for a different team.
The lottery drawing is completed in a separate and private room just before the NBA broadcasts the results of the lottery. Inside the lottery drawing room, the NBA allows a small number of media members and a representative from each lottery team, along with a few NBA staff and security.
After the top four draft picks are decided by the lottery, the results are put into envelopes and delivered to the ABC broadcast stage, where the results are announced during a live broadcast.
Video of the lottery drawing is later shared by the NBA digitally.