Who Deserves To Win The NBA Draft Lottery?
Despite what a pair of suspicious NBA owners have whispered to Pablo Torre, I don’t believe that the NBA rigs the draft lottery. Certainly, it makes a sort of cockeyed, intuitive sense that the league would want to reward the Dallas Mavericks with a generational prospect in Cooper Flagg, for inexplicably giving their marquee superstar to the league’s marquee franchise, thus increasing its sale value; or for the league to fortify the San Antonio Spurs’ status as international darlings by giving them Victor Wembanyama. But the league clearly has more to lose than gain from stacking the deck. Also, a committed cork-boarder could engineer a post-facto rationale for any lottery outcome having been rigged: The Orlando Magic got Paolo Banchero in 2022 because the league was doing Disney a favor amid tumbling stock value; the Atlanta Hawks got the first pick in 2024 as part of an outré attempt at election-rigging.
However, I think the NBA should rig the lottery. On a recent episode of Zach Lowe’s podcast, Lowe raised the idea of the draft order being assorted in the basketball equivalent of a papal conclave. I love this idea. The concept of the lottery, with its recently flattened odds and the tweaks sure to come after this summer, is that by partially decoupling draft order from win-loss records, the league can discourage tanking. This is always going to be an imperfect solution as long as the two are connected at all: The incentives are too powerful, especially when one player can change the fortunes of a franchise so dramatically—and can do it on a sharply below-market contract for up to five years.
If the NBA were to openly rig the lottery, however, different virtues (other than proficiency at destroying one’s on-court product) could be rewarded. No longer could the worst teams in the NBA ensure better draft picks by losing a ton, nor would they jump through any of the strange hoops possibly being set up for them next year, such as counting wins toward draft position after a certain date. No, a rigged system could reward abstract values such as honor, virtue, and suffering with nobility.
The false (or reverse) meritocracy would give way to a system more akin to heraldic chivalry. Whatever body adjudicates picks would make a spiritual judgment. Which franchises exhibit the most potent combination of purity of heart and ass of record? In short, who is the most deserving?
There are several contenders for the 2026 No. 1 overall pick, and consensus has this as a draft class deep in serious talent. I like Brigham Young’s AJ Dybantsa the best, so his name will bear the score. We have examined this question several times before, and it is time to answer it again. As always, we will begin at the bottom of the standings, progressing northward, and we will assign each team a score out of 10.
Sacramento Kings
On the one hand, Sacramento is in possession of the worst record in the NBA through seemingly organic means, without the penalty-worthy chemical additives polluting the competitive level in Utah or Indiana. The Kings came into the season with a sincere belief that they could compete for a fringe playoff spot, only to discover that trying to win NBA games in 2026 by playing 2013-era basketball with 2017-era good players was a recipe for disaster. Doug Christie is a nice guy who tries hard, yet is one of the worst head coaches in modern history, and is being paid like the obvious stopgap solution that he is. The team only recently shut its “stars” down, which caused the Kings to instantly and hilariously start winning all their games against fellow toilet-bound teams. You can squint at this team and see ethical hoops of a sort.
On the other hand, weighing purposeful incompetence against the bone-deep stupidity of the Kings isn’t so simple, and the conclave would have to account for the high likelihood of a potentially game-changing player rotting in Sacramento. So I am splitting the difference. Dybantsa Score: 5.7.
Indiana Pacers
One thing that smart observers of draft lottery reform will point out is that any move that decouples record and draft position carries with it the possibility of a great team picking first. I don’t care about this at all, and I think widespread competitive parity is a sop to owners’ franchise valuations more than it is a meaningful improvement to the game. Who wants like 20 different teams within a few wins of 41 when you could have like eight total juggernauts fighting it out in the playoffs?
Indiana nearly won the Finals last year and is about to make another strong run next year with a hopefully healthy Tyrese Haliburton and Ivica Zubac. The Pacers are really making the most of their gap year, and have been truly dedicated to nasty hoops over the past few months. While they need the top pick less than anyone else on this list, they could also guarantee instant playoff minutes for the rookie, which would rock. So, Dybantsa Score: 6.0.
Brooklyn Nets
Once again, the Brooklyn Nets are garbage. Michael Porter Jr. has had a surprisingly great season, but none of the five first-round picks presently on the roster has really popped, they are totally overshadowed by the WNBA’s New York Liberty, and they play a wolf howl sound when Danny Wolf scores—though that’s a rare enough occurrence that it’s always jarring. In short, they really need The Guy. I assigned them the highest Flagg Score last season, though their incompetence this year doesn’t have the same flavor, so they will get a slight ding. Dybantsa Score: 7.4.
Washington Wizards
The Wizards are going for a Pacers-style worst-to-first thing, though they don’t have the proof of a Finals run to base their win-now moves on. I like the theory of the trades for Trae Young and Anthony Davis, since the Wizards gave up nothing of real value for either wayward former superstar. In practice I don’t really like the moves, simply because I am skeptical that either of these guys will ever be anywhere near All-NBA level again.
However, rebuilding is never as simple as the Thunder make it look, and you have to try stuff. Being theoretically competitive is a fun move for a team that has stunk so bad for so long, and the addition of a cool young guy alongside their sort-of-cool young guys and their uncool old guys would be, well, cool. They don’t need the top pick as badly as some teams, though that’s only one part of the equation. Dybantsa Score: 5.6.
Utah Jazz
The Jazz are the face of the tanking crisis in the NBA, which is quite funny given how chastened they supposedly were after last year’s debacle. The organization said all the right stuff about competing and the team was quite feisty early on, but have been no match for reality: The first-round draft pick they would owe to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it fell outside of the top eight was simply too precious an asset to give up in the name of honor. So back into the trash can they went, Jaren Jackson Jr. and all.
Like the Wizards, the Jazz are going to try winning next season. I understand that this team is insanely annoying. I get that they play in Utah, which is also annoying, and I accept that to give them AJ Dybantsa would be to simultaneously reward Utah’s bad behavior and validate the BYU Name Image Likeness basketball-industrial complex. However, I really like Lauri Markkanen and Keyonte George, and I am darkly intrigued by the potential for a massive George–Ace Bailey–Markkanen–Jackson Jr.–Walker Kessler super turbo lineup with either Dybantsa or Kansas’s Darryn Peterson off the bench. Dybantsa Score: 6.2.
Atlanta Hawks (via New Orleans Pelicans)
Fuck off. Dybantsa Score: 0.9.
Dallas Mavericks
Something that makes this particular lottery so fascinating is that it really feels like a huge window of opportunity in the process of slamming shut. The Mavs, Pacers, Jazz, and Wizards are out of picks for next season, and therefore have this one chance to tank before trying hard to win; plus, lottery reform in theory means that the heretofore semi-guaranteed safe bet of stinking ass becomes more tenuous. So many teams have bet big on getting a really good player in this draft—more, by any reckoning, than there appear to be star-grade players in the draft class—that many will leave pissed off.
The Mavericks have already been saved from Nets-style oblivion by the Flagg lottery, so they need the 2026 top pick less than others in their cohort; also, this is not really a team or operation worth rewarding. Everyone would be so mad if the Mavs won the lottery again, which is as intriguing as the prospect of Flagg getting an elite running mate, but ultimately, others deserve it more. Dybantsa Score: 3.5.
Memphis Grizzlies
Remember Ja Morant? The one-time future of the NBA is now all but forgotten, adrift on a team that has traded all his buddies and would trade him too, but straight-up cannot because nobody wants his ass right now. It really feels bad to see him become totally irrelevant to the league so quickly, and I imagine he’ll get moved this offseason as Memphis clears the deck for its first full rebuild in a while. The Grizzlies have a few tough questions to answer: Is Zach Edey ever going to be healthy? Is Cedric Coward good enough to be relied upon as a premier second option? How much responsibility is too much to give Santi Aldama?
This all makes the Grizzlies a good candidate for the top pick, as the presence of Dybantsa or Peterson would make those questions less stressful. I’ve liked it when the Grizzlies have been good, though mostly that was because the mega-nasty style of play they had in their last two eras was distinctive in a way that I am not sure the next one will be. I’m not entirely moved, is my point. Dybantsa Score: 4.7.
Chicago Bulls
Sure, fine, whatever, who cares. Dybantsa Score: 3.9.
New Orleans Pelicans (via Milwaukee Bucks)
All that stuff about a No. 1 pick potentially getting ruined applies here. New Orleans might be the one franchise in the NBA stupider and more disastrously run than the Sacramento Kings. At least the Pelicans have more talent on the roster, and are doing the noble work of trying to win right now. It’s very funny to see a team that does not own its draft pick start the season by playing their young guys a ton and then end it by leaning on the veterans, but it’s kind of working, for whatever that is worth. I love Derik Queen and I think Jeremiah Fears will be cool, though none of that moves the needle much. Dybantsa Score: 4.1.
