Rejoice, Nets fans. We now know when Brooklyn will receive its prize after a lost 2024-25 season.
The NBA announced on Monday that the 2025 Draft Lottery will take place on May 12 in Chicago. Scouts will get a closer look at this year’ top draft prospects at the Draft Combine May 11-18.
The Atlanta Hawks selected French forward Zaccharie Risacher with the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. The 2025 class is viewed as one of the more talented in recent memory, headlined by Duke’s Cooper Flagg, Rutgers guard Dylan Harper, and his fellow freshman teammate Ace Bailey.
The Nets (13-26) did not have any picks in either round last summer. The most action they saw on draft night was signing veteran center Nic Claxton to a four-year, $100 million extension.
However, after trading former star forward Mikal Bridges to the Knicks last summer, and trading veterans such as Dennis Schröder, Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton in December, Brooklyn now commands 31 total draft picks over the next seven years — 15 first-round picks and 16 second-round picks. That includes four first-round picks and one second in 2025.
Brooklyn re-acquired its 2025 first-round pick from the Houston Rockets in June, negating a previously agreed to swap. General manager Sean Marks could still try to flip veterans such as Cam Johnson, D’Angelo Russell, Cam Thomas, Ben Simmons and Claxton ahead of the Feb. 6 trade deadline for additional assets.
According to Tankathon, the Nets — losers of five straight games — would pick at No. 6 (own), No. 18 (via Bucks), No. 26 (via Knicks) and No. 27 (via Rockets) if the season ended today. They have a 37.2% chance at landing a Top 4 pick and a 9% chance at landing the No. 1 overall pick — something that’s never happened in franchise history.
Washington, New Orleans and Charlotte currently have the best odds at landing a Top 4 pick (52.1%) or the No.1 overall pick (14%). The Nets will face the Portland Trail Blazers at Moda Center on Tuesday, a team that currently has the seventh-best lottery odds.
“To be frank, you’ve still got to get a little lucky,” Marks said in a recent interview. “We all know that. The hot-button topic has always been the draft. We all know we’ve still got to get lucky. At the end of the day, the Ping-Pong balls are going to drop a certain way.”
Teams eligible for the Draft Lottery are the 14 teams who fail to make the playoffs. The final odds will be determined after regular season is completed and after tie breakers are settled between teams with identical regular-season records.
In the pre-2019 structure, the top seed had a 25% chance of winning the lottery, the second seed had a 19.9% and the third seed had a 15.6% chance. However, now the worst three regular-season records have a 14% chance of winning the lottery. Picks 15-30 and the entire second round are determined by reverse order of regular season record.
Atlanta, San Antonio, Orlando, Detroit and Minnesota won the last five lotteries. Detroit, Washington, Charlotte, Portland and San Antonio had the five-best odds last year, but Atlanta won it despite having just 3% odds.