Overview
- Utah, which won a tiebreaker with Sacramento on Monday, locked into the No. 4 pre-lottery slot and is guaranteed to keep its top‑eight‑protected first-round pick rather than conveying it to Oklahoma City.
- The league conducted the random drawings at its Secaucus office under NBA operations chief Byron Spruell with independent oversight from Ernst & Young to assign positions among teams with identical records.
- Other results set key slots: New Orleans over Dallas for No. 7/8, Phoenix over Philadelphia and Orlando for No. 16–18, Toronto over Atlanta at No. 19, Houston over Cleveland at No. 22, and New York over the Lakers at No. 24, with several of those picks already owed to other teams.
- Updated odds place Washington, Indiana, and Brooklyn at 14% each for the No. 1 pick, with Utah and Sacramento at 11.5%; the lottery in Chicago on May 10 will finalize the top 14.
- Trade rules now in focus include Indiana’s pick conveying to the Clippers only if it lands 5–9 and the Hawks receiving the better of the Pelicans’ and Bucks’ picks, while tied teams’ second-round order flips from the first round, affecting where traded second-rounders land.