The Bulls were 1 coin flip or a missed Josh Giddey shot away from drafting Cooper Flagg
The Bulls were 1 coin flip or a missed Josh Giddey shot away from drafting Cooper Flagg
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2025 NBA draft lottery: Mavericks, Spurs and 76ers big winners
The Mavericks secure the top pick in the 2025 NBA draft lottery despite a 1.8% chance
The Chicago Bulls had a stroke of bad luck when fans learned that the Dallas Mavericks were winners of the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery.
The Bulls, like the Mavericks, were fairly competitive and made the play-in tournament this season. So losing out on the rights to the No. 1 overall pick and draft Cooper Flagg may not hurt quite as bad as it did for teams like the Jazz, Hornets, Wizards, and Pelicans.
The Wizards got it especially bad considering they so narrowly missed out on both Flagg this year and Victor Wembanyama two years ago. But what happened to the Bulls in the lottery is still particularly devastating.
More: 2025 NBA Draft lottery winners (Cooper Flagg! Mavs!) and losers (the lottery system)
The Bulls and Mavericks finished with the exact same record in the standings.
So before the lottery, the two franchises had a coin toss to see who would have the twelfth-best odds at No. 1 overall and who would have the eleventh.
Dallas won that tiebreaker last month and then went on to shockingly win the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery.
This, of course, is about as tough of a break as you can find in the league.
That means Chicago was effectively a coin flip away from having those exact same ping-pong numbers that eventually won the chance to draft Flagg.
What are the chances of that?
More: Bulls' Josh Giddey shocked the Lakers with an unbelievable half-court buzzer-beater
Chicago, however, would have never found themselves in this situation were it not for the buzzer-beater that Josh Giddey hit against the Lakers on March 27.
If the Bulls had won just one fewer game over the course of the season, in fact, they would have not tied with the Mavericks and would have just outright owned the ping-pong balls that eventually became No. 1 overall.
That is about as frustrating as it can possibly get for a franchise that continues to teeter between middling and slightly above or below. Flagg would have given them a chance to have a focal point and identity but instead, he will play elsewhere next season.
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