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New York Times

13-05-2025

The Dallas Mavericks, four months after trading superstar Luka Dončić, leapt up from a 1.8 percent chance to win the first overall pick and the right to select Cooper Flagg. Jacek Boczarski / Anadolu via Getty Images)
Dallas lands the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft for the right to draft Cooper Flagg.
The Mavericks had a 1.8 percent chance to grab the No. 1 pick. San Antonio finished second, followed by Philadelphia and Charlotte.
The rest of the lottery picks are: 5. Utah, 6. Washington, 7. New Orleans, 8. Brooklyn, 9. Toronto, 10. Houston, 11. Portland, 12. Chicago, 13. Atlanta and 14. San Antonio.
Follow along below for live updates, analysis and reactions. Email: [e-mail]
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2025 NBA mock draft: Cooper Flagg to Mavericks; Dylan Harper to Spurs Connections: Sports Edition Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Each of the 13 teams in contention for the top pick will be represented on stage tonight. Brooklyn Nets: Head coach Jordi Fernández
Head coach Jordi Fernández Charlotte Hornets: Head coach Charles Lee
Head coach Charles Lee Chicago Bulls: Current player Matas Buzelis
Current player Matas Buzelis Dallas Mavericks: Team ambassador Rolando Blackman
Team ambassador Rolando Blackman Houston Rockets: Team legend Hakeem Olajuwon
Team legend Hakeem Olajuwon New Orleans Pelicans: Current player Zion Williamson
Current player Zion Williamson Philadelphia 76ers: Current player Jared McCain
Current player Jared McCain Portland Trail Blazers: Current player Toumani Camara
Current player Toumani Camara Sacramento Kings: Current player Keon Ellis
Current player Keon Ellis San Antonio Spurs: Head coach Mitch Johnson
Head coach Mitch Johnson Toronto Raptors: Vice chairman and president Masai Ujiri
Vice chairman and president Masai Ujiri Utah Jazz: Co-owner Ashley Smith
Co-owner Ashley Smith Washington Wizards: Current player Bub Carrington
6-10 wing/forward | 18 years old | Rutgers
Bailey remains quite polarizing and has seemed to have borne the brunt of the blame from NBA personnel for Rutgers' poor season. Yes, he averaged 17.6 points and seven rebounds while shooting 46 percent from the field and 34 percent from 3. But his style of play did not seem wildly conducive to winning basketball. He settles for a lot of long jumpers because he struggles to get all the way to the rim (he has a high handle and high center of gravity that gets knocked off its line a bit too easily). Defensively, he wasn't always particularly engaged in help situations unless he saw an opportunity to go get the basketball.
And yet, it's worth noting that Rutgers was a catastrophe when he wasn't on the court. Even in Big Ten play, they lost Bailey's minutes by only three points per 100 possessions. When he was off the court, they lost those minutes by 23 points per 100, per CBB Analytics. His presence was clearly helpful, and I think that's what tracks most for me. Bailey is enormous, he's long, he is a real shooter and he showed some defensive moments that were very positive in switch situations. I can't really get him outside of the top five, and I think it would be very reasonable to take him at No. 3.
6-10 big | 20 years old |Maryland
Queen can pass, dribble, shoot and is a good decision maker, averaging nearly 17 points, nine rebounds and two assists as a freshman at Maryland. He's been exceptionally productive at every stage of his career to this point, and he has real offensive talent that should lead to him putting up real numbers in the NBA.
7-2 big | 19 years old | Duke
Maluach isn't a monster shot-blocker, but he understands how big he is and is excellent at using his size to cut off angles and contest on the interior. Offensively, there are more questions, largely about his hands and overall feel for the game. He got to basketball a bit late and is still working on how to see the floor around him. He also doesn't always seem to come down with contested rebounds, as was starkly seen in Duke's Final Four game against Houston, when he played 20 minutes and had zero rebounds. Still, someone will take the bet on a player who's 7-2 with long arms and real movement skills.
After restructuring their front office a few weeks ago, firing David Griffin and hiring Joe Dumars as their new top basketball executive, the New Orleans Pelicans still face many questions. Monday will provide some welcome clarity.
The NBA's annual draft lottery will be held in Chicago tonight. The Pelicans have a 12.5 percent chance of landing the top pick. With the future of Zion Williamson still unclear and several key players recovering from major surgeries this offseason, getting a chance to add a franchise-changer like Duke forward Cooper Flagg would give New Orleans — or any other team — a much better idea of what the path forward looks like.
Flagg is the kind of prospect who can become the face of a franchise during the next decade. Those don't come along very often.
With the high-end talent in this year's draft, securing a top-four pick would be a huge win for New Orleans as it begins the Dumars era. The Pelicans go into tonight with a 48.1 percent chance of landing in the top four.
Read more on New Orleans' options below.
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Pelicans draft scenarios: What happens if they don't get Cooper Flagg?
6-5 guard | 19 years old | Baylor
The Pelicans have already made substantive changes to their organization, firing David Griffin and hiring Joe Dumars to run basketball operations. The word out of New Orleans is simply not to expect the roster to look the same as it did this year. Edgecombe ticks a lot of boxes here, though.
Following the Dejounte Murray injury and with CJ McCollum only having one year left on his deal, they have a real need for a backcourt player of the future. Edgecombe had an excellent freshman season, averaging 15 points, nearly six rebounds, three assists and two steals. The Bahamian national team member has a case as the best athlete in the draft class, with all sorts of bounce and explosiveness.
6-8 wing/forward | 20 years old | South Carolina
Murray-Boyles is a tremendous defender who passes well, has serious toughness and processes the game at an elite level. He averaged 16.8 points and 8.3 rebounds per game last season while shooting 58.3 percent from the field and 26.5 percent from deep.
Since its institution in 1984, the draft lottery has undergone multiple changes.
The NBA had unweighted draft lottery odds from 1985 through 1989 and then implemented the weighted system in 1990. Back then there were 66 'chances' for winning the No. 1 pick. The team with the worst record had 11 out of 66. The team with the second-worst record had 10 out of 66. And so on, and so forth. We saw the 41-41 Seattle SuperSonics move up to the second pick with just a 3.03 percent chance of getting the top spot, and they took Hall of Famer Gary Payton.
After the Orlando Magic won back-to-back No. 1 overall picks in 1992 (15.15 percent chance, second-best odds) and 1993 (1.52 percent chance, worst odds), the NBA decided to overreact and change things to an even more unevenly weighted system. The worst record went from a 16.7 percent chance of grabbing the top pick to a 25.0 percent chance. The teams with the lowest odds dropped even more, to a 0.5 percent chance. It pretty much stayed that way until 2019, when the NBA decided to legislate against the 'Trust the Process' 76ers to make the lottery system less severe for odds to win it.
Now, the teams with the three worst records each have a 14.0 percent chance of obtaining the top pick in the draft. The fourth-worst record has a 12.5 percent chance of getting it. Then, with each subsequently better record from the regular season, the odds continue to drop.
After a disastrous season for the Philadelphia 76ers, the NBA draft lottery could either provide a glimmer of hope or add insult to injury. They possess the fifth-best odds to land the No. 1 overall pick at 10.5 percent. However, if this pick lands outside the top six, it will convey to Oklahoma City via a deal that sent Al Horford to Philadelphia in 2020.
6-7 guard | 19 years old | Duke
Knueppel is a bigger shooter who is competitive and tough. He has a case as the best shooter in the class along with Johnson, and his overall game was more impactful this season. They're right next to each other on my personal board. Some executives worry about what exactly Knueppel's upside is because of some perceived athletic limitations.
6-5 guard | 19 years old | Illinois
Jakučionis is big and can play both on and off the ball, coming off a terrific freshman season in which he averaged 15 points, six rebounds and five assists. His vision is sublime, and he fits the current ecosystem of the NBA well with his dribble, pass and shoot traits. Still, he is a bit polarizing for folks around the league as he doesn't have a ton of athletic explosiveness, and his defensive game was not always on point this year. His range is seen as somewhere in this ballpark down to around the end of the lottery.
By David Aldridge and Josh Robbins
Monday will be one of the most important evenings in Washington Wizards history.
Does that sound a tad melodramatic? We don't think so. Consider that so much of Washington's on-court suffering during the 2024-25 season — the 18-64 record, the blowout losses and the late-season scratches of veteran players, in the team's second year of a full-blown rebuild — stemmed from the goal of giving the franchise its best chance to win Monday night's NBA Draft lottery in Chicago.
Let's go over six possible Wizards draft lottery scenarios below.
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Wizards' 2025 Mock Draft: Evaluating all lottery and draft scenarios
6-8 wing | 19 years old | Arizona
The 6-8 wing didn't start many games this year at Arizona, but he was a monster defensive player when he was on the court, showcasing serious playmaking chops as well as great on-ball play. He also knocks down a solid percentage of his 3s. Bryant is the guy in this class who seems to have a ton of juice when you talk to front offices, and it wouldn't surprise me to see him land in the top 10 when it's all said and done. I think I'd park his range in the No. 7 to No. 16 area.
6-6 wing | 19 years old | Texas
Johnson was the most impressive player I saw working out during my trip to the U.S. He had one of the best shooting workouts I've ever seen from a teenage player, showcasing a serious-minded intentionality about how he goes about his craft. He displayed the ability to hit shots off movement at a high level, something that he rarely got the chance to do in an offensive scheme at Texas that could be charitably described as anachronistic but fairly described as hideously archaic. Even within that scheme, Johnson found his way into 19.9 points per game, even if he struggled a bit once he had to foray into the lane because of the team's lack of spacing and his own still-improving overall strength level.
I see Johnson's range as somewhere in the No. 3 to No. 8 area.
Gacanefa N.: Cooper should of kept the door open to return to Duke. If Washington wins the lottery it will ruin his career.
Gonzalezc.: Let's see, missed the playoffs, again, and no first round pick. And a roster sorely lacking in talent. It goes from bad to worse in Sacramento. Rebuilding for 21 years, and counting.
Wolf: I know Johni Broome is never going to be the best player on a team, and he's rather old, but I think whoever drafts him is going to be really happy with him. He's just a baller. I get why bad teams draft kids who were playing in high school two years ago because they can afford to wait 2, 3, 4+ years for them to figure it out, but I feel like teams in win-now mode should look for juniors or seniors who are ready to be assets this year or next.
Jonathan H.: Maluach to the Bulls would be great if the board fell that way. Bulls need a big to replace Vucevic and fit their style of play better.
6-6 guard | 19 years old | Rutgers
Harper is exceptionally likely to be the No. 2 pick. It would take a real surprise for someone to unseat him from this spot. His 19.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and four assists per game while shooting 48 percent from the field as a freshman guard put him in rarefied air, as few players have gotten all that close to such marks in their first year. He also creates rim pressure at an elite level, with the ability to get into the paint and finish at the basket at a serious clip with his impressive array of gathers and touch finishes at 6-6 as a lead guard.
The biggest question for Harper remains his pull-up game as a shooter, as he only hit 29.2 percent of his pull-up 3s. I watched Harper work out recently, and it's clear that working as a scorer in ball screens, re-screens and dribble handoffs is a real emphasis for his pre-draft process. He shot the ball well in the workout that I saw. I felt like the ball would sometimes flatten out on him this season at Rutgers, but he's starting to work on getting more consistent arc on the shot off pull-ups.
6-9 forward | 18 years old | Duke
Flagg will go No. 1 regardless of who gets the pick. He was the national player of the year in college basketball this season at just 18 years old after reclassifying into the 2024 recruiting class. He posted ridiculous numbers, averaging 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks per game, but it got even better after January. In his final 25 games, including the Georgia Tech game in which he rolled an ankle after 15 minutes in the ACC tournament, Flagg posted 20.5 points, seven rebounds and 4.6 assists on 51.1 percent shooting from the field, 45.1 percent from 3 and 88 percent from the line. Duke went 23-2 in that run before falling in the Final Four to Houston in staggering fashion (despite Flagg's 27, seven and four with two steals and three blocks in that game).
Flagg isn't quite at the Victor Wembanyama level of prospect over the last 20 years, but he belongs in the Anthony Davis tier. Barring injury, he's about as can't-miss as it gets because of his skill level, athleticism, shot-creation ability and mentality. Flagg is about as competitive as you'll find on the court and will bring a serious degree of work ethic into whatever situation he arrives. He wants to be great. There's no red flag in terms of entitlement here. He's all about winning and will immediately become the centerpiece of whatever organization drafts him.