Why The NBA Lottery Is Definitely Not Rigged

Forbes

13-05-2025

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - MAY 12: Dallas Mavericks have officially won the in NBA Draft Lottery with 1.8% ... More pre-lottery chance to win the pick in Chicago, Illinois, United States on May 12, 2025. San Antonio Spurs got the second pick, Philadelphia 76ers got 3rd and Charlotte Hornets got the 4th pick in the lottery. (Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)
On Monday, the Dallas Mavericks shocked the NBA world by landing the first overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft despite only having a 1.8% chance at the top spot. This marks the second straight season where a team with extremely low odds of landing the first overall pick (the Atlanta Hawks had a 3% chance last year) has done just that.
These two occurrences, along with instances that landed two prodigious talents on teams based in their hometown, have led many folks to question the validity of the league's lottery process.
And while it is a good general rule to not take everything you see at face value, this is one of those instances where conspiracy theorists seem to be getting ahead of themselves.
To understand why the NBA Draft Lottery is not preordained, one must understand the safeguards the league has put in place to maintain fairness and efficacy.
Before the order is revealed to the entire world during an ESPN national broadcast, the actual lottery drawings take place in a separate room.
Contrary to what some may believe, these drawings aren't made in a secret location with no witnesses other than a few league office members who are sworn to secrecy in order to protect the NBA establishment. Yes, there are league office members in the room, but there are also select media members and representatives from the participating teams in attendance.
The league also makes it public knowledge as to exactly who these select media members will be:
These aren't spineless cronies. These are 14 well-respected journalists who work for reputable publications all across the country. And despite their disbelief with the results, none of them questioned the legitimacy of the drawings.
That tweet was authored by Andy Larsen – an NBA beat writer for The Salt Lake Tribune. The Utah Jazz team he covers was one of the teams that was hurt the most by this shocking outcome. After suffering through a 17-65 record, the Jazz were tied with the Charlotte Hornets and Washington Wizards for the highest odds at the number one overall pick (per Tankathon). But alas, they fell all the way to fifth on the board. Even with the team he covers experiencing such a hardship, Larsen showed no ill will toward the lottery drawing process.
Along with numerous journalists putting their integrity on the line by bearing witness to this endeavor, there is also the third-party auditor the NBA has hired for this occasion. The lottery is conducted with a witness from the accounting firm Ernst & Young auditing the process to verify that it is executed in accordance with the rules.
Ernst & Young (EY) is a global professional services firm known as one of the Big Four accounting firms alongside Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG. This year, Marc Dieli – a managing partner at EY – was in attendance as their representative.
By agreeing to be an unbiased observer of the drawings, EY is putting itself in a position where it could be legally liable for allowing any foul play in the drawings. While not completely out of the realm of possibility, it seems highly unlikely that a company of this level of notoriety would sacrifice their prestige (and their company's bottom line) to help the league cover up whatever scheme individuals are accusing them of concocting.
It is wild that, for two straight years, a team with such slim odds at the first overall pick was the one to come up with the prize. However, there are a couple of reasons why this makes some statistical sense.
First off, because of the changes made to the lottery odds in 2019. That year, the odds were flattened so that the worst team only had a 14% chance at the top pick. That means the Jazz, Hornets, and Wizards each only had a 12.2% better odds at the first overall pick than the Mavericks. Those are significantly better chances, but they are still a far cry from a guarantee.
Also, we're working with an incredibly small sample size here. We've only had seven draft lotteries since the odds changed. That is hardly enough of a data set for these percentages to stabilize.
While none of us will be around 1,000 years from now, it seems like a fair bet to wager that (if these odds are kept the same) one of the bottom three teams in the league will get the first overall pick 420 times.
Think about it in terms of playing cards. In an eight-deck game of blackjack, the probability of getting a blackjack (an ace and a 10-value card – like a Jack, Queen, or King) is 4.75% (per Cache Creek). Does this mean that a blackjack will only come once every 21 hands? Of course not! We see back-to-back blackjacks all the time. So, why can't there be back-to-back years with improbable lottery results like this?
It is fun to agonize over a team like the Mavericks getting bailed out for trading Luka Doncic by the Basketball Gods. But, at the end of the day, that is the only entity who bailed them out, not the NBA's higher-ups.