Who Has the No. 1 Pick in the 2025 NBA Draft? Draft Lottery Order Explained

If you're an NBA team that didn't make the playoffs, you're staying home and watching the games while planning for next season, but you also have your eye on a specific date on the calendar during those playoffs: the date of the NBA Draft Lottery. 

Instituted in 1985, the lottery system is the way the NBA (which is coming home to NBC this fall!) chooses which teams will get the first four (previously first three) picks in each year's NBA Draft. It's a somewhat complex system, and it's designed to favor teams who struggled in the previous season, but sometimes you get some very big surprises. So, let's take a closer look at who won this year's lottery, and how the NBA Draft Lottery works in the first place.

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Who won the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery?

P.J. Washington of the Dallas Mavericks against Domantas Sabonis of the Sacramento Kings during the second half of the NBA play-in tournament game on April 16, 2025 in Sacramento, California.

Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

The NBA announced May 12 that the Dallas Mavericks will be awarded the number one overall pick in the 2025 Draft. It's the first time the Mavericks have ever won the first pick in the 40-year lottery system, and they did so with just a 1.8% chance of drawing the top slot. That means the Mavs are likely headed for a draft that sees them picking Duke basketball prodigy Cooper Flagg, who led the Blue Devils to the Final Four this past March. 

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The remaining lottery picks go to the San Antonio Spurs, who will pick second; the Philadelphia 76ers, who will pick third; and the Charlotte Hornets, who will pick fourth. The rest of the draft order is determined by ranking the remaining teams in order of their regular season record, with the team with the least wins picking first, and the teams with the most wins picking last.

How does the NBA Draft Lottery work?

Anthony Davis of the Dallas Mavericks against Domantas Sabonis of the Sacramento Kings during the second half of the NBA play-in tournament game on April 16, 2025 in Sacramento, California.

Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

As the name implies, the NBA Draft Lottery begins with a lottery machine, just like you'd use for a jackpot drawing, complete with 14 numbered lottery balls. Only teams who did not make the playoffs this season (including the four teams eliminated during the play-in tournament) qualify for the lottery. With 16 of the NBA's 30 teams in the playoffs each year, that leaves 14 lottery teams. 

Right now you're thinking "14 teams, 14 balls, makes sense," but here's where it gets a little more complicated. To make the process even more randomized and to work to ensure parity, the league goes well beyond simply assigning each team a number. There are 1,001 potential four-number combinations when you place 14 lottery balls in the machine, and 1,000 of those combinations are divided up among the 14 teams in the lottery. 

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The numbers are randomly assigned, but the teams who lost more games in the regular season get more combinations than teams with better records. Each team is assigned a default set of odds before the numbers are assigned, and those odds determine how many potential combinations they get. So if you have one of the three worst records in the NBA this season, you have a 14% chance of winning the drawing. If you're the 14th-worst, you have a 0.5% chance. 

To make things even more randomized, the lottery balls are mixed between each ball drawn, which means for a team like the Mavericks, it was a very, very lucky draw this year. 

What's the full order of the 2025 NBA Draft?

Nikola Jokic #15 of the Denver Nuggets drives the ball against Jalen Williams #8 of the Oklahoma City Thunder during the second quarter in Game Three of the Western Conference Second Round NBA Playoffs at Ball Arena on May 09, 2025 in Denver, Colorado

Photo: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

The 2025 NBA Draft will be held June 25 and June 26 at the Barclays Center in New York City. Each team is granted at least one pick in the first round and one pick in the second, but just like in the NFL, draft picks can be traded, so the final order may look different and not reflect each team's individual record. As of this writing, the first round draft order looks like this, according to the NBA:

1. Dallas Mavericks
2. San Antonio Spurs
3. Philadelphia 76ers
4. Charlotte Hornets
5. Utah Jazz
6. Washington Wizards
7. New Orleans Pelicans
8. Brooklyn Nets
9. Toronto Raptors
10. Houston Rockets (from Phoenix via Brooklyn)
11. Portland Trail Blazers
12. Chicago Bulls
13. Atlanta Hawks (from Sacramento)
14. San Antonio Spurs (from Atlanta)
15. Oklahoma City (from Miami via the LA Clippers)
16. Orlando Magic
17. Minnesota Timberwolves (from Detroit via New York, Oklahoma City, and Houston)
18. Washington (from Memphis)
19. Brooklyn (from Milwaukee via New York, Detroit, Portland, and New Orleans)
20. Miami Heat (from Golden State)
21. Utah (from Minnesota)
22. Atlanta (from the Los Angeles Lakers via New Orleans)
23. Indiana Pacers
24. Oklahoma City Thunder (from the LA Clippers)
25. Orlando (from Denver)
26. Brooklyn (from New York)
27. Brooklyn (from Houston)
28. Boston Celtrics
29. Phoenix Suns (from Cleveland via Utah)
30. LA Clippers (from Oklahoma City)

The NBA returns to NBC this October. For more league news, check out NBC Sports.