The NBA’s draft lottery is Sunday, and tankers may prosper. Here’s what to know

CHICAGO (AP) — Washington will emerge with a top-five pick. Brooklyn and Utah may receive a great prize after putting together arguably the least-competitive seasons in their histories. Oklahoma City could win the whole thing without even trying.

The NBA draft lottery is Sunday. It could be boring. It may reward tanking. Nobody knows.

The story will be told by four ping-pong balls, plucked out of a hopper in a secure room, with sequestered onlookers from each of the involved teams and a few members of the media looking on. Those balls will create a four-digit combination that will match one previously assigned to the lottery teams, and with that, somebody wins the No. 1 pick in next month’s draft.

“June 23rd, I’ll know where I’m at,” AJ Dybantsa, the BYU star who is jumping to the NBA after leading the nation in scoring in his lone college season, said last month when announcing his draft decision.

He’ll likely have a pretty good idea on Sunday. Dybantsa, Kansas’ Darryn Peterson and Duke’s Cameron Boozer are widely projected to be the first three draft picks in some order.

And that order is about to be revealed.

Washington, Brooklyn and Indiana all have the best odds of winning the No. 1 pick — 14% each.

Those aren’t great odds, of course.

Washington went 3-26 after the All-Star break, a stretch that included giving up an 83-point game to Miami’s Bam Adebayo. The Wizards cannot finish lower than fifth; in fact, it’s basically a coin flip on whether they will finish exactly fifth or not. Washington has a 52.1% chance of a top-four pick, and 47.9% shot of being exactly No. 5.

“This was going to be a season of development and opportunity,” Wizards coach Brian Keefe said in his season-ending media availability. “And that is something that we really focused on all the way up to Game 82.”

The Wizards expect to be significantly better next season and a No. 1 pick would only enhance those odds. Washington acquired Trae Young and Anthony Davis in trades this season, so another year at the very bottom of the NBA would seem unlikely.

The dreaded T-word — tanking — was uttered with regard to Washington’s approach this season. Same goes for the approaches in Brooklyn and Utah.

The Nets were outscored by 975 points this season (worst in their history) and lost 43 times by double figures. The Jazz were outscored by 858 points this season (worst in their history) and lost 41 times by double figures.

Brooklyn owner Joe Tsai said entering the season that the Nets are rebuilding.

“We hope to get a good pick,” Tsai said at the All-In Summit last fall. “So, you can predict what kind of strategy we will use for this season.”

Utah got fined $500,000 during the season for not using its best players in the fourth quarter of games, one of which the Jazz actually won in Miami. But the Jazz finished so poorly that they guaranteed they would keep a top-eight pick in the draft. Had they won a few more games, that pick could have conveyed to Oklahoma City.

The rest of the odds for the No. 1 pick: Utah and Sacramento (11.5%), Atlanta (9.8%), Memphis (9%), Dallas (6.7%), Chicago (4.5%), Golden State (2%), Oklahoma City (1.5%), Miami (1%) and Charlotte (0.5%).

Atlanta’s odds are a combination of two potential pathways to the No. 1 pick.

Imagine this: The Thunder — the reigning NBA champions and No. 1 overall seed in this season’s playoffs — win the No. 1 pick as well.

It could happen.

If the spot that the Clippers would ordinarily hold wins the lottery, it conveys to Oklahoma City as part of the trade that also sent Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to the Thunder. And the rest of the league would let out a collective groan that will be heard for months to come if that happens.

The Clippers could also get the No. 5 or No. 6 spots if Indiana “wins” either of those slots. If Indiana finishes in the top four, the pick stays with the Pacers. Otherwise, it goes to the Clippers — who have a 48% chance of moving up.

“Call it a coin-flip chance of getting a high, high lottery pick in a loaded draft,” said Lawrence Frank, the Clippers’ president of basketball operations.

The NBA will almost certainly have a new lottery format in place for next season.

Framework fell into place last month on changes meant to further dissuade tanking, and the league’s Board of Governors is expected to ratify that plan in the next few weeks — with general managers meeting in Chicago on Tuesday to discuss them presumably for one last time.

There was a clear race to the bottom this season with five teams — Washington, Indiana, Utah, Memphis and Brooklyn — all having winning percentages below .180 after the All-Star break. There has never been a season in NBA history, until now, where so many teams lost that often after the break.

“The incentives are not necessarily matched here,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in February when discussing the correlation between the teams with the worst records having the best lottery odds. “I think the tradition in sports where the worst-performing team receives the first pick from their partners, when any economist comes and looks at our system, they always point out you have the incentives backwards there. That doesn’t necessarily make sense.”

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