Indiana Pacers draft lottery: Team wins tiebreaker against Washington
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Pacers slightly improved their chances in the NBA Draft Lottery.
The Pacers, who tied with the Washington Wizards for the seventh-worst record in the league at 35-47, won the tiebreaking coin toss.
It means the Pacers will have the seventh-best odds in next month’s draft lottery. The team has a 6.8% chance of getting the top selection and a 29.4% chance of getting a top-four pick.
Washington isn’t much far off. The Wizards are eighth in the draft lottery and will have a 6.7% chance of getting the top pick and a 28.9% chance of getting a top-four selection.
In terms of odds, the Pacers are most likely to pick eighth (35.6% chance) in the draft, with seventh (19.7% chance) and ninth (13.8% chance) being their next-highest probabilities, according to Tankathon.com.
The Pacers have a total of five selections in the upcoming draft. Indiana is locked in at 26 and 29 in the first round via trades with Cleveland and Boston, respectively. The 26 position was decided by a coin flip involving Memphis and Cleveland, who finished the regular season with the same record of 51-31. Memphis won that tiebreaker, meaning the Pacers will pick 26 instead of 25.
A second-round pick acquired in a trade with Cleveland will be the 55 selection.
Two picks depend on the results of the draft lottery, including the team’s first selection. It will fall either between 1 and 4 or 7 and 11.
One of the team’s second-round picks could be 32 overall or 50 overall, depending on draft lottery results for the San Antonio Spurs and the Houston Rockets. If the Spurs end up with a better draft position than Houston, Indiana gets the 32 pick. If Houston gets a better draft position than San Antonio, the Pacers get the 50 pick instead.
The NBA Draft Lottery, set for May 16, will determine the first four picks of the draft. The remaining lottery teams will then be slotted in positions 5 through 14 in inverse order of their records.
Here’s a look at the final NBA Draft Lottery order and odds of getting the first pick:
- Detroit: 14.0%
- Houston: 14.0%
- San Antonio: 14.0%
- Charlotte: 12.5%
- Portland: 10.5%
- Orlando: 9.0%
- Indiana: 6.8%
- Washington: 6.7%
- Utah: 4.5%
- Dallas: 3.0%
- Chicago: 1.8%
- Oklahoma City: 1.7%
- Toronto: 1.0%
- New Orleans: 0.5%
The NBA Draft is scheduled for June 22 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
