Ping-pong balls will decide the fate of Cooper Flagg—but the goodwill NBA teams built over the 2024-25 season will really dictate the outcome. Here are the real odds heading into lottery night, as decreed by the basketball gods.
For some, karma’s a bitch. For others, it’s a ladder. And the 2025 NBA draft lottery on Monday night will reveal which franchises fall into which category. It might seem silly that the fortunes of several billion-dollar companies rise and fall with the bounce of a ping-pong ball, except that’s not really the case. Their fortunes rise and fall with every loose ball, every extra pass, every player who sprints back on defense when no one’s watching (and every “load management” injury report and every boneheaded transaction). You see, the draft lottery isn’t a lottery at all. It’s judgment day, the annual event where the basketball gods evaluate an entire karmic body of work and dole out the rights to the most precious raw resources in the game.
The stakes for this year are massive. Cooper Flagg is the best college prospect since Zion Williamson—and he’s just one of several potential difference-makers to be had in the 2025 class. The draft order will also dictate the shape of the upcoming offseason, as a handful of win-now teams like the Sixers and Mavericks may (or may not) deal their picks for immediate help. So, as we did heading into the Victor Wembanyama lottery, let’s gauge the karmic case for each of this year’s participating teams.
As for what makes some teams more deserving than others? “It’s a complicated formula,” says one source with knowledge of the basketball gods’ thinking, who was granted anonymity in order to avoid their wrath. Franchises accrue positive karma for things like establishing a clear on-court identity, building the Right Way, and cultivating conditions in which basketball can thrive. On the flip side, they’re docked for ugly basketball, organizational turmoil, and creating situations that prevent players from reaching their full potential. Some teams just need to catch a break; others have squandered every opportunity and can no longer be trusted to shepherd the game’s most exciting talents. Having analyzed the karmic ledger for all 13 teams with a chance at the no. 1 pick, we’ve ranked them from least to most deserving.
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Real odds at the no. 1 pick: 0.8 percent (1-12 protected, otherwise conveys to the Hawks)
Karmic odds: 0.5 percent
After a brief competitive interlude, the most dysfunctional NBA franchise of the 21st century is flailing once again. The Kings fired coach Mike Brown just months after signing him to an extension; laid the blame for that decision on their franchise player, leading to a trade request and the end of De’Aaron Fox’s tenure with the team; acquired Zach LaVine as part of the ongoing performance art piece called “the Sacramento Bulls”; and fired their general manager mere minutes after losing to the season’s biggest punching bag (the Dallas Mavericks) in the play-in. Now, they’re slated to send their 2025 first-round pick to Atlanta, unless that pick jumps into the top four on Monday night (which carries a 3.8 percent probability). Just two years ago, the Kings were one of the NBA’s best stories, a beam of light that had finally put a miserable 16-year playoff drought behind them. Somehow, they’ve already burned through all their goodwill, shipped out the primary architects of that success, and now face a future that’s as unstable as ever.
Real odds: 7.5 percent
Karmic odds: 2.2 percent
The basketball gods like to reward clarity of vision, and the Raptors might be the most inscrutable team in the NBA. If there’s a unifying theme in the seemingly contradictory entries in Toronto’s recent transaction log, it’s a hyper-focus on value. Masai Ujiri dealt OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam rather than sign them to pricey contracts, yet he traded for Jakob Poeltl and Brandon Ingram in large part because he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to buy low. Ironically, he now oversees a team that’s committed 89 percent of next year’s cap to Ingram, Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett, and Immanuel Quickley. That core four isn’t just expensive; it’s also extremely mid and redundant on the wing, where Flagg prefers to operate. Flagg may profile as an elite “connector” in the NBA, but connecting the disparate parts and conflicting timelines on the Raptors’ roster would be taxing, if not impossible, work.
Real odds: 14 percent
Karmic odds: 3.2 percent
Credit where it’s due: At least the Jazz made a real run at the top pick this season. In 2022-23 and 2023-24, Utah jumped out over its skis before pivoting hard to the tank midway through the season—somehow managing an affront to the integrity of both competition and anti-competition. This season, however, the Jazz ambled through an 0-6 start and never looked back. Still, despite the emphasis on, uh, development, it would have been nice to see Utah retain some of the zip and coordination of its previous couple of seasons. Instead, the Jazz were often discombobulated and, frankly, gross. When your head coach is saying things like “Pass the motherfucking ball” and “This is not a personal workout for you,” it’s typically not a great sign as far as basketball karma goes. Not to mention, a starting frontcourt of Lauri Markkanen, Walker Kessler, and Flagg in Utah would be just a touch beyond the pale.
Real odds: 12.5 percent
Karmic odds: 3.6 percent
Six years ago, around this time, the Pelicans reached an inflection point. Anthony Davis wanted out, New Orleans had just won the 2019 draft lottery, and the Pelicans were able to replace one franchise-defining big man with another. Unfortunately, injuries derailed the Zion era, culminating in a horrific 2024-25 season that resulted in the firing of general manager David Griffin, the reemergence of Zion trade rumors, and, ultimately, another inflection point: the chance for New Orleans to once again turn the page with another no. 1 pick. There’s an undeniable symmetry at play here, though it’s hard to tell whether that’s a good or bad sign for New Orleans’s lottery chances.
On the one hand, so much of what’s gone wrong for the Pelicans is due to factors outside of their control; there’d be an appealing karmic justice in their landing a prospect with Zion’s unimpeachable blue-chip status and none of his injury or off-court issues. On the other hand, it’d be risky to send Flagg to the NBA’s most cursed franchise, where recent history has been so bad as to raise questions about the viability of pro basketball in New Orleans. Is Flagg the prospect who was promised? Or will the Pels’ dysfunction turn him into yet another false prophet?
Real odds: 10.5 percent (1-6 protected, otherwise conveys to the Thunder)
Karmic odds: 4.8 percent
The relevant question here isn’t whether the Sixers deserve to land Flagg. It’s whether Flagg deserves to land with the Sixers, and it’s hard to imagine what he could have possibly done to deserve that. The last two players to be drafted first overall by Philly had their basketball powers zapped like the NBA players in Space Jam. Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz have made a combined 88 3s in 638 career games—though, in fairness, Simmons did score four whole points in the Clippers’ Round 1 loss to the Nuggets. History suggests Flagg must be kept away from Philly at all costs.
That’s not to say the Sixers’ karmic fortunes are irrelevant heading into Monday night; Philly has as much riding on the lottery as any other team. The draft is the Sixers’ only means of salvaging something from a nightmarish season, but even that is provisional. If their pick lands in the top six, they’ll keep it; if it lands seventh or later, it will go to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Unfortunately for Sixers fans, the basketball gods seem to take particular pleasure in abusing their team. Maybe it’s some residual punishment for The Process. Maybe it’s because of the ill-advised extension for Joel Embiid after he slogged his way through the Olympics. Either way, if the team’s 2024-25 season—which began with Finals hopes and ended with the league’s fifth-worst record and what now look to be two of the worst contracts in the NBA—is any indication, the basketball gods seem unlikely to find a new slant anytime soon.
Real odds: 14 percent
Karmic odds: 6.2 percent
Hornets fans, don’t be discouraged by your placement here. Since the team’s new owners bought the franchise in 2023, there’s been a welcome shift in approach. Rather than cycle through half-baked win-now trades, the Hornets are adhering to a longer-term vision. They’re making savvy trades, accumulating draft picks, and finding legit rotation players on the margins. They’re even signaling a willingness to listen to offers for LaMelo Ball, an electrifying talent who is also the literal embodiment of basketball lust, gluttony, and greed (complimentary?). The Hornets are trending upward. We just need to see it over a longer period before we can move them higher up this list.
Real odds: 14 percent
Karmic odds: 6.8 percent
Despite winning just 18 games, the Wizards can feel pretty good about the 2024-25 season. Their best prospects took meaningful steps forward. Jordan Poole played ethical-ish basketball. And according to the basketball gods’ proprietary stat “karma points added,” the Kyle Kuzma–for–Khris Middleton trade was the single most impactful transaction of the year. Like Charlotte, Washington is taking its medicine, sticking to its plan, and building from the ground up in an admirable way. The Wiz narrowly edge out the Hornets only because they haven’t been a colossal failure for their entire existence.
Real odds: 9 percent
Karmic odds: 7 percent
The past decade of Brooklyn Nets basketball has featured two distinct approaches to team-building. First, the Resourceful Era, when the Nets rose from the wreckage of the Paul Pierce–Kevin Garnett trade behind a strong organizational culture and a string of savvy moves for overlooked talents. Then, the Superteam Era, when they leveraged everything they’d built to bring in Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden, which of course imploded spectacularly in 2023. Flagg represents a third way, and probably the best, most sustainable one yet. If the past 10 years have taught us anything about general manager Sean Marks, it’s that he struggles to manage mercurial superstars but excels at spinning something out of nothing. That latter quality is exactly what any team would want to pair with Flagg’s star-level upside and supremely versatile skill set. Brooklyn isn’t blameless for its past failures, but it has earned enough goodwill and the benefit of the doubt regarding its ability to nurture good basketball.
Real odds: 1.7 percent
Karmic odds: 10 percent
Chicago actually represents one of the more exciting Flagg destinations. The Bulls are the rare bad team with a strong identity, and they get bonus karma points for unearthing it down the stretch, winning 15 of their final 20 games despite having free rein to tank after reacquiring their pick at the trade deadline. Having jettisoned DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine over the past calendar year, the Bulls found success running like hell and firing up 3s. Flagg could thrive within that turbocharged style and bring enough two-way upside to turn a fun experiment into a potentially credible system. Alas, there is one potentially disqualifying problem: Bulls general manager Arturas Karnisovas is on record as trying to build a star-less contender made up of nine or 10 “very good players,” and Flagg might be too good to play a part.
Real odds: 3.8 percent (via the Suns)
Karmic odds: 11.5 percent
Parsing the Rockets’ lottery odds requires untangling an intricate web of intertwined karmas—those of the Rockets, the Suns, Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, the Nets, Mat Ishbia, and more. It all dates back to last June, when Houston traded its unprotected Nets picks for Brooklyn’s unprotected Suns picks, essentially shorting Phoenix’s future and putting itself in pole position to trade for Durant or Booker if things ever went south in Phoenix. And yet, even after calling his shot, Rockets general manager Rafael Stone couldn’t have expected to have the ninth-best odds at the draft lottery less than a year later.
The Suns’ miserable 2024-25 season has made the fate of this pick one of the most interesting subplots of the lottery. Phoenix has said that it will look to trade Durant this summer but that Booker is untouchable. Would that calculation change if Flagg were part of the trade return? It should. The Suns have doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on trying to win right now, but there’s no realistic avenue to building another contender on Booker’s timeline. Swapping Booker for Flagg would give the Suns a fresh start and give the Rockets the lead scorer they desperately needed in this year’s playoffs—a worthy reward for a team that commits to defense, values veteran leadership, and has taken a patient approach to allow for the organic development of its tough-as-nails identity.
Real odds: 6 percent (their own pick) and 0.7 percent (via the Hawks)
Karmic odds: 12.5 percent
Before the 2023 draft lottery, Gregg Popovich said, “We deserve no more luck ever in the history of NBA basketball.” Of course, the Spurs then won the lottery and drafted Wembanyama, the most ridiculous talent to enter the league since LeBron James. So let me say, in the clearest possible terms, on behalf of all Spurs fans: Now we really deserve no more luck ever in the history of NBA basketball. No, seriously, basketball gods, please send Flagg elsewhere. Don’t be tempted by San Antonio’s rich legacy of no. 1 picks. Don’t be suckered into it by the limitless potential of a Wemby-Flagg frontcourt. Certainly don’t honor the greatest coach in the history of the NBA with one more relentless competitor to mold and help grow in his new role as el jefe. The Spurs couldn’t possibly deserve it.
Real odds: 3.7 percent
Karmic odds: 14 percent
Look, everyone loves scoring guards. Portland-era Damian Lillard was one of the most thrilling players of his generation, and it’s admirable that when the Blazers finally moved on from the Lillard–CJ McCollum partnership, they pivoted to Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe, and Anfernee Simons. I think we can all appreciate the Blazers’ commitment to trying to make it work with a flawed but supremely entertaining player archetype. But really, we just want Portland fans to be happy. And sometimes that means rooting for someone who is 6-foot-9, can create his own shot, and plays great defense. The Trail Blazers were one of the highest karmic risers of the 2024-25 season. Rather than tank, they built a clear defensive identity that carried them to 36 wins. They’ve cultivated an ideal context for a star, but their surprising success last season means they need a little extra lottery luck to actually obtain him.
Real odds: 1.8 percent
Karmic odds: 18 percent
I have no idea where to start with this one. The Mavericks just wrapped the most disastrous season in NBA history, and it was entirely self-inflicted. The team’s outlook is decimated. Its owners won’t take accountability. The fans are in open revolt. It’s an impossible situation: If the Mavs are good, it will validate Nico Harrison; if they aren’t, Dallas fans will suffer.
Unless …
What if there were a way to extricate the fate of the Mavs from the success of the fans’ sworn enemy? What if it were possible to help the Mavs without vindicating Harrison? What if there were some mechanism to get Dallas a new franchise cornerstone that was entirely divorced from the misguided philosophies of the team’s general manager? Eureka. In all of NBA history, there has never been a situation quite like the Mavs’, and this silly draft lottery system provides the perfect resolution. The Mavs get Flagg, and Harrison gets none of the credit. It may even get him fired, if Mavs ownership uses the opportunity to reorient around Flagg as an excuse to bail on Harrison’s vision.
I get it: The karmic case is thorny. Maybe you think the Mavs should spend 40 years wandering the desert as punishment for the unforgivable sin of trading Luka Doncic. Maybe you think the other 29 NBA teams should just agree to let them have Flagg out of pity. Maybe you think a defense led by Flagg and Anthony Davis will win too many championships. Whatever the case, I think we can all agree that this is the only way, and the only time, to salvage the next half decade of Dallas Mavericks basketball.
Isaac joined The Ringer in 2018 as a copy editor. These days, he’s probably editing a story about the NBA or watching Manu Ginóbili highlights.
