How the NBA draft lottery works
The fourteen teams that miss the playoffs enter the draft lottery. Fourteen numbered ping-pong balls go into a drum and four are drawn, which produces one of 1,001 possible combinations. One thousand of those combinations are assigned to teams according to record; the 1,001st is discarded and redrawn if it comes up. The first draw decides the No. 1 pick, and the process repeats for picks two through four. Picks five through fourteen then go in inverse order of record — which is why a team can fall at most four spots from its pre-lottery slot.
This draft lottery simulator NBA fans use on this page runs the same procedure: the same 1,000-combination split, the same top-four draw, the same drop protection. Nothing is weighted toward drama. When a 0.5% team jumps to No. 1, it earned it the hard way.
Lottery odds by seed (2019 format)
| Seed | No. 1 | No. 2 | No. 3 | No. 4 | Top 4 | Worst case |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 14.0% | 13.4% | 12.7% | 12.0% | 52.1% | 5th |
| 2 | 14.0% | 13.4% | 12.7% | 12.0% | 52.1% | 6th |
| 3 | 14.0% | 13.4% | 12.7% | 12.0% | 52.1% | 7th |
| 4 | 12.5% | 12.2% | 11.9% | 11.5% | 48.1% | 8th |
| 5 | 10.5% | 10.5% | 10.6% | 10.5% | 42.1% | 9th |
| 6 | 9.0% | 9.2% | 9.4% | 9.6% | 37.2% | 10th |
| 7 | 7.5% | 7.8% | 8.1% | 8.5% | 31.9% | 11th |
| 8 | 6.0% | 6.3% | 6.7% | 7.2% | 26.2% | 12th |
| 9 | 4.5% | 4.8% | 5.2% | 5.7% | 20.2% | 13th |
| 10 | 3.0% | 3.3% | 3.6% | 4.0% | 13.9% | 14th |
| 11 | 2.0% | 2.2% | 2.4% | 2.8% | 9.4% | 14th |
| 12 | 1.5% | 1.7% | 1.9% | 2.1% | 7.2% | 14th |
| 13 | 1.0% | 1.1% | 1.2% | 1.4% | 4.7% | 14th |
| 14 | 0.5% | 0.6% | 0.6% | 0.7% | 2.4% | 14th |
Why a GM cares about the lottery
Tanking is a bet, and the lottery is where the bet pays off or does not. The three worst teams share the same 14% chance at the first pick, so being historically bad buys nothing extra — while a team in the middle of the lottery has a very real path into the top four. Reading those odds is the first decision in a rebuild, long before draft night.
In TakeCourt the lottery is not a toy on the side. It opens every offseason of the dynasty mode, and the pick it hands you carries real value in the trade machine, in protected-pick negotiations, and on the cap sheet when the rookie deal comes up for restricted free agency. Run it here as many times as you want — then join the private beta waitlist.
Draft lottery simulator FAQ
Fourteen non-playoff teams, fourteen balls, four drawn. The four-ball combination maps to a team; four separate draws decide picks one through four, then the rest of the order follows record. A team can drop at most four spots.
14% for each of the three worst teams, then 12.5%, 10.5%, 9%, 7.5%, 6%, 4.5%, 3%, 2%, 1.5%, 1%, and 0.5% for the fourteenth seed. The full table is above.
Yes — free, in your browser, no download. TakeCourt is expanding this same lottery into a full browser NBA GM simulator; its private beta waitlist is open now.