2025 NBA Draft Lottery's Biggest Winners and Losers
Three months after the most stunning, incomprehensible trade in NBA history sent Luka Dončić from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers, the Mavs cashed in on a 1.8 percent (one. point. eight. percent.) chance to land the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
They now have the opportunity to add Cooper Flagg to a roster that already includes Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving and several high-end role players who helped Luka reach the NBA Finals in 2024.
They are undoubtedly the biggest winner of this year's lottery, but they're far from the only ones. There are plenty of losers to identify, too.
The most obvious calls on either side of that ledger are below.
Winner: Nico Harrison and the Mavericks
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With all due respect to ESPN's Bob Myers, who said the reaction to the Luka trade brought too much heat to Dallas and its general manager Nico Harrison, he made the most baffling trade in NBA history.
And every official (and unofficial) attempt from the organization to justify the move just made things worse.
It was a disastrous three months that eventually led to a minuscule shot at the top pick in the lottery. And of course, that minuscule shot found the bottom of the net.
Given some of his previous messaging on the Luka trade, you can't put it past Harrison to claim this was all part of the plan.
And for at least one night, you can't really begrudge him that, either. In a very literal sense, the Mavericks won big on Monday.
Of course, there's still no guarantee this is a win in the long term. The chances of anyone, including Flagg, developing into a perennial MVP candidate who averages close to 30, 10 and 10 are exceptionally low.
But again, for now, Harrison and the Dallas organization deserve some love for this almost unbelievable stroke of luck.
Losers: The True Tankers (Especially Utah)
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The 17-65 Utah Jazz, 18-64 Washington Wizards and 19-63 Charlotte Hornets each entered the lottery with a 14 percent chance to secure the top pick.
Everyone else had a statistically worse shot.
And all of the above wound up outside the top three. Flagg is obviously off the table for them. Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper might be, too.
No prospect is a sure thing, but that trio feels closer to that description than the rest of their class. And these teams that all won fewer than 20 games will likely have to hope for cornerstone-level talents elsewhere.
Those are just harder to come by, historically, outside the top three.
The slide feels especially awful for Utah, which was a consistent winner for decades prior to initiating a rebuild by trading Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert three years ago.
With much of the draft capital they picked up in those deals now spent (or being spent), they still don't have a franchise player. This was Utah's best shot, and they fell four spots to wind up with the fifth pick.
Winner: San Antonio Spurs
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Two years after winning the lottery that led to Victor Wembanyama, the San Antonio Spurs just jumped eight spots to land the No. 2 overall pick.
And while the most obvious potential result of this win may be San Antonio simply taking Harper or Bailey to pair with Wembanyama and the Spurs mostly young supporting cast, a trade suddenly feels far more likely.
Earlier on Monday, ESPN's Shams Charania opened a flood gate of speculation when he reported that "for the first time in his career, [Giannis Antetokounmpo] is open-minded about whether his best fit is remaining in Milwaukee – or playing elsewhere..."
Even before they moved up, the Spurs felt like an obvious landing spot. Now, they almost feel like the favorite.
San Antonio has plenty of outgoing salary to aggregate in a Giannis trade. It can pair several more picks with this year's No. 2. And a one-two punch of Giannis and Wemby would undeniably be one of the most intriguing in the league.
Loser: Conference Balance
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The imbalance between the NBA's Eastern and Western conferences has been painfully obvious for well over two decades.
Since the start of the 2003-04 season (the first after Michael Jordan's final retirement), Eastern Conference teams have played at around a 36-win pace when facing Western Conference teams. In the same span, the West has accounted for almost two-thirds of the All-NBA nods.
The path to a Finals appearance has been (and remains) far more treacherous for teams in the West. And the imbalance has likely gotten worse even in recent years.
The Spurs won the Wemby lottery in 2023. Dallas just landed the opportunity to draft Flagg. In between those two, the Atlanta Hawks won the lottery in a draft that was described as historically weak.
Zaccharie Risacher looks like he could develop into a high-end three-and-D forward. He might even become an All-Star. But Wemby is a potential face of the league. Flagg looks like he could be a perennial All-Star and All-Defense candidate.
Forget what a trade sending Giannis West would do to this discussion. Even without that event, the growing chasm between the league's two conferences is something it may soon have to address.
Moving a good Western Conference team over when the league expands to 32 teams could help, but the difference has gotten so extreme that the NBA might have to seriously consider seeding the postseason regardless of conference.
Winner: Philadelphia 76ers
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The Philadelphia 76ers entered the 2024-25 campaign with an on-paper trio of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George, but those three played fewer than 300 minutes together, barely won those minutes and failed to make the playoffs in a year in which they were touted as a title contender in the offseason.
The only potential silver lining was the shot at a lottery pick that their failure led to. And now, that potential is a reality.
Philly, like San Antonio, now has far more (and far better) options heading into this summer. It can add a bright. young talent to Maxey and Jared McCain. Or, it could get far more aggressive in the trade market and add another winning veteran to a hopefully healthier core.
Either way, the Sixers are in better shape than they would've been at No. 5 (or outside the top six, in which case their pick would've gone to the Oklahoma City Thunder).
Winner and Potential Loser: Cooper Flagg
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When you're the presumptive No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft, especially one with the potential to develop into some kind of Gerald Wallace/Jayson Tatum hybrid, you're a winner.
And that's certainly true of Flagg.
Going to a team that has a good chance to make the playoffs in Flagg's first year could be sold as a pretty obvious win, too.
But Flagg is also headed to an organization that just voluntarily hit a self-destruct button by trading a then-25-year-old all-time-great offensive engine for an injury-prone, post-prime and now-32-year-old No. 2 option.
Anthony Davis is one of the great second fiddles in NBA history, but there was still no logical explanation for the deal, no matter how many times Harrison repeated, "defense wins championships."
Flagg having to walk into that situation, with a fan base that's still far from over the Luka trade, isn't easy. Living up to the ready-made expectations of filling Luka's shoes is incredibly unfair, but that won't erase their existence.
Immediately after Dallas won the lottery, ESPN's Kendrick Perkins asked Flagg about his two-way play setting him apart from Dončić. The comparison is going to follow the (likely) future Maverick as long as he's on that team.
Flagg will also be playing for a head coach in Jason Kidd who's never been known for developing young talents. On a team like Utah, Washington or Charlotte, he likely would've been guaranteed 30-plus minutes per game and a high-usage offensive role.
With Kidd and Dallas, who knows if he'll even start the season ahead of P.J. Washington on the team's hierarchy?
Though he likely would've lost a bit more in several of the other possible situations he faced prior to Monday, being a Maverick may be more challenging.
