The Luckiest Jumps to the No. 1 Pick in NBA Draft Lottery History
The Dallas Mavericks defied the odds Monday night and won the 2025 NBA draft lottery despite entering the night with only a 1.8 percent chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick. Three months after infuriating their fanbase by trading Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers, the lottery gods threw them a life raft in the form of Duke forward Cooper Flagg.
They weren't the only ones to luck out Monday night. The San Antonio Spurs landed the No. 2 overall pick despite having only a 6.3 percent chance to do so, while the Philadelphia 76ers—who were in grave danger of sending their first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder—landed the No. 3 overall pick despite having only a 10.6 percent chance.
The Mavericks tied the 1993 Orlando Magic and 1999 Charlotte Hornets for the all-time biggest jump in lottery history (10 spots). Their win also fueled another round of speculation about whether the lottery is rigged. (Spoiler: It isn't.)
That got us thinking: Where does the Mavericks' jump rank all-time? Believe it or not, it wasn't the biggest upset ever.
We've ranked the 10 luckiest jumps to the No. 1 overall pick in NBA lottery history based on the odds that each team entered with.
10. 2005 Milwaukee Bucks
1 of 10
Spots jumped: 5
Odds of winning pick: 6.3%
Selected: Andrew Bogut
After making it to the 2001 Eastern Conference Finals, the Milwaukee Bucks spent the next few years hovering around .500. The wheels came off for them in 2004-05, as Michael Redd and Desmond Mason weren't enough to keep them from finishing with the league's sixth-worst record at 30-52.
Luckily, the lottery gods smiled upon them and rewarded them with the No. 1 overall pick anyway. They spent it on Utah center Andrew Bogut, who spent his first seven seasons in Milwaukee and earned a third-team All-NBA nod in 2009-10.
Granted, LeBron James (2003) and Dwight Howard (2004) were the No. 1 overall picks in the two drafts immediately preceding this one. While Bogut went on to have a 14-year NBA career and won a championship with the Golden State Warriors in 2014-15, he never made an All-Star Game.
The Bucks might look back on this draft and wish they hadn't jumped quite as high. Deron Williams and Chris Paul were the Nos. 3 and 4 picks, respectively.
9. 2019 New Orleans Pelicans
2 of 10
Spots jumped: 6
Odds of winning pick: 6.0%
Selected: Zion Williamson
Much like with this year's Mavericks, conspiracy theories started flying when the New Orleans Pelicans won the 2019 lottery.
In January of that year, star big man Anthony Davis told the Pelicans he wouldn't sign an extension with them when he became a free agent in 2020 and requested a trade. The Pelicans refused to move him by that year's trade deadline, which led to an awkward, months-long standoff that culminated in Davis wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with "That's all, folks!" in his final home game.
And much like this year's Mavericks, a Duke forward was the top prize of that year's lottery. That time, it was Zion Williamson, who joined Davis and Kevin Durant as only the third freshman in history to win the Wooden Award for being the nation's best men's college basketball player. (Flagg became the fourth this year.)
Granted, Williamson's tenure in New Orleans hasn't unfolded as the Pelicans would have hoped. He continues to show enormous promise when healthy, but he's played in only 214 of a possible 472 regular-season games since making his NBA debut. His injury history has been so problematic that he signed a unique, partially guaranteed extension after his rookie-scale deal that protected the Pelicans in case he couldn't stay healthy.
The Mavericks can only hope that Flagg doesn't follow in Williamson's footsteps in that regard.
8. 2007 Portland Trail Blazers
3 of 10.JPG?w=684 "Trail Blazers Nuggets Basketball")
Spots jumped: 6
Odds of winning pick: 5.3%
Selected: Greg Oden
What once looked like a blessing turned out to be a curse for the Portland Trail Blazers.
The Blazers made the playoffs for 21 straight years from 1982-83 through 2002-03, but the wheels came off for them in the mid-aughts. After going 41-41 in 2003-04, they went a combined 80-166 in the ensuing three seasons.
The Blazers went a league-worst 21-61 in 2005-06, giving them a 25 percent chance of winning the 2006 lottery. Instead, they fell to No. 4, which was the most they could drop. They wound up trading that pick in a package to the Chicago Bulls for the No. 2 overall pick, which they used to select LaMarcus Aldridge, and they traded back into the lottery to take Brandon Roy at No. 6.
That still didn't stop the Blazers from winding up right back in the 2007 lottery. They were tied with the Minnesota Timberwolves for the league's sixth-worst record in 2006-07, but the lottery gods were far more merciful this time around.
Two potentially generational prospects sat atop that year's draft. The Blazers took Ohio State center Greg Oden at No. 1, which allowed the then-Seattle SuperSonics to take Kevin Durant at No. 2. Unfortunately for the Blazers, Durant remains one of the league's most feared scorers nearly 20 years later, while injuries limited Oden to only 82 career games in Portland and 105 games total.
7. 2000 New Jersey Nets
4 of 10
Spots jumped: 6
Odds of winning pick: 4.4%
Selected: Kenyon Martin
Despite finishing with a 16-34 record in the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, the then-New Jersey Nets didn't have a first-round pick in the 1999 draft. They had traded it three months earlier to the Minnesota Timberwolves in a three-team deal that netted them Stephon Marbury,
Marbury and Keith Van Horn made the Nets slightly more respectable the following year, but they still finished only 31-51, which was the second-worst record in the Atlantic Division and seventh-worst in the NBA. Luckily, they still had their first-round pick this time around.
The Nets spent that pick on Kenyon Martin, who wound up making the All-Star Game during his final season in New Jersey and carved out a 15-year NBA career for himself. Unfortunately for them, the 2000 draft class was one of the worst in league history.
The Nets wound up missing the playoffs again in 2000-01, but they traded for Jason Kidd the following offseason and made two straight appearances in the NBA Finals after that. They eventually sign-and-traded Martin to the Denver Nuggets in 2004 for three future first-round picks.
6. 2024 Atlanta Hawks
5 of 10
Spots jumped: 9
Odds of winning pick: 3.0%
Selected: Zaccharie Risacher
The Atlanta Hawks can thank the mid-2010s Philadelphia 76ers for their lottery fortune in 2024.
Under the previous system, the lottery teams with the worst records had a higher probability of landing a top-three pick, while the teams with better records had a lower chance. The team with the 10th-worst record previously had only a 1.1 percent chance of winning the No. 1 overall pick and a 4.0 percent chance of landing a top-three pick.
Luckily, the Process Sixers infuriated enough people around the league that the NBA board of governors agreed to flatten the lottery odds beginning in 2019. The change was theoretically supposed to disincentivize teams from tanking, although the tankapalooza for Flagg proved that teams haven't been fully dissuaded yet.
The 2023-24 Hawks didn't tank. In fact, they made it to the Eastern Conference play-in tournament as the No. 10 seed before losing to the No. 9 seed Chicago Bulls. Their reward for missing the playoffs was one of the unlikeliest jumps in NBA lottery history.
Unfortunately, the Hawks won the No. 1 overall pick in a year when there wasn't a clear-cut option atop the draft. Since they didn't have a generational prospect like Flagg or Victor Wembanyama awaiting them, they wound up taking Zaccharie Risacher, who went on to average 12.6 points, 3.6 rebounds and 1.6 three-pointers in only 24.6 minutes per game as a rookie.
5. 2011 Cleveland Cavaliers (via L.A. Clippers)
6 of 10
Spots jumped: 7
Odds of winning pick: 2.8%
Selected: Kyrie Irving
Only a few hours before the 2011 trade deadline, the Los Angeles Clippers traded their fully unprotected 2011 first-round pick with Baron Davis to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Mo Williams and Jamario Moon. Clippers general manager Neil Olshey presented the following justification for the move at the time.
"The drill is, as always, is 'Is the player you're getting back more valuable than the potential you could get in the draft?'" Olshey said. "Our analysis at this point in February is that it was more valuable to get a 28-year-old All-Star point guard that we have for the next few years, cap flexibility to make sure we take care of business and re-sign DeAndre Jordan and have flexibility to take care of Eric Gordon as well, as opposed to speculating on another kid that's 19 years old with one year of college experience.
"And I'm not that high on the draft to begin with this year."
Olshey might have made that calculation with a mid-to-late lottery pick in mind, but the lottery gods had other ideas. The Clippers wound up jumping seven spots to win the No. 1 pick, but they had to convey it to Cleveland since the pick was fully unprotected.
The Cavs used that pick on Duke point guard Kyrie Irving, who wound up being the first building block that eventually lured LeBron James back to Cleveland three years later.
4. 2025 Dallas Mavericks
7 of 10
Spots jumped: 10
Odds of winning pick: 1.8%
Selected: TBD (Cooper Flagg)
The Dallas Mavericks might be living proof of the saying "fortune favors the bold."
The Mavericks stunned the NBA by trading Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis, Max Christie and one future first-round pick ahead of the 2025 trade deadline. The deal, which came completely out of nowhere, drew a massive wave of criticism and led some Mavericks fans to protest the team.
As it turned out, Davis didn't even make it through his first game with the Mavericks before suffering an injury that sidelined him for nearly two months. (Who could have seen that coming?) Injuries began to ravage the rest of the rotation, including star point guard Kyrie Irving tearing his ACL in early March, and the Mavs went into a tailspin that sent them into the play-in tournament.
The 10th-seeded Mavericks destroyed the ninth-seeded Sacramento Kings in the first play-in game, but the eighth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies kept them out of the playoffs. That wound up being a franchise-saving blessing, as the Mavs wound up with the 11th-best lottery odds rather than a mid-first-round pick that had no chance of moving up.
Flagg can now help Mavericks fans get closure over the team's befuddling decision to trade Dončić.
T-2. 2014 Cleveland Cavaliers
8 of 10
Spots jumped: 8
Odds of winning pick: 1.7%
Selected: Andrew Wiggins
Four years into their post-LeBron James era, the Cleveland Cavaliers were finally beginning to show signs of life again. After landing Kyrie Irving with the No. 1 overall pick in 2011 and Anthony Bennett with the No. 1 overall pick in 2013, the Cavs went from 24-58 in 2012-13 to 33-49 in 2013-14.
That improvement gave them only 17 possible lottery combinations (out of a possible 1,000) of winning the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 draft. But then-general manager David Griffin arrived at the lottery with a secret weapon: the lucky bowtie from Nick Gilbert, the son of team governor Dan Gilbert.
Once again, the pingpong balls bounced in the Cavs' favor for the third time in four years, leading to yet another round of allegations about the lottery being rigged. Cleveland winning three No. 1 overall picks in four years after losing an all-time great like James certainly looks suspicious, if nothing else.
Kansas center Joel Embiid initially looked like the front-runner for this pick, but he suffered a stress fracture to the navicular bone in his right foot shortly before the draft. That caused the Cavs to pivot and take Kansas wing Andrew Wiggins instead.
Wiggins never suited up for the Cavs, though. After James decided to return to Cleveland in free agency, the Cavs traded Wiggins to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Kevin Love, completing a new-look Big Three that would lead them to their first championship in franchise history two years later.
T-2. 2008 Chicago Bulls
9 of 10
Spots jumped: 8
Odds of winning pick: 1.7%
Selected: Derrick Rose
After three straight playoff appearances in the mid-aughts, the Chicago Bulls briefly fell on hard times in 2007-08. They fired head coach Scott Skiles after only 25 games that season, but interim head coach Jim Boylan didn't fare much better. They finished with a 33-49 record that gave them the ninth-best odds going into the 2008 lottery.
Sitting atop that year's class was Memphis point guard Derrick Rose, a Chicago native. Take one guess what happened when the Bulls defied the odds and won the No. 1 pick.
Rose lived up to the hype early on. He won Rookie of the Year, was named an All-Star in his second season and become the youngest player ever to win the MVP award in his third year while guiding the Bulls to a 62-20 record and the No. 1 seed in the East. However, an array of injuries sidelined him for 27 games of the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign, which wound up being the beginning of the end for Rose's time atop the NBA.
In the waning minutes of Game 1 of the Bulls' first-round series that year, Rose tore the ACL in his left knee on a drive to the basket. He missed the entire 2012-13 campaign and never made an All-Star Game again.
1. 1993 Orlando Magic
10 of 10
Spots jumped: 10
Odds of winning pick: 1.5%
Selected: Chris Webber
In 1992, the Orlando Magic cashed in on their 15.2 percent chance of winning the No. 1 overall pick, which netted them Shaquille O'Neal. The addition of Shaq Diesel helped them jump from a 21-61 record in 1991-92 to 41-41 in 1992-93, although they still narrowly missed the playoffs, which put them back in the lottery in 1993.
Back then, there were only 11 teams in the lottery, so the system was different. The team with the worst record had 11 chances of winning the No. 1 pick, the team with the second-worst record had 10 chances, so on and so forth. That meant the Magic had only a 1-in-66 chance of winning the No. 1 overall pick in 1993.
The Magic defied those odds and became the luckiest lottery winner in NBA history, still to this day. With fellow big man Chris Webber atop that year's draft class, the Magic traded the No. 1 pick to the Golden State Warriors for No. 3 pick Penny Hardaway along with three future first-rounders.
Shaq and Penny proceeded to guide the Magic to the playoffs for three straight years, including a trip to the 1995 NBA Finals. However, Shaq proceeded to join the Los Angeles Lakers as a free agent in 1996, which left Penny as the lone remaining star in Orlando.
As a response to the Magic winning the 1993 lottery, the NBA overhauled the lottery to more closely resemble the system we have today.
