The 31st annual edition of the NBA Draft Lottery will determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the 2015 NBA Draft.
Fourteen ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14 will be placed in a drum. There are 1,001 possible combinations when four balls are drawn out of the 14, without regard to their order of selection. Prior to the lottery, 1,000 of those 1,001 combinations will be assigned to the 14 participating lottery teams.
The Minnesota Timberwolves finished the season with the NBA’s worst record (16-66), so they will be assigned the first 250 combinations. The Oklahoma City Thunder, the best team in the lottery at 45-37, will have only five combinations out of 1,000.
Four balls will be drawn to the top to determine a four-digit combination. The team that has been assigned that combination will receive the number one pick. The four balls are placed back in the drum and the process is repeated to determine the number two and three picks. (Note: If the unassigned combination is draw, the balls are drawn to the top again.)
The order of selection for the teams that do not win one of the top three picks will be determined by inverse order of their regular season record. Thus, Minnesota can pick no lower than fourth, New York (17-65) no lower than fifth and Philadelphia (18-64) no lower than sixth.
The actual Lottery procedure will take place in a separate room just prior to the national broadcast on ESPN with select media, NBA officials and representatives of the participating teams and the accounting firm of Ernst & Young in attendance.
Following the drawing, team logo cards will be inserted into envelopes marked 1 through 14 by an Ernst & Young representative. These envelopes will be sealed and brought on-stage, where the announcement of the Lottery results will be made by NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum. A second representative from each participating team will be seated on-stage. Neither the Deputy Commissioner nor the team representatives will be informed of the Lottery results prior to the opening of the envelopes.
The team whose logo is in the last envelope will pick first in the NBA Draft 2015, to be held on Thursday, June 25 at The Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.