addByline("Jackson Filyo", "WashingtonWizards.com");
The 2022 NBA Draft Lottery will take place on Tuesday, May 17 in Chicago and will be broadcast live on ESPN, determining the order of picks 1-14 in June’s NBA Draft.
After finishing the season 35-47, the Wizards own the tenth-best odds in the lottery with a 13.9% chance of jumping into the top four and a 3.0% chance of winning the top overall pick.
Here is a look at everything you need to know about this year’s lottery, including league-wide odds, a breakdown of each spot the Wizards can land and exactly how the lottery process works.
LEAGUE-WIDE ODDS
The 2022 NBA Draft Lottery marks the fourth season of a revamped distribution of the lottery odds, giving teams 1-3 equal odds to pick in each of the top-four spots (14.0%, 13.4%, 12.7% and 12.0%) and descending odds for the remaining teams in positions 4-14. Rather than offering the 14 teams the chance to jump into the top three, as the lottery did before 2019, the lottery now offers any of the 14 lottery teams the chance to move up into the top four. The odds for all 14 lottery teams descend based on their final non-playoff record.
WIZARDS ODDS FOR EVERY PICK
With the tenth-best odds in the lottery, the Wizards have a chance to select anywhere from 1-4 and 10-14. The most likely scenario (65.9%) is holding firm at pick #10. Picks 11-14 come into play if any of the four teams below the Wizards make the lucky jump into the top four – a combined likelihood of just over 20.2%.
Washington holds a 3.0% chance of taking the #1 overall pick, a 3.3% chance at #2, a 3.6% chance at #3 and a 4.0% chance at #4. Altogether, the Wizards’ chances of jumping into the top four are 13.9%.
HOW IT WORKS
From NBA.com, here is a full explainer on how the bouncing ping-pong balls and number combinations determine the draft order:
The 38th annual NBA Draft Lottery will determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the 2022 NBA Draft. Drawings will be conducted to determine the first four picks in the NBA Draft. The remainder of the “lottery teams” will select in positions five through 14 in inverse order of their 2021-22 regular-season records.
The actual lottery procedure will take place in a separate room just before ESPN’s national broadcast. A media member, NBA officials and a representative of the accounting firm Ernst & Young will be in attendance for the drawings.
Fourteen ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14 will be placed in a lottery machine. There are 1,001 possible combinations when four balls are drawn out of 14, without regard to their order of selection. Before the lottery, 1,000 of those 1,001 combinations will be assigned to the 14 participating lottery teams.
The lottery machine is manufactured by the Smart Play Company, a leading manufacturer of state lottery machines throughout the United States. Smart Play also weighs, measures and certifies the ping-pong balls before the drawing.
The drawing process occurs in the following manner: All 14 balls are placed in the lottery machine and they are mixed for 20 seconds, and then the first ball is removed. The remaining balls are mixed in the lottery machine for another 10 seconds, and then the second ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the third ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the fourth ball is drawn. The team that has been assigned that combination will receive the No. 1 pick. The same process is repeated with the same ping-pong balls and lottery machine for the second through fourth picks.
If the same team comes up more than once, the result is discarded and another four-ball combination is selected. Also, if the one unassigned combination is drawn, the result is discarded and the balls are drawn again.
The length of time the balls are mixed is monitored by a timekeeper who faces away from the machine and signals the machine operator after the appropriate amount of time has elapsed.
A partner from Ernst & Young oversees the entire lottery process and stuffs and seals the envelopes before bringing them to the studio for the broadcast. The announcement of the lottery results will be made by Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum. Representatives from each participating team will join virtually. Neither the Deputy Commissioner nor the virtual team representatives will be informed of the lottery results before the envelopes are opened.
The team whose logo is in the last envelope opened will have the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, which will be held on Thursday, June 23.