Is the NBA Draft Lottery rigged? Many believe the answer is yes, and it’s becoming increasingly hard to argue against that after some of the winners in the past 20 years.
Dallas getting the lottery pick this year was the top of the iceberg. It’s also the reason I decided to take a deep dive at the most popular NBA Draft conspiracy theories and analyze the numbers since 2000 to figure out whether the lottery is indeed rigged. Let’s take a deeper look together!
1. The Luka Doncic Conspiracy Theory
There’s only one place to start after the Dallas Mavericks won the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery.
1.8% chance. #MFFL pic.twitter.com/QHqjP4DlR9
— Dallas Mavericks (@dallasmavs) May 13, 2025
The Mavericks were involved in one of the weirdest and arguably, the worst trades in NBA history this season. They sent Luka Doncic, Maxi Kleber, and Markieff Morris to the LA Lakers, getting Anthony Davis, Max Christie, and a 2029 first-round pick in return.
The deal stunned the sports world, because it came out of the blue and made zero sense. Luka was 25 at the time and coming back after a Finals run, so getting an aging and injury-prone AD and a single first-round pick for an all-time great just entering his peak was insane.
I love Davis and see him as one of the biggest what-ifs in the league, but at this age and given his injury history, this was just nuts from Dallas’ perspective. If the organization asked around the league, they would’ve 100% gotten a significantly better package.
Many thought the move was designed by the NBA to boost the declining TV ratings by pairing Luka with LeBron on the most popular team in the league.
There was only one problem with that theory: what would the Mavericks gain from this trade? Well, the conspiracy theorists got their answer: Cooper Flagg!
The former Blue Devil star is one of the hottest prospects in the past 20+ years. Flagg just became one of the few freshmen to win National Player of the Year and is projected to become an NBA superstar.
And the Mavericks got an opportunity to pick him despite only having a 1.8% chance to land the first pick! It’s very suspicious and certainly fuels the theories that the NBA Draft Lottery is rigged.
Still, the fact that an event is highly unlikely doesn’t make it impossible and shouldn’t be enough to make a conspiracy theory true. The problem for the NBA is that it’s not a one-off in the past 25 years. Let’s look at a few other weird coincidences (or not?)
2. The Zion Williamson Conspiracy Theory
Funny enough, the other conspiracy theory that supports the idea that the NBA Draft is rigged is again related to LeBron and Athony Davis. James needed some help to win with the Lakers back in 2019.
At the same time, AD was getting frustrated in New Orleans and requested a trade. The Pelicans sent him to the Lakers that summer, and the duo then won an NBA Championship in 2020.
The deal wasn’t as shocking as the Luka trade, but the suspicious part is that the Pelicans won the NBA Draft Lottery in 2019 and had the chance to select Zion Williamson.
Zion was the most hyped prospects since LeBron entered the league, and conspiracy theorists speculated that New Orleans getting the top pick was part of the reason they sent AD to the Lakers.
While this one is definitely harder to believe in comparison to the Luka conspiracy theory, it must be noted that the Pelicans only had a 6% shot at the top pick.
And again, pairing LeBron with another superstar on the Lakers, the biggest market in the league, could be seen as an attempt to boost interest in the NBA.
3. The Cleveland Cavaliers Conspiracy Theory
The third conspiracy theory that suggests the NBA Draft Lottery is rigged is once again connected to LeBron. James changed the entire basketball world when he decided to leave Cleveland and form a super team in Miami back in 2010.
It was one of the most influential moves in NBA history that essentially shaped the entire 2010s. LeBron won multiple titles with the Heat, while the Cavaliers struggled in the next few years.
However, they won the NBA Draft Lottery three times in the next four years, in 2011 (via a Clippers pick they owned), 2013 and 2014. They had a 2.80% chance to get the first pick in 2011, 16.50% in 2013, and only 1.7% in 2024.
I went back to 1985 when the lottery started to see if this happened before, and the answer is no. The Cavaliers essentially hit the jackpot multiple times in a very short span, which sounds very suspicious.
Conspiracy theorists believe this was compensation for the Cavaliers for losing LeBron, but also a setup to help James if he decided to come back in the future (which he did).
Whether you believe that or not, Cleveland winning three top picks in four years, with the odds lower than 3% in two of the cases, seems very suspicious.
Let’s take a look at all NBA Draft Lottery results since 2000 next, to see if there’s a weird pattern there.
NBA Draft Lottery by the Numbers Since 2000
Here’s a full list of NBA Draft Lottery winners since 2000 and their odds to land the top pick:
| Year | Team | Odds to win the Lottery |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | New Jersey Nets | 4.40% |
| 2001 | Washington Wizards | 15.70% |
| 2002 | Houston Rockets | 8.90% |
| 2003 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 22.50% |
| 2004 | Orlando Magic | 25.00% |
| 2005 | Milwaukee Bucks | 6.30% |
| 2006 | Toronto Raptors | 8.80% |
| 2007 | Portland Trail Blazers | 5.30% |
| 2008 | Chicago Bulls | 1.70% |
| 2009 | LA Clippers | 17.79% |
| 2010 | Washington Wizards | 10.30% |
| 2011 | Cleveland Cavaliers (via LA Clippers) | 2.80% |
| 2012 | New Orleans Hornets | 13.70% |
| 2013 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 15.60% |
| 2014 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 1.70% |
| 2015 | Minnesota Timberwolves | 25.00% |
| 2016 | Philadelphia 76ers | 25.00% |
| 2017 | Philadelphia 76ers (via Nets and Celtics) | 25.00% |
| 2018 | Phoenix Suns | 25.00% |
| 2019 | New Orleans Pelicans | 6.00% |
| 2020 | Minnesota Timberwolves | 14.00% |
| 2021 | Detroit Pistons | 14.00% |
| 2022 | Orlando Magic | 14.00% |
| 2023 | San Antonio Spurs | 14.00% |
| 2024 | Atlanta Hawks | 3.00% |
| 2025 | Dallas Mavericks | 1.80% |
Before you analyze at these numbers, it’s important to understand how the NBA Draft Lottery odds work. You could see that many teams with very low odds have won in the last 25 years, but there’s context here to consider.
The worst 14 teams in the NBA have a shot at the top pick every year under the current system. The worst three have a 14% chance each, for a combined 42%.
Teams 9-14 all have odds lower than 5%, but their combined odds are 12.25%. That means a team with a lower chance than 5% is expected to win one of every eight lotteries.
If you include teams 6-8, which all have under a 10% chance, the combined odds of a team with a lower than 10% chance to win the lottery grow to 33.5%, or one in three.
The history of the draft since 2000 is not completely off, even if underdogs have been fairly lucky overall. I don’t see enough here to make a case that the lottery is rigged, but what about the overall picture?
Is the NBA Draft Rigged?
The overall NBA Draft Lottery numbers since 2000 don’t offer enough evidence that the lottery is rigged, but it’s very hard to ignore the conspiracy theories entirely.
While the Zion conspiracy theory looks a bit far-fetched, the other two I covered are very weird and hard to explain. Even if you believe that the Cavaliers got extremely lucky to win the lottery three times in four years after losing LeBron, you are still left with the Luka situation from this year.
This is the worst trade in NBA history, possibly in US sports, and it simply didn’t make any sense at the time. Even if the Mavericks wanted to trade Doncic, sending him to the Lakers for such an abysmal package was inexplicable.
If they shopped the Slovenian around the league, they would’ve easily gotten a much better return. If Nico Harrison, Dallas’ General Manager, had the power to single-handedly execute such a trade, I might be able to believe it. However, a deal of such magnitude would surely require the approval of the owners and other executives.
I won’t go as far as saying that the NBA Draft Lottery is rigged, but this is the most plausible explanation for the Luka trade. If the Mavericks were promised the top pick that lands them Cooper Flag, it completely changes the Doncic move.
What do you think about the Luka trade and the NBA Draft Lottery? Is it rigged? I would love to read your opinion in the comments section, so feel free to share it!
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