How 2025 NBA Draft Lottery Impacted OKC Thunder In Multiple Ways

The 2025 NBA Draft Lottery results were stunning. The NBA world is still reeling from the ping pong balls bouncing and chunning to the tune of the Dallas Mavericks grabbing the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, landing Cooper Flagg.

Dallas was not the only team to jump, San Antonio and Philadelphia each leaped up as well on Monday night. This pushed the Utah Jazz to the No. 5 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft despite having the worst record in the league.

Those two results, a 76ers jump and Jazz tumble, impacted the Oklahoma City Thunder in a massive way both now and next season.

While the OKC Thunder are set to take on the Denver Nuggets in an elimination Game 6 in Ball Arena, with hopes of the Thunder punching its ticket to its first Western Conference Finals since 2016, they are still caught up in draft discourse.

Oklahoma City owns a mountain of draft picks both in the 2025 NBA Draft (three) and in the future.

After the double-jump by the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks, things sat pretty for the Thunder to net a lottery pick in the same year the Bricktown Ballers rattled off 68 wins. The only thing stopping them? The 76ers also jumping, which robbed Oklahoma City of Philadelphia's top-six protected selection.

However, this doesn't have a massive ripple effect, the 76ers still own next year's first round pick to the Thunder in the 2026 NBA Draft, with that selection just top-4 protected. For the City of Brotherly Love's sake, they better avoid a trip to the top four in next year's draft.

Though, the results didn't just impact this summer. With the Utah Jazz stumbling to pick No. 5, they have little to no shot to convey the first round pick owed to Oklahoma City in 2026. While the 2025 NBA Draft pick was top-10 protected, the 2026 selection is top-8 protected.

After suffering the stumble down the NBA Draft board, the Jazz do not project to have the fire power to even flirt with a No. 9-30 finish in the NBA during the 2025-26 campaign.

In a way, this draft lottery cost the Oklahoma City Thunder a pair of potential picks.