Adam Silver addresses accusations of NBA Draft Lottery being rigged for Mavericks: ‘Odds are odds’

“We call it a lottery and I think, sometimes because it’s a lottery, people think it must have been a one-in-a-million chance that Dallas was going to win,” he said in an appearance on Breakfast Ball at Fox Sports 1. “Remember, the worst performing team had a 14% chance of winning, which means there was an 86% chance they wouldn’t get it. Dallas had roughly a 2% chance. So the losingest team had a 7x better chance.

“Two percent is two percent. It’s gonna happen. When people say, ‘therefore, the lottery is broken,’ I have a different view. I say it’s to disincentivize teams from tanking. So here you had a team that was clearly trying — whatever people think of that trade — they were trying to win. Then Kyrie got injured. Then Anthony Davis got injured. So they found themselves in the lottery. Odds are odds and that’s how it turned out.”

The lottery win was the first in franchise history for the Mavericks, who had the fourth-lowest odds of any team in NBA history who ended up winning. They are expected to take No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg, who put up 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game while winning AP Player of the Year as a true Freshman at Duke.

The inevitable arrival of Flagg could put Dallas in position to be a contender again once it gets its team fully healthy. Davis should be good to go for the start of the regular season, but Irving will likely miss some time to start the year as he suffered an ACL tear in March.

The Mavs’ lottery win was definitely a shocker, but it isn’t the first time something like this has happened. The Atlanta Hawks won the 2024 lottery despite having just 3% odds and the Orlando Magic have the record for the teams with the lowest odds to win at 1.52% in 1993.

The Magic ended up using that pick to trade to Golden State for Penny Hardaway. That’s also a route the Mavericks could take this offseason with stars such as Giannis Antetokounmpo potentially up for grabs.