How did the NBA react to Mavericks winning 2025 Draft Lottery?

Zach Lowe of The Ringer was in attendance for the actual ping-pong ball drawing, so he saw all of the teams react in real time as the numbers were selected. He shared those reactions on the latest episode of the "Zach Lowe Show."

"The amount of murmuring and whispering and looks around the room during the lottery drawing, which is normally silent, was unprecedented," Lowe started. "The first ball comes up 10, and we've lived this movie before where a high number comes up. Everybody's in play with the high numbers.

"Second ball is 14, which is the highest number," Lowe stated. "Now there's like, 'Uh oh.' Then 11 comes up [it's] the third ball. And at that point or some time during the second drawing, Justin Zanik, who's representing the Jazz, and Will Dawkins, who's representing the Wizards, I think Justin looked at Will and was like 'Oh s***'.

"If the last ball was a six, Blazers win the lottery," Lowe continued. "If the last ball was a seven, Mavs. So, Matt Riccardi was representing the Mavs, and Andrae Patterson was representing the Blazers. They were sitting next to each other, and Andrae confirmed this. During those 20 seconds, Matt Riccardi, representing the Mavs, turned to Andrae and said, 'It's going to be a seven.' ... And then it turns seven.

"And the whole room pauses because only a couple of people realize it's Dallas," Lowe added. "And a league lawyer is combing this big easel that has all the combinations, and he says 'Dallas.' And in that moment, it was not an eruption because it's impolite to erupt, like they're already starting the second drawing. Everybody was dying of laughter, like muffling their laughter, looking at each other like 'Are you kidding me? The Dallas Mavericks?"

There were apparently also a lot of jokes in the room about the Mavericks, like people saying "Maybe Nico Harrison was right" in jest, but it was a lot of disbelief given the season they had, a lot of the failures being self-induced.

It'll be over a month until the Mavericks can officially make Cooper Flagg a Mav, but he seems excited about the opportunity, and it'll give him a good chance to learn from Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis while growing alongside former Duke Blue Devil Dereck Lively II.