May 16, 2023; Chicago, IL, USA; A overall shot of the final four teams in the 2023 NBA Draft Lottery at McCormick Place West. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images David Banks-Imagn Images

How does it work? Explaining the NBA's Draft Lottery system

Originally posted on Charlotte Hornets on SI
By Owen O'Connor | Last updated May 12, 2025 11:28 AM ET

The biggest night of the Charlotte Hornets season comes in May, and it's not a playoff game.

The franchise finished 19-63, third worst in the league. It gives them a 14% chance at winning the NBA Draft Lottery, tied with the Washington Wizards and Utah Jazz. The squad also has a 52.1% chance of landing a selection in the top four, with the lowest they can fall is five.

The NBA's Draft Lottery was established in 1985 to counter tanking, or teams purposefully losing to receive a higher draft pick. It's seen some tweaks over the years, and the system we see today has been in place since 2019.

That system?

There are fourteen ping pong balls (numbered one through fourteen) placed into a lottery machine. Four balls are drawn out of fourteen, with 1,001 possible combinations. 1,000 of those 1,001 combinations are assigned to the fourteen lottery teams.

What happens if that extra combination is drawn?

The result is discarded, and the balls are drawn again.

All fourteen balls get placed in the lottery machine, where they then are mixed for twenty seconds. After the twenty seconds is over, the first ball is removed. There is then three straight ten second mixes where a ball is drawn, and the team that has been assigned that combination will receive the first pick in the draft. The process is then repeated for the second, third, and fourth picks.

Wait, what happens if the same team is drawn twice?

The result is then discarded, and a different four-ball combination is selected.

A representative from Ernst and Young, one of the "Big Four" accounting firms, oversees the entire lottery process and then stuffs and seals the envelopes containing the results. These results are then brought to the studio for the broadcast, where NBA Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum announces the envelopes in reverse order. Neither Tatum nor the team representatives, in the Hornets' case, head coach Charles Lee, know the results before the envelopes are opened.

The lottery will take place at 7 PM EST on ESPN.