Trail Blazers Finally Lucked Out in NBA Draft Lottery

After enduring years of bad fortune and slight missteps in draft order and execution, the Portland Trail Blazers might have finally gotten a break. The Blazers earned the 7th overall selection in the 2024 NBA Draft by virtue of today’s NBA Draft Lottery, adding the 14th overall pick as payment from a trade with the Golden State Warriors last summer.

Normally these results would be a disappointment. Portland had only a 16.4% chance of landing in the seventh position. 81.4% of the time, they would finish with a pick between 1-6 overall. They had a 13.2% chance of winning it all, barely lower odds than finishing in the spot they did.

Two factors turn this into a case of good timing rather than bad luck for the Blazers.

This draft class has no clear leader or leaders. There’s no consensus first-overall pick, no superstar on the table, and certainly no generational player like Victor Wembanyama in the 2023 NBA Draft. Most experts are having a hard time agreeing on a Top 10, even. This draft is a total crap shoot. Any talent to be have will be diamond-in-the-rough variety. Breakout players might be just as available (or absent) in the mid-lottery as at the top.

Rookie scale contracts do not change. The player Portland selects seventh will have a base salary of $5.7 million, give or take a million in potential raises. The first pick is slated to make $10.5 million, plus a potential couple extra.

Portland is already committed to $167 million in salary next year without rookies signed from the draft. The luxury tax threshold is projected to be $171 million. They don’t have a lot of headroom.

Adding in that 14th pick, the Blazers will probably owe around $10 million to their upcoming lottery selections. Had they won the lottery, they’d be over $15 million. That doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but there’s a serious argument to be made that the Blazers would be adding little, if any, value ascending from seventh to first. Every million they added, though, would be another million they’d need to cut back on in trades before the end of the season to avoid paying tax penalties, plus missing out on end-of-year windfalls for non-tax teams.

There’s a chance that the first overall pick could have held enough value—either in selecting or trade—to justify wanting it. Perhaps a star will emerge from the combine and pre-draft team workouts. Being able to select from the entire pool of draftees holds enticement.

If they weren’t going to win—and maybe even if they were—the Blazers couldn’t have ended up in much better position than they did, getting to take a flyer on a player without having to pay through the nose for it.

Missing out on Wembanyama last year was a franchise-defining moment. The 2025 NBA Draft may hold others. Losing out in 2024 probably doesn’t make a difference and may even hold benefits. If there was a year to get shafted in the lottery, this was it. After years of rough luck, Portland’s ship finally came in, or at least remained docked at the right time.