In likely the final year of the current system for the NBA's draft lottery, the Washington Wizards proved the eighth time is the charm.
After the team with the worst record in the NBA in each of the previous seven draft lotteries under the current format had failed to land the top overall selection in the NBA draft, the Wizards -- who went 18-64 this season -- came out on top in the much anticipated lottery Sunday afternoon in Chicago.
Washington was followed by the Utah Jazz (tied for the fourth-best odds) at No. 2, the Memphis Grizzlies (sixth-best odds) at No. 3 and the Chicago Bulls (ninth-best odds) at No. 4.
That meant the two other teams tied with the Wizards for the best lottery odds -- the Indiana Pacers and Brooklyn Nets --- fell to fifth and sixth in June's draft respectively. However, that also meant the Pacers pick was sent to the LA Clippers, as part of a trade that saw Indiana land center Ivica Zubac at February's trade deadline.
Indiana will now get its 2031 pick back instead, as the Pacers were only going to keep their pick in this year's draft if it moved into the top four spots in the lottery.
The big winners, though, are the Wizards, who made massive trades during the season to land All-Stars Trae Young and Anthony Davis, and have designs on taking a big step forward next season. Those hopes will be aided by selecting one of the top prospects in a banner class of prospects.
This year's draft -- with a deep crop of prospects at the top including BYU forward AJ Dybantsa, Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, Duke forward Cameron Boozer and North Carolina forward Caleb Wilson, plus a promising group of guard prospects (Arkansas' Darius Acuff, Houston's Kingston Flemings, Louisville's Mikel Brown and Illinois' Keaton Wagler) behind them -- carried an extra amount of attention from both fans and teams alike.
Over the final couple months of the regular season, nearly a third of the league was outright attempting to be as bad as possible in order to secure the best chances of leaping up and winning a shot at one of these prized prospects at the top of the class.
That fervor was only heightened when the NBA, in response to the widespread tanking the sport has seen across the last two seasons in pursuit of consecutive deep draft classes, has announced it's going to take some fairly drastic measures to curb the effectiveness of tanking.
That, though, is a conversation for later this month, when the NBA's board of governors is expected to vote on whatever the new lottery system would be. Sunday's results instead will put a focus on the teams that got lucky enough to leap into the top four -- and, with it, a chance for all four of them to land a prospect with the potential to change their franchise.
There is some level of irony in the fact that the Jazz, who were hit with a $500,000 fine for "conduct detrimental to the league" over their attempts to get as high a pick as possible, moved up in the lottery for the first time in franchise history to land the second pick.
Now that the lottery is over, the debate over the ordering of the prospects will begin -- with the top overall spot likely coming down to the two players who have fought for that honor all season long: Dybantsa and Peterson.
Dybantsa is a 6-foot-9 forward from Brockton, Massachusetts, who averaged 25.5 points per game as a freshman to lead the nation in scoring, making him the first to do so since Trae Young did it at Oklahoma in 2018, and only the third freshman ever, per ESPN Research.
Peterson, meanwhile, averaged 20.2 points per game, the highest scoring average ever by a Kansas freshman, but missed 11 games because of injuries -- the most missed games for a potential No. 1 overall pick coming out of college since Kyrie Irving was taken after playing just 11 games for Duke back in 2011.
A pair of forwards, Boozer and Wilson, are then likely to be tapped with the third and fourth selections, in some order.
Boozer, the son of two-time NBA All-Star Carlos Boozer, was the most productive player in America. The burly 6-foot-9 forward swept virtually every individual honor in the country this season after averaging 22.5 points, 10.2 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 1.4 steals while shooting 55.6% from the field and 39.6% from 3-point range across 38 games.
And then there's Wilson, an electric 6-foot-10 forward who averaged 19.8 points, 9.4 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.4 blocks while shooting 57.8% from the field in 24 games, though he missed time with first a fractured left hand and then a broken right thumb that ended his season prematurely ahead of the men's NCAA tournament.
The mid-lottery is then expected to be dominated by guards, with individual team preference likely determining where Acuff, Brown, Flemings and Wagler will wind up, with Tennessee's Nate Ament and Arizona's Brayden Burries potentially entering the discussion, as well.