The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery.
The fates are about to reveal themselves … in the form of 14 white plastic spheres. It’s time for the NBA Draft Lottery, an event both deeply consequential and altogether strange.
Sunday’s lottery sets the order for one of the decade’s most anticipated rookie drafts. This 2026 class is loaded with potential, and everything around it comes into focus once the lotto is drawn. The telecast is on ABC, 30 minutes before Game 4 of the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers second-round series.
Here’s what to know and how to tune in.
How to watch the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery
- Venue: McCormick Place — Chicago
- Time: 3 p.m. ET, Sunday
- TV: ABC
- Streaming: Fubo (Stream Free Now)
ABC is free over the air. It’s also available with an ESPN Unlimited subscription.
What to know about the NBA Draft Lottery
There are four drawings to determine the top four picks. The 14 teams that missed this year’s postseason are all entered into the lottery — though some of those franchises have already traded the rights to their spots.
The process itself involves 14 ping-pong balls, each with a number from 1-14. Those balls are thrown into a machine and mixed around, then revealed one by one to create a unique permutation. The lottery teams are given a set of different numeric combinations before the event starts. More regular-season losses mean more combinations overall.
That procedure gets repeated for picks Nos. 2-4. The draw resets if the same team comes up again. The order is finalized after the fourth drawing, with remaining lottery picks lined up by worst record. The rest of the first round (Nos. 15-30) and the whole second round goes in that same order — the worse the record, the higher the pick.
Drawings get conducted just before the broadcast begins. Results are then announced in reverse order, starting with No. 14, by the NBA’s deputy commissioner and chief operating officer, Mark Tatum. Representatives from each franchise sit on the stage as Tatum opens the envelopes and reads the results. Team reps include former NBA star John Wall, who was the Washington Wizards’ No. 1 pick in 2010, and current Indiana Pacers guard T.J. McConnell.
Among the standouts in the forthcoming draft are forward AJ Dybantsa from BYU, guard Darryn Peterson out of Kansas, Duke’s Cameron Boozer and UNC’s Caleb Wilson. In The Athletic’s latest mock draft, the top eight picks are all one-and-done freshmen. The 2026 draft is scheduled for June 23-24 in Brooklyn, N.Y., airing on ABC and ESPN.
Which teams have the best odds this year?
The Wizards, Pacers and Brooklyn Nets are most likely to get the top pick.
Washington went a dismal 17-65, but it did acquire former All-Stars Anthony Davis and Trae Young. The Wizards will look to flip the switch in 2026-27 with a new blue-chip prospect in hand.
Indiana finished at 19-63, one season after it reached Game 7 of the NBA Finals. This was a gap year for the Pacers after Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles in the finals finale.
Brooklyn ended up at 20-62, a continued fallout from its failed superteam effort earlier in the decade. The Nets landed five first-round rookies in the 2025 draft; the highest selection was Egor Dëmin at No. 8.
The other two teams with double-digit odds are the Utah Jazz and Sacramento Kings. Both went 22-60 this season.
Recent lottery winners have come from unlikely entrants. Last year’s Dallas Mavericks had just a 1.8 percent chance at the first pick, yet they still wound up atop the heap and drafted the prodigious Cooper Flagg. The same went for the Atlanta Hawks in 2024, who rose from 3 percent odds to select Zaccharie Risacher.
The Hawks could end up with the No. 1 pick again this year, should either the New Orleans Pelicans or Milwaukee Bucks win the draft lottery. The Pelicans acquired the Bucks’ 2026 first-rounder from the Jrue Holiday deal in 2020. They then sent the Hawks their right to the higher pick to trade up for Derik Queen in the 2025 draft. Atlanta will now get the better pick this year between those two teams.
The full 2026 odds are listed below:
| Team | Odds (%) |
|---|---|
|
Washington Wizards |
14.0 |
|
Indiana Pacers |
14.0 |
|
Brooklyn Nets |
14.0 |
|
Utah Jazz |
11.5 |
|
Sacramento Kings |
11.5 |
|
Memphis Grizzlies |
9.0 |
|
New Orleans Pelicans* |
6.8 |
|
Dallas Mavericks |
6.7 |
|
Chicago Bulls |
4.5 |
|
Milwaukee Bucks* |
3.0 |
|
Golden State Warriors |
2.0 |
|
LA Clippers** |
1.5 |
|
Miami Heat |
1.0 |
|
Charlotte Hornets |
0.5 |
* Atlanta receives the higher pick between New Orleans and Milwaukee.
** The Oklahoma City Thunder have the Clippers’ pick due to the Paul George blockbuster in 2019.
In-depth NBA Draft coverage from The Athletic
Recent No. 1 NBA Draft picks
- 2025 — Cooper Flagg, Dallas Mavericks
- 2024 — Zaccharie Risacher, Atlanta Hawks
- 2023 — Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs
- 2022 — Paolo Banchero, Orlando Magic
- 2021 — Cade Cunningham, Detroit Pistons
- 2020 — Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves
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