Thunder Draft Lottery Odds: What Does History Tell Us?

At this point we know that OKC has the fourth-best lottery odds, but their pick could land anywhere in the top eight.

Nick Crain | May 28, 2021

While it's positive that the Oklahoma City Thunder ultimately won this week's tiebreaker over the Cleveland Cavaliers to secure the fourth-best draft lottery odds, history tells us that it could mean nothing.

Starting in 2019, the NBA changed the lottery odds system, making the distribution of where picks could fall a bit more even. This was in effort to reduce the amount of late-season losing in order to gain the best chance at a top pick. Since then, the bottom three teams are all given an equal 14.0 percent chance of landing the top pick. The change also overall gave more teams a better shot at landing a pick higher or lower than where they finished in the reverse standings.

This immediately showed just how impactful the new system could be for teams, as the New Orleans Pelicans ended up with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft to select Zion Williamson after having the seventh-best odds to do so that draft. Furthermore, the Memphis Grizzlies had the eighth-best odds and landed the No. 2 pick and the Los Angeles Lakers had the eleventh-best odds and got pick No. 4 in 2019.

The very next season, the Minnesota Timberwolves landed the No. 1 pick with the third-best draft lottery odds and the Charlotte Hornets selected at No. 3 after having the eighth-best odds coming into the lottery.

This has obviously ended up being negative for teams that had high odds as well. For example, in the 2019 NBA Draft, the New York Knicks had to select third overall after having the worst record in the NBA. In that same draft, Cleveland, Phoenix and Chicago all picked three spots lower than where their lottery odds sat.

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With this in mind, the Oklahoma City Thunder's pick could end up being anywhere from No. 1 to No. 8 overall. Although this new lottery system has only been in place for two drafts, history already tells us that anything can happen on lottery night.

The 2021 NBA Draft Lottery will take place at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, June 22.

Published May 28, 2021

NICK CRAIN

Nick has spent the last four seasons covering the Oklahoma City Thunder and has grown quickly in the media since starting. He’s continued to produce Thunder content through writing for Forbes.com and podcasting with The Uncontested Podcast, as well as branching out to cover the NBA as a whole for SLAM Online.