NBA Draft Lottery winners and losers: Wizards, Pacers and everyone but OKC

This NBA season was marred by tanking. One-third of teams showed little interest in winning games. The league even fined two of them for tanking. Then the lottery rewarded four of the most unapologetic tankers — the Wizards, Jazz, Grizzlies, and Bulls — with the top four picks.

Washington traded for Trae Young and Anthony Davis. Didn’t play them. Utah got fined for violating the player participation policy, and traded for Jaren Jackson Jr., but put him on ice after he played just three games. Memphis traded away JJJ, slow-played the return of its injured players, and demoted Rayan Rupert to the G League the morning after he had a 30-point triple-double. Chicago traded away its entire veteran core for a nonsensical roster with seven guards to free-fall out of the play-in straight into the lottery.

Advertisement

Under the current rules, those teams made the smart choice. This is a draft that was worth tanking for: BYU forward AJ Dybantsa, Duke power forward Cam Boozer, Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, and North Carolina big Caleb Wilson headline what could end up a tremendous class of prospects.

Let’s get to the winners and losers of the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery:

NBA Mock Draft 5.0 | NBA Draft Guide

Winner: Washington Wizards

The Wizards won 50 games combined over three-straight years — which was capped off by allowing Bam Adebayo to drop 83 points this season — and got a cosmic payoff with the first pick in the 2026 draft. It’s the third time the Wizards have had the first pick in the last 25 years. In 2001, they drafted Kwame Brown. In 2010, they took John Wall, who, fittingly, represented the franchise on stage.

Advertisement

Everyone expects the Wizards to take Dybantsa. And maybe they will. He slots in as a small forward on a roster that suddenly looks coherent: Alex Sarr anchoring the paint, Anthony Davis at power forward, Trae Young running the offense, Kyshawn George, Tre Johnson, Will Riley, and Bilal Coulibaly at the wings. Dybantsa is a connective two-way piece and has the potential to someday become one of the greatest scorers in the league. And in Washington, he’d have the support around him to…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/nba-draft-lottery-winners-and-losers-wizards-pacers-and-everyone-but-okc-023820269.html

Author : Kevin O'Connor

Publish date : 2026-05-11 02:38:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.