2024 NBA Draft Lottery: Hawks Win No. 1 Pick After Having 3% Chance to Win No. 1 Spot

By John Hollinger, David Aldridge, Kelly Iko, Eric Koreen and Jenna West

The Atlanta Hawks won the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft lottery in Chicago on Sunday.

The Hawks had a three percent chance of winning the draft lottery and had never won the event in franchise history before Sunday. They finished the 2023-24 regular season with a 36-46 record and 10th in the Eastern Conference.

The Washington Wizards, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs and Detroit Pistons round out the top five.

It was Washington’s highest pick since the Wizards last won the lottery in 2010 and took John Wall first overall. The last time the Wizards franchise had the No. 2 pick, the team was located in Baltimore and called the Bullets. That year (1968), the Bullets took Wes Unseld, who would go on to win Rookie of the Year. And NBA MVP in 1969.

NBA Draft Lottery Picks

1. Atlanta Falcons
2. Wizards of Washington
3. Houston Rockets
4. San Antonio Spurs
5. Detroit Pistons
6. Charlotte Frelons
7. Portland Trail Blazers
8. San Antonio Spurs
9. Memphis Grizzlies
10. Utah Jazz
11. Chicago Bulls
12. Oklahoma City Thunder
13. Kings of Sacramento
14. Portland Trail Blazers

View the full 2024 NBA Draft order here.

The 14 teams eligible for the draft lottery did not make the playoffs and the final lottery odds were determined after the conclusion of the 2023-24 regular season.

The draft lottery determines the order of selection of the first 14 picks in the NBA draft. Lottery draws determine the top four picks in the draft, and the rest of the lottery teams will select players Nos. 5 through 14 in reverse order of their regular season records.

The 2024 NBA Draft will take place on June 26-27. The first round will take place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on June 26, and the second round will take place at ESPN’s Seaport District studios in New York on June 27.

To learn more about the lottery project, follow AthleticismThe live blog of.

Falcons are lucky

The Hawks’ unexpected move to the top of the standings is a huge opportunity for a franchise that was going sideways. This may also make it easier to sell a Trae Young trade on the local market if they have a top pick joining the roster.

With two rim-protecting centers at the top of most draft boards, this could also be a great opportunity for the Hawks to select their center of the future and work on a trade involving Clint Capela’s expiring contract.

Given the team’s forward rotation, Atlanta could also ask for help on the wing in the form of UConn’s Stephon Castle and G League Ignite’s Ron Holland or Matas Buzelis.
This victory does not come without problems, as the candidate’s higher salary will complicate his efforts to stay below the luxury tax threshold. — John Hollinger, NBA Senior Writer

GO FURTHER

NBA Mock Draft: Who will the Hawks take after landing surprise No. 1 pick

It’s not a major loss for the Wizards to pick second place

Washington, a 15-win team, has needs everywhere. But the Wizards’ new front office, led by Monumental Basketball president Michael Winger and general manager Will Dawkins, covets tenure and players with room to change. You only have to look further than the Oklahoma City Thunder, where Dawkins spent 15 years in various front-office positions before being hired by Washington last year, to see the kind of team that Winger and Dawkins have would like to build in Washington.

They showed their intentions last year by moving from eighth place in the first round to seventh in a trade with the Indiana Pacers to ensure they could take 6-8 French forward Bilal Coulibaly, in whom they see an important long term. potential.

With the second pick, the Wizards can address their long-term needs at middle by taking either 7-foot-1 French center Alexandre Sarr or Connecticut big man Donovan Clingan, depending on what the Hawks do with the first selection. But they could also turn to long forwards like 6-foot-9 Frenchman Zaccharie Risacher or Colorado’s 6-foot-8 Cody Williams — who happens to be the younger brother of Jalen Williams, the rising OKC star that Dawkins was instrumental in the draft. first round in 2022.

And even though veteran Tyus Jones is an unrestricted free agent this summer and could leave, at No. 2, the Wizards could offer him a potential replacement in 6-foot-6 point guard Nikola Topić of Serbia.

The Wizards won’t have the first pick, but in this year’s draft, finishing second is not considered a major loss. —David Aldridge, NBA Senior Writer

The Rockets move up to No. 3

Well well well. When the Houston Rockets traded James Harden to the Brooklyn Nets in 2020, they aimed to stockpile assets to turn them into something tangible later. There’s no way the basketball gods could have predicted that this franchise would go from #9 (the most likely outcome) to #3.

After a 41-41 season, the organization made it clear they were turning the page toward winning basketball and the Rockets were considered open for business. A top-three pick is an attractive piece on the market, even in the draft class without a blue-chip prospect. Expect general manager Rafael Stone to be extremely aggressive between now and the end of June. — Kelly Iko, Rockets Editor-in-Chief

Spurs almost get the best case scenario

That was pretty close to a best-case scenario for the San Antonio Spurs, who entered the top four with their own pick and had the advantage of keeping the Toronto Raptors’ protected pick. San Antonio theoretically could have ended up with the No. 1 and No. 7 picks in this draft in a best-case scenario, but that was a 1 in 30 chance.

Just pulling off the daily double of keeping Toronto’s pick and moving into the top four with their pick was just a 1 in 5 proposition, and the Spurs cashed it. San Antonio will pick fourth and eighth, compared to a worst-case scenario where they could have ended up with just one pick at No. 9. —Hollinger

Raptors lose pick with Spurs move

As I wrote on Friday, the Raptors losing their pick this year isn’t that big of a deal. If this class is as weak at the top as most experts predict, the value of having certainty in the future allows the Raptors to build with fewer variables weighing on them. (If they had retained the pick, the same protections would have remained for their 2025 and 2026 first rounds. They also would not have been able to trade any of their first rounds until 2028.)

Coming out of the top six, the San Antonio Spurs got the pick from the Raptors, who fell two spots to eighth, completing the ill-conceived Jakob Poeltl trade.

The Raptors have the 19th pick as part of the Pascal Siakam trade with the Pacers. The lack of a lottery pick also means the Raptors could create more salary cap space in the offseason if they choose to go that route.

Make no mistake: The Raptors need contributors on mid-level contracts. A lottery choice would have been a solution. Still, not having that hanging over their heads as they try to build around Scottie Barnes is a victory of sorts. — Eric Koreen, Raptors writer

Required reading

(Photo: David Banks / USA Today)