Six Teams Celebrated, Six Went Home Shattered: The Full Verdict on the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery

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Six Teams Celebrated, Six Went Home Shattered: The Full Verdict on the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery

The 2026 NBA Draft Lottery was one of the most consequential drawings in years — the Washington Wizards won the No. 1 pick for the first time since 2010 in the final year of the current lottery format, becoming the first team since the 2019 reform to have the league's worst record and land the top spot. The Indiana Pacers were arguably the biggest losers, watching their pick land at No. 5 after trading it with 1-4 protections to the Clippers for Ivica Zubac — a protection designed to prevent exactly this outcome. The Brooklyn Nets bottomed out perfectly and fell three spots to sixth, while Memphis jumped three spots to third. We rank the six biggest winners and losers and break down what each result means heading into the June 23 draft.

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Six Teams Celebrated, Six Went Home Shattered: The Full Verdict on the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery

The Wizards got No. 1 for the first time since 2010. The Pacers traded away their pick with protections and watched it land at No. 5. The Nets bottomed out and dropped to sixth. The league's final year of the current lottery format delivered one of its most dramatic and consequential drawings.

The Washington Wizards won the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery and will pick No. 1 overall in the draft for just the third time in franchise history. The Wizards had a 14% chance of winning the top pick, tied with Brooklyn and Indiana for the best odds. Washington had basically a 50-50 chance of getting either a top-four pick or the No. 5 spot. They got No. 1. And the first person John Wall saw when he represented the Wizards on stage was the team that picked him in 2010. The circle completed.

Here are the six biggest winners and losers from Sunday's drawing:

WINNERS

1. Washington Wizards — The defending champs lock up the No. 1 spot with the best odds for the last time under the current format. The first time since 2019's lottery reform that the worst team in the league actually won. John Wall on stage. The full-circle moment. The franchise that was one lottery ball away from Wembanyama in 2023 and one away from Flagg in 2025 finally got through.

2. Memphis Grizzlies — After trading Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr., the Grizzlies moved up three spots on Sunday and now have a chance to add Dybantsa, Boozer, Peterson, or Wilson to a core that already includes Cedric Coward and Zach Edey. Given the versatility of Coward and any of those four incoming players, the Grizzlies can't really go wrong on draft night. Their patient rebuild just accelerated dramatically.

3. LA Clippers — The Clippers made several future-leaning bets at the deadline, and it appears both have paid off. In the most 10-leg-same-game-parlay-ass trade seen in years, the Clippers were the clear winners in the deadline trade that sent Ivica Zubac to Indiana in exchange for Bennedict Mathurin and Indiana's 2026 first-round pick, protected 1-4 and 10-30. The pick landed at No. 5. They turned a center rental into a lottery pick. The front office looks like geniuses.

LOSERS

1. Indiana Pacers — The Indiana Pacers may be viewed as the biggest losers of the NBA Draft Lottery not only this season but also over the last few years. After a mid-season swing to land Ivica Zubac, general manager Kevin Pritchard's bold swing to offer their 2026 first-round pick with top-4 protections to the LA Clippers has resulted in a colossal failure for the team, which spent 82 games tanking in hopes of offering Tyrese Haliburton a major reinforcement to complement the star guard. With Indiana's pick landing at No. 5, the Clippers' return for Zubac couldn't look better. The protections were supposed to prevent this. They did not.

2. Brooklyn Nets — The Nets kept all five of their first-round picks from last year, played them over 900 minutes each during the regular season, finished with a bottom-three record — thus, securing the best possible odds for the No. 1 pick — and tumbled three spots down to sixth. For a team without an obvious face of the franchise candidate on the roster, ending that sequence of events outside the top five is a massive loss. The tanking infrastructure was perfect. The lottery balls were not.

3. Chicago Bulls — Wait, the Bulls moved up five spots to fourth. But the reason they rank among the losers is what fourth means in this specific draft: only one member of the consensus top four will be on the board when Chicago picks. Going fourth means they'll likely end up with Boozer or Wilson, both of whom are versatile enough to play either frontcourt position alongside Matas Buzelis. Good outcome. Not the great one they were hoping for after their deliberate rebuild sprint to the lottery.

2026 Draft order: No. 1 Washington, No. 2 Utah, No. 3 Memphis, No. 4 Chicago, No. 5 LA Clippers, No. 6 Brooklyn. Draft: June 23-24, Barclays Center, New York. Lottery odds for No. 1: Washington 14% (won), Utah 14%, Indiana 14%. Final year of current lottery format — reform takes effect in 2027.