Breaking down NBA’s great tank race for Cooper Flagg as top lottery positions come into focus

Tanking has been one of the predominant themes of the 2024-25 NBA season. The Utah Jazz have been fined for violating the league’s player participation policy with some of the most shameless tanking in recent memory. The Philadelphia 76ers have started sitting midseason acquisition and career 10.2 points per game scorer Quentin Grimes with the rare “rest” designation because he was winning them too many games. The Toronto Raptors more or less stopped playing fourth quarters.

With Cooper Flagg on the line, these teams are more than justified in attempting to maximize their lottery odds. Now, with less than two weeks remaining in the season, those tanking seeds are beginning to bear fruit. While the order won’t officially be set until the regular season ends, we can be relatively confident in the odds the top teams will have in May’s lottery. So with the great tank race of 2025 nearing its conclusion, let’s go through what has happened, and what we can expect in May.

NBA’s tank race standings

Entering play on April 3

The 14 percenters

All but three teams have at least 21 wins this season. Those three remaining teams—the Jazz, Wizards and Hornets—are all at 19 or fewer. With so little time remaining, that should make it relatively safe to say that they will be the three worst teams in the league this season, and therefore earn 14% odds for the No. 1 overall pick. Those odds, for all three teams, are identical. The order in which they finish, however, still matters because it determines their floor. The team with the worst record cannot pick lower than fifth. The team with the second-worst record can pick as low as sixth, and the team in third can drop all the way to No. 7.

For most of the season, it looked as though the Wizards had the top slot sewn up. On Jan. 31, the Wizards were 6-41 and trailed the field by four wins. Since then, however, they’ve gone 11-18, more or less abandoning the tank in an effort to develop a culture for their young players. Deadline acquisitions Khris Middleton and Marcus Smart have been quite helpful in that respect, and at the same time, Utah has doubled down on losing and taken a one-win lead for the worst record. Assuming the Wizards keep trying to win and Utah maintains its lose at all costs mentality, that top spot will, in all likelihood, go to the Jazz.

The Hornets, at No. 3, have a two-win cushion in either direction. They probably aren’t winning many more games with LaMelo Ball out for the season, so there is a chance Washington wins its way past them, but it’s not as though the Wizards have been good lately. Two wins in the last 11 days of the season isn’t especially likely, so expect Charlotte to come in at No. 3.

The middle of the pack

New Orleans, once in contention for one of those 14% slots, started winning too many games once Zion Williamson got healthy in the middle of the season. The Pelicans largely tolerated that success. Even the No. 4 slot is quite valuable for where they are, and a healthy Williamson means more to their future than any non-Flagg prospect would for them. Once the 76ers started sneaking up on them, though, they pulled the plug. Williamson and C.J. McCollum were ruled out for the season, and New Orleans maintains a two-win cushion on Philadelphia for that No. 4 slot. At 12.5%, the Pelicans are right behind the bottom three for the best odds at Flagg.

That probably caps the 76ers at No. 5, which is still an incredible outcome for the team all things considered. Philadelphia owes its pick to Oklahoma City if it falls outside of the top six. The No. 5 slot gives them a 64% chance at keeping that pick. Had they finished at No. 6, those odds would have fallen to around 46%, and at No. 7, a paltry 32%. That is why Philadelphia has gone to such extreme lengths to lose lately. This isn’t just about getting higher odds at Flagg. It’s about protecting the very existence of their pick. The 76ers have won only four games since the beginning of February. This is legendary tanking, and it’s going to give the 76ers a 10.5% chance at Flagg.

The Nets (No. 6) and Raptors (No. 7) were in the running with them for some time, but just couldn’t keep up in the end. Brooklyn has largely continued to put its best players on the floor. The Raptors were felled by a ridiculously easy March schedule despite their late-game lineup shenanigans. The Nets have 25 wins compared to Philadelphia’s 23. Toronto has 28, so barring anything unexpected down the stretch, the Nets will hold  No. 6 spot (9% chance at No. 1) and the Raptors will have No. 7 (7.5%).

The Play-In group

Every remaining team is at least mathematically alive for a Play-In slot, though ultimately, that doesn’t mean all that much for lottery purposes. While a team falls out of the lottery if it makes the playoffs, its lottery position is not impacted by Play-In position. In other words, a team that makes the Play-In Tournament can have a better lottery slot than one that misses the Play-In Tournament if it has a worse record. This proved absolutely vital a year ago, when Atlanta, a Play-In team, jumped up to No. 1 from No. 10. If the Play-In losers were forced into slots 11-14, Houston, as the best team to miss the Play-In, would have jumped to No. 1 and kept its pick rather than sending No. 12 to Oklahoma City.

This could come up once again as there is a real chance that No. 11 in the Western Conference — currently Phoenix with 35 wins — could potentially have a better record than No. 10 in the Eastern Conference — currently Chicago with 34. That Phoenix pick, which belongs to the Rockets, would still land in the No. 11 slot compared to Chicago at No. 10, but with time left for both to either win or lose more games, it’s too early to say anything definitive on that front for now. There’s a worthwhile difference in those slots though, as No. 10 has a 3% shot at No. 1 while No. 11 has a 1.8% chance.

What we can say relatively safely from there is that San Antonio (32 wins) and Portland (33) are almost certainly going to hold the No. 8 and No. 9 slots in some order. The difference there is important. The No. 8 team has a 6% chance at Flagg, while No. 9 has a 4.5% shot.

The last few slots all have relatively low odds. No. 12 has a 1.7% chance at Flagg, No. 13 has a 1% chance and No. 14 has a 0.5% shot at No. 1. In lottery history, no team has ever gotten the No. 1 pick with a slot worse than 11th, so the math certainly doesn’t favor whichever unfortunate play-in losers wind up in these positions. Those teams will have to settle for having nearly made the playoffs unless the lottery gods pull something truly unexpected in May.