A tumultuous NBA season in Dallas took an upward swing Monday evening when the Mavericks, with just a 1.8% change of winning the NBA Draft Lottery, landed a shot at redemption.
San Antonio and Philadelphia round out the top three picks, with each having had a 6% and 10.5% chance at number one, respectively. They’ll likely have no shot at consensus number one, Cooper Flagg.
Unless the Mavericks defy expectations and pick someone else, Flagg will come to the team with a level of hype few players have ever matched, including his fellow Duke alum and 2019 top pick Zion Williamson – who was the New Orleans Pelicans’ representative for this year’s lottery – and French phenom Victor Wembanyama, who went to the San Antonio Spurs in 2023. Free agent Giannis Antetokounmpo looms on the market and San Antonio now has ample capital.
While his high school classmates may have relaxed in their last summer before college, Flagg was working out with the U.S. men’s basketball team in its preparation for the Paris Games, becoming the first college player (and first teenager) added to the Select Team since 2013.
Flagg also signed an NIL deal with New Balance, which has a factory 25 miles from his hometown of Newport, Maine. Flagg will presumably become the first top overall NBA Draft pick ever for the brand, which boasts established stars such as Kawhi Leonard, Jamal Murray and Tyrese Maxey as endorsers.
The 6’9” forward proceeded to have a stellar season at Duke, leading the Blue Devils to the Final Four before the team lost to Houston. Flagg averaged 19.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.4 steals over 37 games. He elevated his draft stock even higher during the NCAA Tournament, averaging 21 points, 7.6 rebounds, five assists and two blocks through five games.
Flagg was the just the fourth freshman to win the Wooden Award as the nation’s top player in men’s college basketball, alongside Williamson, Anthony Davis and Kevin Durant. He also took home the ACC Player of the Year and ACC Rookie of the Year honors, becoming the fourth player (and fourth Duke Blue Devil) to win both conference honors in the same season.
Prior to the stunning trade of Luka Doncic at the February trade deadline, the Mavs were set for 30 national TV appearances in the just completed regular season. The presumptive selection of Flagg may keep the team at the top of the pack when it comes to national TV games, especially as the NBA’s new media deal kicks in with ESPN/ABC, NBC, Peacock and Amazon’s Prime Video.
When the Spurs won the lottery and drafted Wembanyama in 2023, their national TV appearances leaped from a single game in 2022-23 to 11 games the following season.
The Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards and Charlotte Hornets each had the best odds of winning the top pick at 14.1%. Right outside of the top three teams were the New Orleans Pelicans at 12.5%, the Philadelphia 76ers at 10.5% and the Brooklyn Nets at 9%.
The chance that a team with lower odds than the top three favorites would land the top pick was not a small one. Last year, the Atlanta Hawks, who had the 10th-worst record in 2023-24, had just a 3% chance at the lottery when ping-pong balls bounced their way last spring.
Dallas’ win marks the sixth time since the lottery began in 1985 that a team with less than a 4% chance won the rights to the top pick.
While Flagg is the unquestioned prize of the upcoming draft, the 2025 draft class does not lack for tantalizing prospects. Rutgers guard Dylan Harper has often come up in mock drafts as the consensus second-overall pick, and his teammate Ace Bailey and Baylor’s V.J. Edgecombe have garnered plenty of attention themselves.
Although NIL has changed the draft pools for the NBA for a few years, this may be the first draft class where those changes are truly evident. Outside of the expected one-and-done freshman prospects and upperclassmen who took advantage of the NCAA’s expanded eligibility since the COVID-19 pandemic, there are few sophomore and junior players on the radar of scouts and executives.
The league recently announced that there were 106 early entry candidates for the June draft, the lowest number since 91 players declared early in 2015. Since 2021 when the NCAA allowed players to make money from NIL deals, the early entry pool has dropped each year from an all-time high of 353 players to less than one-third of that total in 2025.
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A tumultuous NBA season in Dallas took an upward swing Monday evening when the Mavericks, with just a 1.8% change of winning the NBA Draft Lottery, landed a shot at redemption.
San Antonio and Philadelphia round out the top three picks, with each having had a 6% and 10.5% chance at number one, respectively. They’ll likely have no shot at consensus number one, Cooper Flagg.
Unless the Mavericks defy expectations and pick someone else, Flagg will come to the team with a level of hype few players have ever matched, including his fellow Duke alum and 2019 top pick Zion Williamson – who was the New Orleans Pelicans’ representative for this year’s lottery – and French phenom Victor Wembanyama, who went to the San Antonio Spurs in 2023. Free agent Giannis Antetokounmpo looms on the market and San Antonio now has ample capital.
While his high school classmates may have relaxed in their last summer before college, Flagg was working out with the U.S. men’s basketball team in its preparation for the Paris Games, becoming the first college player (and first teenager) added to the Select Team since 2013.
Flagg also signed an NIL deal with New Balance, which has a factory 25 miles from his hometown of Newport, Maine. Flagg will presumably become the first top overall NBA Draft pick ever for the brand, which boasts established stars such as Kawhi Leonard, Jamal Murray and Tyrese Maxey as endorsers.
The 6’9” forward proceeded to have a stellar season at Duke, leading the Blue Devils to the Final Four before the team lost to Houston. Flagg averaged 19.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.4 steals over 37 games. He elevated his draft stock even higher during the NCAA Tournament, averaging 21 points, 7.6 rebounds, five assists and two blocks through five games.
Flagg was the just the fourth freshman to win the Wooden Award as the nation’s top player in men’s college basketball, alongside Williamson, Anthony Davis and Kevin Durant. He also took home the ACC Player of the Year and ACC Rookie of the Year honors, becoming the fourth player (and fourth Duke Blue Devil) to win both conference honors in the same season.
Prior to the stunning trade of Luka Doncic at the February trade deadline, the Mavs were set for 30 national TV appearances in the just completed regular season. The presumptive selection of Flagg may keep the team at the top of the pack when it comes to national TV games, especially as the NBA’s new media deal kicks in with ESPN/ABC, NBC, Peacock and Amazon’s Prime Video.
When the Spurs won the lottery and drafted Wembanyama in 2023, their national TV appearances leaped from a single game in 2022-23 to 11 games the following season.
The Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards and Charlotte Hornets each had the best odds of winning the top pick at 14.1%. Right outside of the top three teams were the New Orleans Pelicans at 12.5%, the Philadelphia 76ers at 10.5% and the Brooklyn Nets at 9%.
The chance that a team with lower odds than the top three favorites would land the top pick was not a small one. Last year, the Atlanta Hawks, who had the 10th-worst record in 2023-24, had just a 3% chance at the lottery when ping-pong balls bounced their way last spring.
Dallas’ win marks the sixth time since the lottery began in 1985 that a team with less than a 4% chance won the rights to the top pick.
While Flagg is the unquestioned prize of the upcoming draft, the 2025 draft class does not lack for tantalizing prospects. Rutgers guard Dylan Harper has often come up in mock drafts as the consensus second-overall pick, and his teammate Ace Bailey and Baylor’s V.J. Edgecombe have garnered plenty of attention themselves.
Although NIL has changed the draft pools for the NBA for a few years, this may be the first draft class where those changes are truly evident. Outside of the expected one-and-done freshman prospects and upperclassmen who took advantage of the NCAA’s expanded eligibility since the COVID-19 pandemic, there are few sophomore and junior players on the radar of scouts and executives.
The league recently announced that there were 106 early entry candidates for the June draft, the lowest number since 91 players declared early in 2015. Since 2021 when the NCAA allowed players to make money from NIL deals, the early entry pool has dropped each year from an all-time high of 353 players to less than one-third of that total in 2025.
