Atlanta Hawks Have Improbable Best Chances to Win NBA Draft Lottery

CHICAGO — The Atlanta Hawks surged to land the top pick in this year’s NBA draft, winning the lottery for the first time in franchise history.

The Hawks, 36-46 this season for 10th place in the Eastern Conference, had just a 3 percent chance of winning the lottery, the fifth-lowest odds for a team to win the No. 1 pick all-time of the lottery in 1985.

The Washington Wizards, Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs round out the top four. The Detroit Pistons, owners of the worst record in the league this year, have fallen to fifth. This is the second straight season the Pistons have had the worst record, but have fallen to fifth.

The Rockets, 41-41 this season, moved up six spots to the top three. Washington and Detroit had the best odds of landing the top pick at 14%.

The draft will take place June 26-27 in Brooklyn.

Atlanta went from the 10th position before the draft to the first overall selection, beating unlikely odds. This is the first time since 1975 that the Hawks have selected the No. 1 overall pick.

“It was a shock,” Hawks general manager Landry Fields said after the lottery Sunday. “You look at the percentages, but when I first saw it, it wasn’t us between 10 and 12 that propelled us into the top 4, so I was like, okay, we have a real chance in this area. It’s a bit of a surprise, but a lot of enthusiasm.”

The Hawks have not won a playoff series since a surprising run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2021. They were eliminated in the first round in 2022 and 2023 and did not advance past the play-in tournament this season.

Atlanta has some big decisions to make this offseason, including splitting its backcourt consisting of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray. Fields will now have to decide how to use the No. 1 overall pick.

“It’s a good tool for us to continue to grow what we’re doing,” Fields said Sunday. “It’s exciting.”

French big man Alex Sarr is projected to go No. 1 to Atlanta in ESPN’s latest mock draft. However, that’s far from a certainty since this year’s class has been defined thus far by the lack of a consensus No. 1 pick. French prospect Zaccharie Risacher and Kentucky’s Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham are also expected to be off the board in early selections.

“There’s a lot of guys and I think it’s a lot of fun, too,” said Fields, who did not reveal how many players the Hawks would consider as a first overall pick. “So many different types of guys, so many different variations. We’ll take a look at it, dive deep into it and see what happens in June.”

The Charlotte Hornets and Portland Trail Blazers had the third and fourth best odds for the No. 1 pick, but finished sixth and seventh, respectively. The Spurs have another pick at No. 8, which they acquired from the Toronto Raptors in the Jakob Poeltl trade. The Memphis Grizzlies, hoping to bounce back next year with a fully healthy team, have the No. 9 pick.

The Utah Jazz at No. 10, Chicago Bulls at No. 11, Oklahoma City Thunder at No. 12, Sacramento Kings at No. 13 and Blazers at No. 14 complete the lottery.

This year marks the sixth consecutive season in which the team with the worst record was not selected first overall, coinciding with the new lottery format, which began in 2019.

Despite the uncertainty at the top of this year’s draft – a far cry from last year’s Victor Wembanyama prize – Fields dismissed the notion that this class could be considered “weak” due to the lack of consensus on the best talents.

“Every draft class has great players,” Fields said. “Our group was fantastic. There was a lot of trust, they got the job done. So we’ll look at our process and go from there.”

Associated Press and ESPN Stats & Information research contributed to this story.