The three teams with the worst record missed the top three in the draft. The league severely punished the bad trend?

Sports Weekly All-Media Reporter Li Hui

The draw ceremony of the 2025 NBA Draft, the Dallas Mavericks became the biggest winner. Correspondingly, the biggest losers belong to those teams that were desperately playing last season, such as the Utah Jazz, Charlotte Hornets, and Washington Wizards.

In this draw ceremony, the three teams with the worst performance in the league last season: the Jazz, Wizards and Hornets. They all have a 14% chance of winning the No. 1 pick. Since the NBA draft lottery restructuring, the maximum probability of winning the No. 1 pick has decreased significantly compared to the past, but they still have a considerable chance of winning the No. 1 pick. But in this draft draw, the three teams failed the charts at the same time. Not only did they fail to win the No. 1 pick, they even failed to enter the top three. You should know that the probability of their top four picks is as high as 52.1%.

In the end, the Hornets, with 19 wins and 63 losses this season, the Jazz, with 17 wins and 65 losses, the Wizards, with 18 wins and 64 losses, only won the sixth pick. Although this year's draft is called a draft, missing the top three is undoubtedly a huge blow to the three teams, and they missed the excellent opportunity to select future stars such as Flag and Harper.

Just like the Mavericks' draw of the No. 1 pick is regarded as a league-wide decision, after seeing that all three teams were playing badly, many people think that this is also a kind of internal decision. After all, if Flag really gives the Mavericks compensation for losing Doncic, then the Jazz and other teams can also enter the top three or higher rankings, but the 76ers with the fifth highest chance of winning the No. 1 pick (final third) and the Spurs with the 8th highest (final second).

In the past few seasons, the quality of the NBA regular season has continued to decline. The reason is that many teams deliberately played badly in order to win the No. 1 pick. The Jazz is undoubtedly a typical example. In a game between the Jazz and the Lakers last season, Jazz player Sexton almost played a final victory, but when he was ready to make a layup, Jazz coach Hardy shouted a timeout, and Sexton scored two points was finally judged to be invalid, and the Jazz also eventually lost the game.

Such intentional loss and deliberate performance have undoubtedly seriously affected the brand value and viewing of the NBA. When the draft rules cannot be completely changed, the NBA seems to hope to warn the team in this way that everything needs to be stopped. Therefore, after witnessing three top favorite teams fail this year, perhaps those teams with bad plans will consider whether to put them to the end next season.

NBA superstar Kevin Durant sighed after watching this year's draw ceremony: For teams with bad performances, draft draws are really stressful.

is indeed the case. After working hard to play for a season, I finally missed the top three picks. I wasted the game, and no one can withstand such a blow.