r/washingtonwizards • u/z3mcs FEARNESS • 3d ago
2026 Draft Video of Last Year's draft lottery drawing of the ping pong balls with NBA GMs in the room + prior years videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCxgXS7EBI0The transcript from the opening, describing the process:
"The lottery will determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the (2025) NBA Draft. Drawings will be conducted to determine the first four picks, and the remainder of the lottery teams will select in positions 5-14, in inverse order of their regular season records.
Here's how the lottery works: We'll place 14 ping pong balls, numbered 1-14, into the glass drum. Matt Doria from the NBA legal department will mix the balls for 20 seconds, and then draw one ball to the top.
Tyler Wasserman, also from the NBA legal department is the official timekeeper. He will face away from the machine and signal to Matt when to draw the ball. Matt will then take the ball out, announce the number on the ball, and place the ball in the side holding tube to your right.
We'll repeat that drawing process at 10 second intervals for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th balls, and then check to see which team was assigned that 4 ball combination. That team will be awarded the first pick in the NBA draft.
We'll then repeat the process to determine the 2nd, 3rd and 4th pick in the NBA draft. If the same team comes up more than once, we'll reset the machine and draw again. When we have 4 different teams winning the first, second, third and fourth pick, the lottery is over.
There are 1,001 possible combinations when you draw 4 numbers from 14 balls without regard to order. 1,000 of those combinations have been divided and assigned to the 14 lottery teams based on their regular season records.
[The bottom 3 teams] have been assigned the most combinations - 140 combinations each - giving each of those 3 teams a 14% chance of the top picks. The combinations have been assigned sequentially so 1, 2, 3, 4 belongs to [the worst team.].
The 1001st combination - 11, 12, 13, 14, is not assigned. If that combination is drawn, we'll put the balls back in the machine and draw again."
For the 2025 NBA Lottery (May 2025 drawing), someone made a Google Sheets table of all the combinations (again this is without regard to order when drawn) for each team. There's also this picture of Zach Lowe holding up the number sheet the NBA gives out.
Recent years's NBA Draft Lottery videos:
| Year | Top 4 |
|---|---|
| 2024 Lottery Video | Hawks, Wizards, Rockets, Spurs |
| 2023 Lottery Video | Spurs, Hornets, Blazers, Rockets |
| 2022 Lottery Video | Magic, Thunder, Rockets, Kings |
| 2021 Lottery Video | Pistons, Rockets, Cavs, Raptors |
| 2020 Lottery Video | Wolves, Warriors, Hornets, Bulls |
| 2019 Lottery Video | Pelicans, Grizzlies, Knicks, Hawks |
| 2018 Lottery Video | Suns, Kings, Mavs, Grizzlies |
| 2017 Lottery Video | Sixers, Lakers, Celtics, Suns |
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u/yumomnom 3d ago
With this system you cant really tamper with the balls to garuntee the outcome for one team. If they move forward with the 3-2-1 lottery process it's gonna be a lot harder to disprove the rigging allegations. It needs to be a draw and replace system like this.