The Brooklyn Nets came into Monday’s 2025 NBA Draft Lottery hoping to have some good luck in their favor with the prospect of Duke forward Cooper Flagg being part of this class. The odds were not in Brooklyn’s favor as they had just a 9.0% chance of getting the first overall pick and a 37.2% chance of getting a top-4 pick and it looks like those results came true.
After much anticipation, the Nets drew the eighth overall pick in the Draft after initially entering the event with the sixth overall pick prior to the Lottery odds shifting matters. To be clear, Brooklyn had a 29.7% chance of getting the seventh overall pick and a 20.6% chance of getting the eighth overall pick so what occurred isn’t exactly a shock to anyone that has been following the Draft.
What was surprising was to see how much the board shifted despite the odds being what they were entering the festivities. For instance, the Dallas Mavericks, who had a 1.8% chance of winning the Lottery, ended up with the first overall and the San Antonio Spurs, who had a 6.3% chance of getting the second overall pick, wound up with the first choice after Flagg comes off the board.
Aside from that, the Philadelphia 76ers, who had a lot riding on the Lottery given that their pick would go to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it landed outside of the top-6, wound up with the third overall pick and the chance to go into next season with an impact player who should be fairly-easy to fit into their salary cap. The event was especially brutal for teams within the bottom-4 in terms of worse records in the league other than the Charlotte Hornets.
The Utah Jazz slid from first to fifth, the Washington Wizards dropped from second to sixth, and the New Orleans Pelicans went from fourth to seventh, calling into question whether the Lottery is doing as intended given that all of the aforementioned teams, aside from the 76ers, need more talent to contend. For a Nets team that heads into this offseason with plenty of cap space and four first-round picks, getting the eighth overall pick is a letdown after what many fans were hoping would be a night of overcoming the odds to get a generational player in Flagg.
The 2025 #NBADraftLottery presented by State Farm Results! pic.twitter.com/rk5R8IVurT
— NBA (@NBA) May 12, 2025
This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets awarded 8th overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft following Lottery