In a stunning twist to cap a wild NBA season, the Dallas Mavericks defied the odds and won the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery despite holding just a 1.8% chance to secure the No. 1 overall pick. The franchise-altering result arrives only three months after the controversial decision to trade franchise cornerstone Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers — a move that drew heavy backlash from Mavericks fans and NBA analysts alike.
The lottery victory all but assures Dallas the right to select Duke phenom Cooper Flagg, a 6-foot-9 forward who has been the consensus top prospect in the 2025 draft class. Flagg’s journey to stardom began early; he reclassified to graduate high school a year ahead of schedule and made an immediate impact in college basketball as a 17-year-old freshman. Despite sky-high expectations, he delivered beyond belief — averaging 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game while leading the Blue Devils to a 35-4 record and a Final Four appearance. He swept nearly every major national player of the year award along the way.
Dallas’ win continues a recent trend of long-shot lottery victories. Just last year, Atlanta won the top pick with only 3% odds. Under the NBA’s revised lottery system introduced in 2019 — designed to discourage blatant tanking by flattening the odds for the worst teams — no team with the league’s worst record has won the lottery in the six years since.
This year’s lottery followed suit. Despite entering the night with the best odds (14%) to land the top pick, Utah (17-65) and Washington (18-64) fell to the fifth and sixth spots, respectively. Charlotte (19-63) also missed out on the top prize, landing at No. 4. Meanwhile, San Antonio, already boasting back-to-back Rookie of the Year winners in Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle, landed the second pick — a potential embarrassment of riches for the Spurs’ young core. Philadelphia will select third, while New Orleans, another bottom-tier team, slipped to seventh.
The full top 14 draft order is as follows:
- Dallas Mavericks
- San Antonio Spurs
- Philadelphia 76ers
- Charlotte Hornets
- Utah Jazz
- Washington Wizards
- New Orleans Pelicans
- Brooklyn Nets
- Toronto Raptors
- Houston Rockets
- Portland Trail Blazers
- Chicago Bulls
- Atlanta Hawks
- San Antonio Spurs (via Toronto)
Following Flagg, the projected top prospects include Rutgers teammates Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey. Harper, a dynamic 6-foot-6 point guard, broke the freshman scoring record at Rutgers and finished as the Big Ten’s fifth-leading scorer. His elite ballhandling, passing vision, and three-level scoring ability make him a prime candidate to go second or third overall.
Bailey, an explosive 6-foot-9 wing with elite athleticism and shot-making potential, offers tantalizing upside and will be in contention for a top-five selection. Other first-round hopefuls include Baylor’s VJ Edgecombe, Texas sharpshooter Tre Johnson, Oklahoma combo guard Jeremiah Fears, and Duke’s towering 7-foot-2 center Khaman Maluach.
The 2025 NBA Draft will take place over two nights, June 25 and 26, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Coverage will begin at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and ESPN.
As the Mavericks prepare to select first overall for the first time since 2018 — when they acquired Luka Doncic via a draft-night trade — the franchise finds itself at a turning point. Whether Flagg can fill the enormous void left by Doncic remains to be seen, but with a generational talent on the board and a surprise stroke of lottery luck, Dallas suddenly has a new reason to believe in the future.
