2026 NBA Draft Lottery: Odds for No. 1 pick, live stream, TV channel, watch online, start time, top prospects

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The 2026 NBA Draft Lottery will take place in Chicago on Sunday, as one of the most high-profile tank races in league history comes to a conclusion. There is no consensus top prospect like there was last year, when the winner of the lottery was widely expected to take Cooper Flagg, no matter what. However, BYU's AJ Dybantsa has started to create separation and is the projected No. 1 pick heading into the weekend.

The first 14 picks of the 2026 NBA Draft -- including the No. 1 overall pick -- will be determined with the lottery drawing this weekend. The lottery will take place in a private room in Chicago and be unveiled live on ESPN at 3 p.m. ET, with Washington, Indiana and Brooklyn having the best odds (14%) to win.

Sacramento and Utah tied for the fourth-worst record in the NBA and have an 11.5% chance of earning the top pick.

[NBA Draft Lottery 2026: Which teams most deserve to land the No. 1 pick?

Cameron Salerno

Per the NBA, the lottery drawings are conducted for the first four picks. The other lottery teams (outside of the top four) will pick in inverse order of their regular-season records. The lottery itself has 1,001 possible combinations. All but one of those combinations are divvied out to lottery teams in advance.

After that, the ping-pong balls are then put through the lottery. The numbers on the balls will spit out a combination to determine the order. The process will repeat for the second, third and fourth picks in the draft.