2026 NBA Draft order, lottery odds: Wizards, Pacers and Nets have best shot at No. 1 pick

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The 2025-26 NBA regular season will officially come to a close on Sunday night. It means the postseason bracket is about to be set, and it also means a good chunk of June's draft order is about to be locked in place. So, what do we know now?

• The lottery slots and odds for the five worst teams in each conference. While the lottery itself will not come until May, the Bucks, Bulls, Wizards, Nets, Pacers, Grizzlies, Mavericks, Jazz, Kings and Hawks (via Pelicans) all know where they'll start on lottery night. The Wizards secured the worst record in the league. Washington has a 14% chance at the No. 1 overall pick and will pick no lower than fifth in June.
• The top-six playoff seeds in each conference all locked into place as well as none of the top six in either conference have a worse record than a Play-In team in the other conference.
• The eight Play-In teams will slot somewhere between No. 11 and No. 18, with the four Play-In losers joining the lottery pool in reverse order of record while the four winners will pick between No. 15 and No. 18 in reverse order of their records.

So where does that leave us? Below is the NBA Draft order as of now, with the final order coming after the lottery next month on May 10.

Note: All tiebreakers are determined via a random drawing that is set to be held later in April.

2026 NBA Draft order, lottery odds

*The Hawks will receive the higher pick between the Pelicans and Bucks. If the Bucks give their pick to the Hawks, they will receive the Pelicans' spot in the lottery.

On a number of levels, 2026 stands to be one of the most significant NBA Drafts in recent memory. The 2026 class is considered one of the strongest in league history, with prospects like AJ Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer and Darryn Peterson pegged as future stars since their high school days and later risers like Darius Acuff and Caleb WIlson making similar cases for themselves throughout their lone collegiate seasons.

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Meanwhile, the 2027 and 2028 draft classes aren't nearly as highly regarded. If you want to get an impact player in the draft, now seems to be the time to do it. Even if those classes were stronger, the NBA is poised to institute significant draft reform this offseason due to the tanking epidemic that has swept through the league this season, with many of those lottery teams seemingly built around intentional losing for the sake of draft position. That may not be an option moving forward, so with the 2026 draft still coming, let's look at what this draft means for the 10 teams we know to be in the lottery.

What's at stake in the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery?

In addition to the circumstantial stakes at play in June's draft, each individual team in the mix is relying on a lucky lottery night for specific reasons related to their roster-build:

• The Pacers took an enormous risk when they traded their top-four protected 2026 first-round pick in a package for Ivica Zubac. With Tyrese Haliburton coming back, the Pacers likely won't have another shot at a high draft pick for a long time. However, having lost Myles Turner in free agency, the Pacers needed to spend big to get a suitable replacement at center. The Zubac trade was their attempt at splitting the difference. If the pick lands in the top four, they get the best of both worlds: a high-end center and a top rookie. That sort of high-risk, high-reward approach will probably be necessary to keep up with asset-rich contenders like the Thunder and Spurs, but the risk is significant. If they don't get a major contributor on a cheap rookie deal here and now, it may make maintaining an affordable contender impossible in the years to come.
• The Nets don't control their 2027 first-round pick. They gave Houston the right to swap with them as part of the James Harden trade in 2021. They got control of their 2025 and 2026 picks back in a follow-up deal with Houston, but couldn't secure all three choices. The Nets surely don't plan to still be bad in 2028, so an extended tank is out. Their 2025 picks have shown promise, but none look like obvious franchise players yet. That makes 2026 potentially their last chance in the near future to secure a cornerstone in the draft. If they can't do it, their entire rebuilding plan likely changes, and significantly more pressure falls on general manager Sean Marks for initiating this tank in the first place.
• The Wizards just traded for Anthony Davis and Trae Young. They plan to try to win next season, but even though they've now spent three seasons in the lottery, they haven't landed a surefire future star yet. Alex Sarr is probably the best of their youngsters, but at least for now, he seems more like a supporting piece than a franchise player. The Wizards traded Bradley Beal to kickstart a rebuild in part because they were sick of being stuck in the middle. If they don't get a top pick here and now, that might be where they're headed again.

As we covered, the Hawks and Mavericks won the last two lotteries from the Play-In Tournament. That means we'll have four more participants when the dust settles, and those teams can't be ruled out either. We'll cover those teams when we know who they are. For now, we wait for what might be the most important lottery in NBA history.