This is perhaps the final year where good things will happen to teams with the worst record in the NBA. With the league set to adjust the Draft Lottery to address Adam Silver’s tanking concerns, the Wizards picked the perfect time to bottom out.
And if this is the end of the traditional race to the basement, the worst finally got first.
AJ Dybantsa declares for the NBA Draft during an event at the Davis K-8 School in Brockton, Mass., on April 23, 2026. (Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe/Getty Images)
The Washington Wizards, the NBA’s most pitiful team this past season at 17-65, won the NBA Draft Lottery on Sunday, nabbing the prized pick with a 14% chance. Washington leaned into the skid and was rewarded with the right to draft the best collegiate name, which we all know is AJ Dybantsa, of course …
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Throw in Darryn Peterson or Cameron Boozer for potential No. 1 overall picks.
Dybantsa, the BYU wing, is the undisputed prize of the class — a scoring machine who led the nation with 25.5 points per game.
Signage is displayed during the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois, on May 10, 2026. (Melissa Tamez/NBAE/Getty Images)
Washington’s tank job in 2025-26 worked, and their core for the future is looking at least respectable with Anthony Davis and Trae Young in tow.
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The same cannot be said for the Brooklyn Nets.
Despite finishing with a dismal 20-62 record and sharing the league-best lottery odds, the ping-pong balls offered no mercy.
The Nets slid to the No. 6 pick, falling out of the elite tier, though this draft has been praised for its depth, with names like Yaxel Lendeborg and Karim Lopez offering real value beyond the top tier.
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Brooklyn burned a year of its fans’ lives only to watch the Utah Jazz and Memphis Grizzlies jump them in the draft order. Brooklyn is left picking through the best of the rest in a draft where the drop-off after the top four still feels like a cliff.
The Jazz — one of the teams recently fined by the league for tanking during the regular season — still managed to get a decent outcome after the NBA tried to police the tanking process.
John Wall and NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum pose after the Washington Wizards won the first overall pick during the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery at Navy Pier in Chicago, Ill., on May 10, 2026. (Chris Schwegler/NBAE/Getty Images)
But perhaps the night’s most brutal result belongs to the Indiana Pacers, who effectively traded the No. 5 overall pick to the Clippers (owners of the fifth pick) for Ivica Zubac.
Because they fell just one spot outside their top-four protection, the pick transfers to the Clips, which is a real catastrophic swing of fortune.
The Pacers entered the night with the same odds as the Wizards, only to walk away with nothing to show for their 63-loss campaign, which is a particularly cruel outcome for a team that, like Utah, had already been fined this season amid the league’s crackdown on tanking.
Pacers fans on social media were left in shambles.
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“Indiana tanked for nothing, should’ve done what the Celtics did and understood your team better,” one NBA fan swore on X.
Signage is displayed during the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois, on May 10, 2026. (Jeff Haynes/NBAE/Getty Images)
Another said, “The Devil is collecting his debt from the pacers there’s no way ts [this s**t] just happened to them.”
Conspiracies about who could land the No. 1 pick ranged from the NBA rewarding host city Chicago to fears that the Thunder would further load an already stacked roster using the Clippers’ pick.
Instead, the Clippers walk away with the heist of the century via Indiana, while the Wizards become the last beneficiaries of a dying system.
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