While the 2025–26 NBA regular season standings were finalized after last weekend, as I mentioned a week ago, that didn’t mean the lottery odds were completely set. Since multiple teams in the lottery finished with identical records, the NBA needed to conduct random tiebreakers between those teams to determine who got an extra ball in May 10th’s drawing, potentially getting a better shot at a top-four pick. Or in the case of the Pelicans and Mavericks, who both finished tied for the seventh-worst
record in the league, who would have a chance to pick seventh and who wouldn’t. Those tiebreakers happened today.
Why does this matter to the Bucks, who were locked into the 10th position after losing their final game to the Sixers? As you likely know, it’s because New Orleans owned swap rights on Milwaukee’s 2026 first-round pick, traded as part of 2020’s Jrue Holiday deal. Now, the Pels shipped those rights to the Hawks last summer, so they won’t have the chance to switch places with the Bucks in this year’s draft, and the Hawks do. Milwaukee and Atlanta had to be watching this closely because whichever of New Orleans’ or Milwaukee’s picks ends up earlier on lottery night, Atlanta will own. The lesser of the two goes to the Bucks.
Just after 4 p.m. Central, the league communicated the results of this and other tiebreakers: to Milwaukee’s (and Atlanta’s) benefit, New Orleans won their coin flip with Dallas and garnered the lottery’s seventh-best odds. That pick now has a 29.3% chance of being in the top four as opposed to 28.9%; not a huge jump, but one the Hawks likely loved to see, since if that pick and/or the Bucks’—which has a 13.9% of landing in the top four—jumps up, they’ll receive the best one. But this was good news for the Bucks too, as I’ll explain.
First the bad news: Milwaukee’s chances at moving into the top four aren’t good, and are even worse as a result of the pick swap. By virtue of the swap, they have 0% chance of actually drafting first overall (if they win the lottery, that pick goes to Atlanta by default, and they’d pick wherever New Orleans ends up, which could be as low as 11th) and their chances at 2–4 decreased too. Instead of the listed odds for 10th, seen on the left, here are the Bucks’ actual chances at any of those picks, factoring in the swap:
That’s a huge drop: had they not traded these swap rights back in 2020, they’d have a 13.9% chance of jumping into the top four, with a shot at number one overall. It turns out the likelihood of that happening is 3.7%. For what it’s worth, had the Bucks lost a few more games and finished with the league’s ninth-best record, they’d have only slightly better odds of moving into the top four: 5.3%, still with no chance of getting number one.
Now we come to today’s tiebreaker results, and the modicum of extra lottery luck they garnered for Milwaukee. Since the Pelicans finished seventh, the Bucks did see their chances of moving up improve slightly. While the overwhelming likelihood is that they end up picking 10th, the tiebreaker gave them a small shot at picking eighth, which wouldn’t have been possible if the Pelicans lost the tiebreaker. That’s because the NBA’s lottery odds don’t allow the team that receives the eighth position (which went to Dallas) to receive picks 5–7: they can only rise into the top four or draft between eight and 12.
The seventh position (New Orleans’) has a much better chance of picking eighth (34.1% if tiebreakers aren’t involved) than seventh (19.7%). But because the Bucks’ pick could land in the top four pre-swap, the Pelicans’ pick would thus have a higher likelihood of coming seventh through ninth, since they couldn’t move up to whichever spot the Bucks win. In this scenario, Milwaukee’s pick would go to Atlanta, and New Orleans’ to Milwaukee. While yes, it would stink to not receive that top-four selection, they would technically still be moving up.
In the table below, you’ll see the Bucks’ chances to end up with any given spot in June’s draft on the right, with the swap again factored in. Compare those with their chances had New Orleans lost today’s tiebreaker and received the eighth-best lottery odds, rather than seventh:
The figures are rounded, but as you can see, their shot at getting a top-four pick didn’t appreciably improve. It’s only half a percent better with the Pelicans in seventh as opposed to eighth. However, we can look at this another way: now the Bucks have a 14.7% chance of moving up from 10th to any spot, as opposed to 11.4% had the Pelicans lost. They also go from a 7.8% chance at ending up with the ninth choice to an 11% chance of receiving eighth or ninth after the swap. Again, if either of those two outcomes occurred, it would mean they ended up in the top four pre-swap and ended up taking New Orleans’ pick while theirs went to Atlanta. Nevertheless, they moved up, so all’s well that ends well?
I’ll be at the lottery on Sunday, May 10th, to see how the ping pong balls actually fall. Like I’ve written before, don’t get your hopes up about drafting second: you have a better chance of dying from accidental poisoning. But until then, Bucks fans can take some solace in a positive lottery outcome, even if it’s a small one.
