The 2014/15 regular season has only four weeks to go, and as the playoffs near for some teams, many scouts and executives around the league are already drawing a sharp focus on the 2015 NBA draft. They’re no doubt cognizant of the place in the order where their respective teams are slated to pick, and with the Hoops Rumors Reverse Standings, which list the NBA’s 30 teams from worst to first, you can easily follow along, too. We update these standings daily to reflect the outcomes of the games that took place the night before.
The Reverse Standings take into account playoff teams in each conference, so they’re essentially a reflection of what the 2015 first-round order would look like if the lottery goes according to the odds. Traded picks are indicated via footnotes. For instance, the note attached to the Thunder’s pick shows that they’ll send it to the Sixers if it falls outside the top 18 selections. The final four weeks of the season determine the pick’s fate, since the Thunder are in 14th place in the Reverse Standings as the non-playoff team with the best record, but they’re only there because they would lose a tiebreaker for the last postseason berth to Pelicans, who occupy the 18th spot.
The existence of the lottery means there’s no guarantee that teams atop the Reverse Standings will draft in the order in which they finish, but the worse a club’s record, the better shot it has at landing the cream of the 2015 draft class. This year’s top prospects, including Jahlil Okafor, D’Angelo Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns, aren’t as highly touted as the elite 2014 draftees were, but there’s still plenty of star potential.
Our Reverse Standings feature can be found at anytime on our right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features.” It’s a great resource not just for monitoring a team’s draft position, but also for keeping an eye on whether or not traded picks with protection will be changing hands in 2015. Be sure to check back often!