The 2015/16 season wraps up its sixth week tonight, and as the fate of many teams starts to become apparent, scouts and executives around the league are getting a better picture of where they’ll be picking in the 2016 NBA draft. With our Reverse Standings, which list the NBA’s 30 teams from worst to first, you can easily follow along, too. Hoops Rumors will be updating 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 2016 first-round order would look like with no changes to lottery position. Traded picks are included via footnotes. For instance, the note next to the Rockets’ pick indicates that if they make the playoffs, they’ll relinquish the pick to the Nuggets. The Rockets are currently in the last playoff position, so that means they are in line to send their pick to Denver.
The existence of the lottery means the teams atop the Reverse Standings aren’t guaranteed to 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 2016 draft class. This year’s group of prospects, which includes Ben Simmons, Skal Labissiere, Brandon Ingram and Dragan Bender, is heavy on frontcourt players, and we’ll be finding out more about them in the month ahead with posts under our 2016 NBA Draft tag.
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 2016. Be sure to check back often!