Hoops Rumors Originals

With the 2018/19 NBA regular season now in the books, the draft lottery order has been set — mostly. A series of ties in this year’s reverse standings will create a little drama on Friday, when the league conducts random drawings to determine which of those tied teams will be slotted ahead of the other(s).

As our reverse standings show, this is what the lottery order looks like heading into Friday:

Friday’s tiebreakers won’t have a real impact on this year’s lottery odds, since the teams that finished the season with identical records receive identical odds – or as close as possible – for a top-four pick. Still, those tiebreakers will be significant.

Whichever team wins the Suns/Cavaliers tiebreaker will be guaranteed a draft pick no lower than No. 6. The loser of the tiebreaker could slip all the way to No. 7 if teams leapfrog them on lottery night.

Meanwhile, the Grizzlies will actually be rooting against themselves in the seventh-place tiebreaker, since they want their top-eight protected first-round pick to convey to the Celtics this year. That way, they won’t have to worry about that commitment in future seasons as they consider a larger-scale rebuild.

Losing the three-way tiebreaker and ending up ninth in the lottery order would be ideal for the Grizzlies — in that scenario, they would either jump into the top four or would be assured of sending their pick to Boston. If they win the three-way tiebreaker, the Grizzlies would have better than 50/50 odds of landing at No. 7 or No. 8, a worst-case outcome.

As for the Mavericks, their pick would head to the Hawks if it’s not in the top five, so they currently have a 26.3% chance at retaining that selection. Atlanta will be rooting for Dallas to win that tiebreaker, which would substantially increase the odds of the pick ending up as high as No. 7.

The three teams at the very bottom of the standings have long odds to move up into the top four, but that tiebreaker will still be important since it will likely represent the difference between picking as high as No. 12 or as low as No. 14. Luke Kennard, Donovan Mitchell, Bam Adebayo, Miles Bridges, Jerome Robinson, and Michael Porter Jr. have been selected in that 12-14 range over the last two years.

Of course, the Celtics will receive that Kings first-rounder (unless it jumps to No. 1, in which the Sixers get it). So they’ll be keeping a close eye on Sacramento’s tiebreaker results.

Random drawings will also be conducted on Friday for several other tied teams further down the reverse standings — or further up the actual standings, if you prefer. Currently, nine of the final 16 first-round picks remain up in the air and will need to be determined via tiebreakers.

Here’s the rest of the tentative first-round draft order:

Information from LotteryBucket.com was used in the creation of this post.

Only four teams are still alive in this year’s NCAA tournament, and the list of 2019 early entrants continues to grow by the day, signaling that NBA draft season is just about here.

We’re still two and a half months away from draft day, but there are a number of important dates and deadlines on the calendar in the coming weeks and months as seniors look to boost their draft stock and underclassmen weigh whether or not to enter the draft — and then whether or not to keep their names in the 2019 pool.

Let’s run through the timeline of dates and deadlines to watch up until draft day…

April 11 (11:59pm ET): Deadline to request evaluation from NBA Undergraduate Advisory Committee

Beginning this year, an early entrant who requests an evaluation from the NBA Undergraduate Advisory Committee can hire an NCAA-certified agent without worrying about losing his remaining college eligibility.

April 17-20: Portsmouth Invitational Tournament

Only college seniors are eligible for this pre-draft camp, which takes place in Portsmouth, Virginia.

April 21 (11:59pm ET): Deadline for early entrants to declare for the draft

College underclassmen and international early entrants have until the end of the day on April 21 (Easter Sunday) to submit their names into the 2019 NBA draft pool. They can always withdraw their names later if they decide they’re not quite ready to go pro.

Once the early entrant list is set, NBA teams can begin conducting or attending workouts for those players.

April 26 – May 3: Invites issued for draft combine, G League Elite Camp

While the combine has been a part of the NBA’s pre-draft process for years, the G League Elite Camp has been revamped for this season to accommodate draft prospects. We have the details on those changes right here.

May 12-14: G League Elite Camp

NBA G League invitees will participate in the first half of this mini-camp before 40 top draft-eligible players who weren’t invited to the combine participate in the second half. Again, more details can be found here.

May 14: NBA draft lottery

The 2019 draft lottery will be conducted on May 14, marking the first time that the NBA’s new lottery format will be used. The full odds under the new format can be found right here, while our reverse standings provide a glimpse at which the pre-lottery draft order will look like.

With the lottery odds flattened out, the NBA’s worst team will only have a 14% shot at the No. 1 overall pick, as opposed to the 25% chance it had in the past. In other words, the new format could make for a very interesting night on May 14.

May 15-19: NBA draft combine

This five-day event, which takes place in Chicago, allows NBA teams to get a first-hand look at many of this year’s top draft-eligible players (though perhaps not a handful of 2019’s very best prospects, since potential top-five picks don’t have much to gain by participating in the combine).

The combine will be particularly important for early entrants who have yet to decide whether or not to stay in the draft. The feedback they get at the combine could go a long way toward dictating whether they keep their names in the draft or return to school for another year.

May 29 (11:59pm): NCAA early entrant withdrawal deadline

College underclassmen who want to retain their NCAA eligibility will have to withdraw their names from the draft pool by May 29. NBA rules call for a later withdrawal deadline, but the NCAA has its own set of rules that say the deadline is 10 days after the combine.

As such, a college underclassmen could technically wait until the first week of June to withdraw from the draft and retain his NBA draft eligibility for a future year. However, he would forfeit his amateur status in that scenario, making him ineligible to return to his NCAA squad.

June 10: NBA early entrant withdrawal deadline

This is the NBA’s final deadline for early entrants to withdraw their names from the draft pool and retain their draft eligibility for a future year. By this point, we generally know whether an NCAA underclassman kept his name in the draft or not, but this is an important deadline for international players, who aren’t subject to the same restrictions as college players. We’ll likely hear about several international early entrants withdrawing from the draft during the days leading up to June 10.

June 20: NBA draft day

The most exciting few weeks of the NBA offseason unofficially get underway on draft day, which is often when the first major trades of the summer are completed and we get a sense of which direction certain teams are heading.

It’s also worth noting that the hours and days after the draft ends will be hugely important for many of this year’s draft-eligible prospects — a ton of players who aren’t selected with one of the 60 picks in the draft will reach agreements shortly thereafter to play for an NBA team’s Summer League squad, or even to attend training camp with a club.

Note: The NCAA previously announced a rule change that would allow players to remain in the draft through draft day and still return to school if they go undrafted. However, that rule change wasn’t mentioned at all in a recent memo issued by the NCAA, so we’re operating under the assumption that it won’t go into effect this year. If that changes, we’ll update this article as required.

Information from ESPN’s Jonathan Givony was used in the creation of this post.