The Oklahoma City Thunder have secured the No. 1 overall seed, but their draft pick is far from secured.
There’s a legitimate chance that the Thunder could be adding another lottery pick(s) for this upcoming draft, depending on how the final day of the NBA regular season unfolds.
All 30 NBA teams will be in action on Sunday night as most look to finalize their playoff seeding and potentially maximize their lottery odds. Going into the last day of the regular season, there are still major implications in both instances, which could impact the Thunder in a variety of ways.
Thunder’s Draft Picks Still to be Decided
Oklahoma City has been the league’s top seed for consecutive years. The Thunder will be monitoring to see how the playoff seeding unfolds over the final day of the regular season and throughout the play-in. Besides the obvious implications of postseason matchups, the Thunder are also in a unique situation as a top seed, as they’re also monitoring their potential draft picks and position from other teams.
The Thunder could have up to three first-round picks for this upcoming draft from previous trades with three different organizations. One is an unprotected pick from the Los Angeles Clippers, the other a top-four protected pick from the Philadelphia 76ers, and lastly, a top-eight protected pick from the Utah Jazz. While it’s highly unlikely Oklahoma City will have three lottery picks, it could be in the mix to add more high-end talent, which is a luxury.
While the Clippers’ pick was a hot topic early in the season, when they were one of the worst teams in the league after starting 6-21, they now sit in the 9th seed heading into the last day of the regular season. The potential for that pick to turn into a lottery pick will come down to the play-in.
The 76ers also find themselves in the play-in mix, in the 8th spot, but still have a slight chance to finish as the sixth seed in the East. Oklahoma City will more than likely also have to wait until the play-in to see if that pick ends up in the lottery. The Clippers are likely to have to win two play-in games in the West, and the 76ers are not a shoo-in due to injuries once again. It’s not far-fetched to say that the Thunder could wind up getting one or even two top 14 picks.
While those two picks of the Thunder’s pick will come down to the play-in, the hopes of getting the Jazz pick will come down to pure lottery luck. The Jazz are currently tied for fourth-best odds at the No. 1 pick, making it very unlikely for them to fall out of the top eight.
However, if the odds stay the way they are after Sunday night, Utah will be in a coin flip with the Sacramento Kings to decide the odds, and if the Jazz slips to fifth, there would be a 0.6% chance for the Jazz’s pick to end up ninth, which would convey to the Thunder. The Jazz’s win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night gives the Thunder another reason to monitor how the final day of the regular season unfolds. With the chance of Utah moving out of the top four odds in play.Â
Obviously, the odds of the Jazz’s pick conveying are extremely low, even if the Jazz win game 82 and the Kings lose game 82. A 0.6% chance of the pick conveying means that draft lottery night would have the top four picks all going to teams with worse odds than Utah, which has never happened before and will most likely not happen this time around.
Still, in each of the past two years, the Dallas Mavericks had only a 1.8% chance of securing the number one overall pick. Entering the lottery with the 11th-best odds, they jumped 10 spots, the biggest rise by any team in lottery history, to secure the No. 1 pick. Then, the previous year, the Atlanta Hawks had only a 3% chance of securing the number one overall pick, entering the lottery with the 10th-best odds, before jumping nine spots to secure the No. 1 pick.
Therefore, it’s not impossible, which makes this situation both intriguing and unique for the Thunder.
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