Hovering over the 2022-23 season like a giant cloud is the 2023 NBA Draft, particularly the headliner of the class – projected generational talent Victor Wembanyama.
With a player with as much promise as him sitting at the top of the class, lottery odds are of the utmost importance if you’re one of the teams whose season has already come to a close. And being that our New Orleans Pelicans are one of those teams, we figured it was time to take look at what our chances are of landing Wembanyama (or one of the other tantalizing prospects that exist at the top of the class).
Final lottery odds. Red=lose the pick.
— NBA University (@NBA_University) April 17, 2023
Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/dLKNEORMpc
Being that the Pelicans have the best record of all the non-playoff teams, they have the lowest odds of landing a top-4 pick. As it stands, they have a 0.5% chance of selecting first, a 0.6% chance of selecting second, a 0.6% of being third, and a 0.7% getting the fourth pick in the draft. For those who hate math, that’s a 2.4% chance of having their pick land in the top-4.
With that said, the Pelicans are no strangers to lottery miracles. As many long-time fans surely recall, in 2019, the team had only a six percent chance of landing the number one overall pick. As it turns out, those odds are all they needed, as they secured the first overall pick and used it to draft that year’s prodigy, a fellow named Zion Williamson.
Who knows, maybe fortune chooses to smile on New Orleans once more. Maybe the league will get treated to a Williamson/Wembanyama/Brandon Ingram team-up. The team surely deserves it after all the injuries they have had to endure over the last couple of years.
If it doesn’t land in the top-4 (97.6% chance that it doesn’t), then the Pelicans will get the 14th overall pick in the draft. And while the last lottery selection may not be as coveted as a top-4 pick, it still holds a great deal of value, considering how deep this group is projected to be.
Regardless of where the pick ultimately lands, given the team’s recent draft success (acquiring young studs like Williamson, Herbert Jones, Trey Murphy III, and Dyson Daniels), fans should feel confident in the organization’s ability to maximize that asset.