After weeks of idle faith and silent prayers, the Philadelphia 76ers managed to get Lady Luck to sufficiently smile at them as they held on to keep their first-round pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, clinching the third overall pick this year.
While far from surprising, the 76ers were still dealing with semi-dicey chances at actually losing their pick outright to the Oklahoma CIty Thunder. Thankfully, their pick landed well inside the top-six, even making a slight jump from having the fifth-best odds in the lottery to snagging the third overall selection.
Having said that, Philadelphia barely managed to get by, especially when adjudged on the basis of the wild ride that transpired in this year’s lottery. One might even argue that the franchise was really lucky to avoid the seemingly sweeping trend that had casted doubt on how effective the lottery system has really been in recent years.
76ers get lucky as they evade a frightening league agenda
Utah, Charlotte, Washington, and New Orleans — the four teams which touted better odds than Philadelphia — all ended up having worse selections than the 76ers. This was an unprecedented development, especially since all of those teams spent the whole season actively trying to rack up as much losses as possible in hopes of landing the top prize, which is presumptively Cooper Flagg.
Instead, Dallas, which had the 11th-best odds, and San Antonio, owning the eighth-best chances of snagging the first pick, snagged the top-two selections.
That result definitely irked many, especially those teams that had loftier odds than them. The Mavericks, after all, seemingly got compensated for making an all-time blunder with the Luka Doncic trade, while the Spurs, already with back-to-back Rookie of the Year awardees, just got even richer with another elite prospect or an elite asset to trade for someone like, say, Giannis Antetokounmpo.
This is the precise reason why the 76ers having the fifth-best odds never seemed like a safe proposition. Just last year, Atlanta — then touting the 10th-best odds — secured the first overall pick. Dallas, and in a way, San Antonio, definitely proved that it wasn’t just a mere statistical fluke.
The NBA is making teams realize that tanking is not always going to get rewarded given how aleatory the draft lottery is. Fortunately, the Philadelphia 76ers got on the safe side of that frightening reality this year, but at this rate, they have to start winning again.
After all, there may not be a next time.