Indiana Pacers will have draft positioning decided by random drawings
The Indiana Pacers season is over, but their draft pick situation still has many details to be determined.
Indiana has five picks in the 2023 NBA Draft, including three in the first round. But of the five selections, only one is locked into place already. The Pacers will have the 29th overall pick in the draft thanks to a trade they made with the Boston Celtics last summer.
Every other pick the Pacers could make has many factors determining where it lands in the draft order. For example, the Pacers highest pick is dependent on two events to determine where it ultimately will be.
The first of the two actions will take place sometime next week, with a specific date to be announced. The NBA needs to break ties between teams with identical records, and the Pacers are involved in that process. Their highest pick will be their own first-round selection, and both Indiana and Washington ended the campaign with matching 35-47 records.
The NBA will do a random drawing to determine which of the two franchises will have a higher pick in the draft should neither squad move up in the lottery. If the Pacers win the drawing, they would be placed seventh in the pre-lottery draft order and the Wizards would be placed eighth. If the Wizards win the drawing, the opposite order would take effect.
Said random drawing occurs prior to the lottery. At the draft lottery stage, numbered ping pong balls are drawn to determine the exact draft order. If one of Indiana's ping pong ball combinations is drawn, they will move into the top-four of the draft. If not, they will end up with a later selection based on lottery results.
Between those two randomized events, the Pacers first-round pick could end up being anywhere between 1-4 or anywhere between 7-12, pending the results of both the random drawing and the lottery. The Pacers and Wizards, due to their even records, will share the same lottery odds — which are the averaged percentages between the seventh and eighth ranked lottery odds. Both teams have roughly a 29% chance at moving into the top-four and nearly a seven percent chance at the top pick.
A random drawing will also be done to determine which team has the higher pick between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Memphis Grizzlies, who both finished 51-31. The winner of the drawing gets the higher pick in the first round while the loser gets the better pick in the second round. Indiana has both of Cleveland's picks in the draft through various trades, so they will either end up with picks 25 and 56 or picks 26 and 55, the former of which would be preferred by the Pacers. Neither team is in the draft lottery, so the random drawing will finalize those two pick numbers for Indiana.
The final outcome the blue and gold are invested in relates to the San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets. Both teams are 22-60, which is tied for the second-worst record in the NBA. The Pacers get Houston's second-round draft pick only if it is the 32nd choice in the draft. If it ends up 33rd, it goes to the Boston Celtics, and the Pacers instead get the Miami Heat's second round selection.
The Rockets and Spurs will have a tiebreaker to determine which team will have the better first round pick, and in turn, the loser of that drawing will have the better second round pick. As a result, Indiana would like to see the Spurs win the random drawing.
But it might not matter. If the Rockets end up moving up in the lottery and picking ahead of the Spurs in the first round, then San Antonio would get the better choice in the second round, and vice versa. While the coin flip is important — and the Pacers will be rooting for San Antonio to win it — the blue and gold won't know the fate of their 32nd overall pick hopes until the day of the draft lottery. There are multiple ways it could convey to Indiana, but in short, the Pacers want the Spurs first round pick to be better than the Rockets when all is said and done.
If Houston's pick does end up being 33rd, then the Pacers get the Heat's second rounder... and that pick number will also be determined by a random drawing. Miami finished with the same record as the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors, so their second round pick could be anywhere from 48-50. The Pacers would like to see Miami lose their random drawing in the first round so their second round pick ends up at 48.
There's a lot of numbers and luck involved in the Pacers upcoming draft pick positioning. Their best case scenario would be having picks 1, 25, 29, 32, and 56, but four of those numbers could change. They will be searching for a good luck charm on the day of the random drawings and on May 16, when the NBA Draft lottery takes place.
In summary, here's what the Pacers will be hoping for in the coming weeks:
Mid-April, when the random drawings take place to break standings ties for the NBA Draft:
- Spurs win a random drawing over the Rockets
- Pacers win a random drawing over the Wizards
- Warriors and Clippers win a random drawing over the Heat
- Cavaliers win a random drawing over the Grizzlies
Then, on May 16, the Pacers will be hoping for:
- Their own lottery pick climbing up as high as possible
- The Spurs lottery pick finishing above the Rockets lottery pick
Those combinations would maximize Indiana's asset base in the 2023 NBA Draft.
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