Bulls win draft order tiebreaker, need lottery luck originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
The Chicago Bulls won a tiebreaker with the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday when the NBA conducted random drawings to determine the order of selection for the NBA Draft in June.
The drawings also slightly impacted the odds for the May 16 NBA Draft Lottery, which will take place in Chicago.
After the tiebreaker drawings, the Bulls are 11th in the draft order and own an 8.5 percent chance to move into the top-four picks. That has to happen for them to keep the pick or else it conveys to the Orlando Magic as the final piece to the Nikola Vucevic trade.
The Bulls also now have a 1.8 percent chance to win the lottery.
In some ways, it might’ve seemed more poetic had the Bulls lost the tiebreaker drawing to the Thunder, who also finished this season at 40-42. That would’ve given the Bulls a 1.7 percent chance to win the draft lottery.
If that percentage sounds familiar, that’s the same chance they cashed in 15 years ago to win the draft lottery and ultimately selected Derick Rose.
Even if their pick conveys to the Magic, the Bulls still could have a first-round pick in June.
The Portland Trail Blazers sit fifth in the draft order with a 42.1 percent chance to move up, so the lottery-protected pick they owe the Bulls won’t convey.
But the Trail Blazers now own the New York Knicks’ first-round pick as part of February’s Josh Hart trade.
Portland, which is always looking to upgrade the roster to appease Damian Lillard, doesn’t have as much trade flexibility until its outstanding draft compensation commitment to the Bulls is finalized. Thus, it may behoove the Trail Blazers to either discuss changing the protections on the first-round pick it owes the Bulls or perhaps even send the Knicks’ pick to the Bulls.
That way, the Trail Blazers would have more trade flexibility moving forward. They’d be free to trade future picks and/or discuss pick swaps because their draft compensation to the Bulls would be honored.
The Bulls may even be able to try to wrangle another asset from the Trail Blazers as they’d possibly be negotiating from a position of strength given Lillard’s recent comments that he’d like to see roster upgrades.
As of now, the Bulls don’t own a second-round pick in this June’s draft. Their second-round pick was traded to the Wizards in the Otto Porter Jr. acquisition. And a second-round pick acquired from the Cavaliers was forfeited as penalty by a league ruling for improper communication in their acquisition of Lonzo Ball.
Monday’s drawings were conducted by Joe Dumars, the league’s vice president of basketball operations, and overseen by the accounting firm of Ernst & Young.
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