Wizards eye Dybantsa, Boozer, Peterson and Wilson at No 1 after winning NBA draft lottery | Washington Wizards

The worst team in the league this season gets the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. The Washington Wizards won the draft Sunday and are poised to go first overall for the first time since they selected John Wall that spot in 2010. Wall was the Wizards’ representative on stage for this year’s lottery.

Utah won the right to pick No. 2, Memphis will pick No. 3 and Chicago will pick No. 4.

Washington had a 14% chance of winning the No. 1 seed, tied with Brooklyn and Indiana for the best odds. The Wizards effectively had a 50-50 chance of landing either a top-four pick or the fifth pick.

But three straight years of losing — the three worst seasons in the franchise’s 65-year history — finally paid off Sunday for the Wizards, who went 17-65 this season and allowed Miami’s Bam Adebayo to score 83 points for the league’s second-highest single-game total.

The Wizards made deals to sign Trae Young and Anthony Davis last season, and now they have the opportunity to add an immediate impact player with the No. 1 pick.

The Los Angeles Clippers got the fifth pick – via a trade with the Pacers – followed by No. 6 Brooklyn, No. 7 Sacramento, No. 8 Atlanta, No. 9 Dallas, No. 10 Milwaukee, No. 11 Golden State, No. 12 Oklahoma City, No. 13 Miami and No. 14 Charlotte.

The draft begins June 23 in New York. There are four candidates considered the favorites to be the No. 1 pick, all entering the draft after their junior years of college. They are:

BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, who led the nation with 25.5 points per game in his lone college season.

Cameron Boozer of Duke, the AP player of the year, averaged 22.5 points and 10.1 rebounds.

Darryn Peterson of Kansas, who averaged 20.2 points in 24 games with the Jayhawks.

Caleb Wilson of North Carolina, who averaged 19.8 points and 9.4 rebounds on 58% shooting.

Those four players, along with a few other likely first-round selections, were in studio for the lottery results announcement Sunday at Chicago’s Navy Pier.

“Standing here is kind of crazy,” Dybantsa said. “One of these teams is going to go home.”

This was the eighth and likely final year of this version of an NBA draft lottery, with the worst teams having a 14 percent chance of winning.

A framework was put in place last month on changes intended to further discourage tanking, and the league’s Board of Governors is expected to ratify that plan in the coming weeks – with general managers meeting Tuesday in Chicago to likely discuss it one last time.

The three worst teams, starting next season, would have a 5.4% chance of winning the lottery – with the next seven teams all having an 8.1% chance of winning. The lottery would expand from 14 to 16 teams if the plan, as expected, is approved.