May 04, 2025
Patrick Gorski/Imagn Images
On May 12, the Sixers will either be rewarded with a top-six pick or leave the NBA Draft Lottery empty-handed.
Every day between the end of the Sixers' regular season and the NBA Draft Lottery on May 12, we will use Tankathon.com's famous simulation tool to run through the lottery 10 times. Over a 29-day period, we will collect a significant sample of possible outcomes and track those results as the Sixers wait to learn the fate of their own first-round pick.
The Sixers are entering the lottery with the fifth-best set of odds, but they will only keep their first-rounder if it falls in the top six slots due to an obligation to the Oklahoma City Thunder from a trade made nearly five years ago.
Let's get to today's simulations:
The outcomes of today's batch of 10 simulations:
• Simulation No. 1: 6th pick
• Simulation No. 2: 7th pick
• Simulation No. 3: 3rd pick
• Simulation No. 4: 2nd pick
• Simulation No. 5: 8th pick
• Simulation No. 6: 2nd pick
• Simulation No. 7: 4th pick
• Simulation No. 8: 4th pick
• Simulation No. 9: 1st pick
• Simulation No. 10: 7th pick
MORE: Revisiting results of our preseason Sixers survey
The Sixers won the lottery once among today's 10 simulations, with consensus top prospects Cooper Flagg and Dylan Harper not ending up far from each other geographically:
Last month, I wrote about how Flagg could transform the Sixers' roster and rotation not just in the long term, but next season.
Of the three simulations in this batch where the Sixers lose their pick, this one would be the most heartbreaking:
The Sixers losing their pick because the only teams to jump were the pair they spent two months outpacing in the tanking race would be a special kind of brutal.
The cumulative results of this exercise so far:
| Draft Pick | Simulation Outcomes | Simulation Outcome Percentage | Actual Percentage Odds |
| 1 | 27 | 12.8% | 10.5% |
| 2 | 24 | 11.4% | 10.5% |
| 3 | 16 | 7.6% | 10.6% |
| 4 | 27 | 12.8% | 10.5% |
| 5 | 8 | 3.8% | 2.2% |
| 6 | 36 | 17.1% | 19.6% |
| 7 | 55 | 26.1% | 26.7% |
| 8 | 16 | 7.6% | 8.7% |
| 9 | 1 | 0.4% | 0.6% |
| Keep or Lose Pick? | Simulation Outcomes | Simulation Outcome Percentage | Actual Percentage Odds |
| Kept Pick | 138 | 65.7% | 64.0% |
| Lost Pick | 72 | 34.2% | 36.0% |
SIXERS YEAR-IN-REVIEW
Joel Embiid | Guerschon Yabusele | Paul George | Jared McCain | Tyrese Maxey | Andre Drummond | Quentin Grimes | Jared Butler | Kyle Lowry | Kelly Oubre Jr. | Justin Edwards | Ricky Council IV | Eric Gordon | Lonnie Walker IV | Adem Bona
Follow Adam on Twitter: @SixersAdam
Follow PhillyVoice on Twitter: @thephillyvoice
