April 18, 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: 2nd pick
• Simulation No. 2: 1st pick
• Simulation No. 3: 1st pick
• Simulation No. 4: 7th pick
• Simulation No. 5: 7th pick
• Simulation No. 6: 6th pick
• Simulation No. 7: 6th pick
• Simulation No. 8: 6th pick
• Simulation No. 9: 6th pick
• Simulation No. 10: 2nd pick
MORE: Which Sixers midseason additions will be back next year?
Of course, the back-to-back lottery victories were the best of this batch, but the first and last simulations in which the Sixers landed with the No. 2 pick were the most interesting. The first one had the New Orleans Pelicans winning the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes, with the Sixers right behind them:
Sixers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey made it very clear at his exit interview on Sunday that if the Sixers keep their first-round pick, they will draft the best player available. The consensus opinion, however, is that Rutgers guard Dylan Harper fits that bill beyond Flagg. Could the Sixers build around yet another guard?
The Sixers only dropped to No. 7 and lost their pick twice in this grouping of 10 simulations, and this one featured some crazy movement up top:
Speaking of Harper, it would be terrific for him to land in Houston. As for Flagg going to Charlotte... meh.
The cumulative results of this exercise so far:
| Draft Pick | Simulation Outcomes | Simulation Outcome Percentage | Actual Percentage Odds |
| 1 | 10 | 20.0% | 10.5% |
| 2 | 5 | 10.0% | 10.5% |
| 3 | 1 | 2.0% | 10.6% |
| 4 | 2 | 4.0% | 10.5% |
| 5 | 2 | 4.0% | 2.2% |
| 6 | 13 | 26.0% | 19.6% |
| 7 | 15 | 30.0% | 26.7% |
| 8 | 2 | 4.0% | 8.7% |
| 9 | 0 | 0.0% | 0.6% |
| Keep or Lose Pick? | Simulation Outcomes | Simulation Outcome Percentage | Actual Percentage Odds |
| Kept Pick | 33 | 66.0% | 64.0% |
| Lost Pick | 17 | 34.0% | 36.0% |
MORE: Paul George year-in-review
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