NBA Draft Lottery: Dallas Mavericks officially lose their first round pick

The Dallas Mavericks will not be making a selection in the first round of the 2019 NBA Draft thanks to a trade with the Atlanta Hawks last year that got them Luka Doncic. The NBA Draft Lottery threw away the last ounce of hope for Mavs fans.

Should we start with the good news or the bad news?

The good news is that the Dallas Mavericks are poised for a very good season this year, draft pick or not. Luka Doncic, Kristaps Porzingis and a bunch of money to spend already make this team fun and exciting going forward.

On top of that, although Mavs fans may not admit it, all of us knew in the back of our minds that this was the most likely outcome to this season before it even started. The midseason trade and our collective optimism made Mavs fans believe they could still manage to land a top five pick in this draft. Well it didn’t happen.

That’s the bad news.

In the end, the Mavs fans can’t be mad about what happened tonight. With a 6% chance at Zion and a 26% chance at keeping the pick, Dallas knew that the plan they had set forth in the summer of 2018 was ready to take its next step. Now, the team knows exactly what is happening for the next several years with draft picks.

The silver lining of the night is that the Mavs don’t have to worry about finding cap space for a top four pick this year. Although they would have been glad to do so, it is nice having an idea how much money the team will have ready to spend in this summer’s full and healthy free agency class.

Now for the suspicious part of the story. Statistically, the Dallas Mavericks, New Orleans Pelicans and Memphis Grizzlies all had the same percentage chance to land the number one pick or a top four pick in this draft. After a coin toss determined just what the order would be if none of them made it into the top four, the official order was set.

Theoretically, the results of that coin toss cost the Mavs the first or second pick in the draft. Now that is not necessarily 100% true as the way the ping pong balls are determined is a bit unclear, but the fact that we can even come up with that scenario fairly easily is disappointing in itself.

This also happened last year again if you believe in a bit of conspiracy. The Mavs actually won the coin toss with the Hawks last year, but the Hawks are the one who moved to third in the lottery, not Dallas. Had that coin toss worked in our favor, we wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place.

The lottery is over and so are the Mavericks chances at a first round pick, but things are still going to be great for Mavs fans this year. Luka Doncic won us the 2018 draft, the 2019 draft and maybe more after this, we will just have to wait and see.