Charlotte Hornets secure fourth pick in 2025 NBA Draft after Dallas wins lottery
Chalk up yet another disappointing night for the Charlotte Hornets. And this latest numbing defeat didn’t even take place on the court.
Armed with the top odds at 14% — along with Utah and Washington — to land the No. 1 overall pick, the Hornets failed to win the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery on Monday night at McCormick Place West, foiling the opportunity to secure a potentially franchise-altering player in Duke product Cooper Flagg.
Instead, the Hornets will select fourth in the league’s annual draft June 25-26 in New York.
The Dallas Mavericks won the lottery and will pick first, followed by San Antonio, Philadelphia, Charlotte and Utah to round out the first five spots. The Mavericks had a 1.8% chance to claim the top position and the result stunned the entire league.
“The odds are the odds,” Hornets co-owner Rick Schnall told The Observer inside the conference room where the drawing took place. “What, we had a 14% chance to win the lottery. … We did win it — on the fourth try.”
But that won’t be good enough to get Flagg’s services.
With Flagg surely off the board when the Hornets are on the clock, they could turn to Rutgers products Ace Bailey or Dylan Harper. The two are expected to be among the top five players selected and many team officials, scouts and talent evaluators will get a shot to see many of them up close and in person during the NBA Draft Combine, which tipped off Sunday across the street from where the lottery was held.
Despite falling in the possible projected order, the Hornets think they’ll bring a solid player on board and the front office staff, led by president of basketball operations Jeff Peterson, is eager to get the process rolling.
“Excitement, clarity,” coach Charles Lee told The Observer. “I think that this whole time, you are sitting and (wondering) what pick do you get? But I know talking to Jeff, talking to (assistant GM) Dotun (Akinwale) and the entire front office. They’ve talked about how deep of a draft class this is.
“I think they have a lot of the intangibles, in terms of great work ethic and great competitiveness, and they understand the team game and what it’s going to take to really impact winning at a high level. So, I look forward to kind of getting into the weeds with Dotun, and Jeff and the front office, and figuring out who is that next pick to continue to help us to build. ”
Not securing the No. 1 pick is nothing new for the Hornets, but at least they didn’t drop as far as Utah and Washington. The Jazz will select fifth and the Wizards will select sixth in June’s draft, followed by New Orleans, Brooklyn, Toronto and Houston.
Charlotte was looking for its first lottery win since 1991, when the Hornets grabbed Larry Johnson. Although they’ve come close now three times in the past five years, selecting LaMelo Ball at No. 3 overall in 2020 and Brandon Miller second behind Victor Wembanyama in 2023, the ability to choose the best prospect in the draft class still remains elusive.
So it’s time to turn their full attention to another important offseason, with the goal of reconstructing a roster that can finally end the NBA’s longest playoff drought.
“Up until this moment, everyone just (had) a ton of anxiety, just waiting to see where we would be picking,” Peterson said. “But now that we know we are picking four, it helps clear some things up in conversations with other teams and continue the process as we are here with the draft prospects at the draft combine.
“So we are really excited.”
This story was originally published May 12, 2025 at 7:33 PM.
