What Just Happened? 2025 NBA Mock Draft After a Wild Lottery
And with the first pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, the Dallas Mavericks select...
After a long day of travel that started with me arriving at the airport around 4 a.m. and spending nearly 10 hours stuck there, I finally made it to Chicago on Monday evening—just in time for the announcement that the Dallas Mavericks had won the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery and earned the right to select Duke’s Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 pick next month. The Mavericks came in with just a 1.8% chance of landing the top pick and somehow climbed 10 spots to pull it off. As soon as the pick was announced, my phone started buzzing—friends and family texting me wild conspiracy theories, asking how Dallas pulled it off, and tossing out everything from cold envelopes to rigged algorithms.
And to make things even more interesting, while I was stuck at the airport waiting on standby, I ran into a few Mavericks front office execs at DFW—Nico Harrison and Michael Finley. We had brief conversations while they were en route to Chicago. Little did I know—and little did they know—that just a few hours later, some of the pressure and volatility aimed at the Mavericks front office would suddenly come to a screeching halt. The Luka Dončić era may be over, but with Cooper Flagg on the way, Mavs fans have reason to feel very optimistic about what’s next.
But that wasn’t the only headline. Earlier in the day, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that Giannis Antetokounmpo is open to exploring opportunities outside of Milwaukee. So yes—you will hear Giannis’ name come up a couple times in this mock draft.
This is my personal 2025 NBA Mock Draft, based on how I would approach each pick. There are going to be players I’m higher on than consensus. There are going to be guys I’m lower on.
I’ve updated the height and weight measurements based on the official NBA Combine numbers, and this version will focus solely on the lottery.
Stay tuned—I’ll be dropping my full first-round mock later this week and sharing live reactions from the NBA Combine here in Chicago.