Utah Jazz guaranteed to keep lottery pick after winning tiebreaker with Kings
· Yahoo Sports
The Utah Jazz will not be sending their 2026 draft pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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In order to determine draft and draft lottery position, the NBA conducts tiebreaker drawings for teams that finished the regular season with identical records. The Jazz and Sacramento Kings both finished with a regular-season record of 22-60, vying for the 4th and 5th worst record in the league.
Importantly, the Jazz owed a 2026, top-8 protected, first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder. So, after the draft lottery, if the Jazz’s pick fell out of the top-8, they would have to send it to OKC.
During the draft lottery, the team in the fourth position can fall no lower than 8th. While the team in the fifth position has a 99.3% chance at staying in the top-8, there is still risk at falling to 9th.
That made the tiebreaking drawing on Monday really important for the Jazz. Since they now have the fourth spot on lottery night, it means that they are guaranteed a top-8 pick, and no longer need to worry about the Thunder swooping in to take their lottery pick.
Official announcement with all tiebreaker results https://t.co/SXDijkRssOpic.twitter.com/HQQOAFxTXJ
— Sarah Todd (@NBASarah) April 20, 2026
There were six ties that needed to be broken on Monday with the Jazz and Kings tiebreaker the one with the highest lottery implications.
The Jazz will have an 11.5% chance at the No. 1 overall pick, which will be determined during the draft lottery on May 10 at 1 p.m. MST.