2024 NBA Mock Draft: French stars Alex Sarr, Zaccharie Risacher go 1-2 as order takes shape

2024 NBA Mock Draft: French stars Alex Sarr, Zaccharie Risacher go 1-2 as order takes shape

The completion of the 2024 NBA play-in tournament has painted a clear picture of who will and won’t be in next month’s NBA Draft lottery and in which order the ping-pong balls are most likely to fall. Detroit and Washington will enter the event each tied with a 14% chance of securing the No. 1 pick, and a tiebreaker between Portland and Charlotte will determine the third team to have the same odds as the Pistons and Wizards. We also will have a tiebreaker to determine which team has the 13th and 14th best odds after Golden State and Sacramento each finished with 46-36 records.

Atlanta and Chicago will have the 10th and 11th best lottery odds, respectively, after bowing out in the play-in tournament last week, thanks to a worse record than Houston, which missed the playoffs in the deep Western Conference. Meanwhile, play-in tournament winners like the Lakers and Pelicans have slotted themselves in ahead of the tiebreaker drawings in the middle of the first round.

Until we know which team will pick No. 1 — and No. 2 and No. 3 and No. 4, and so forth — it’s hard to get an idea of precisely how this year’s draft will go, particularly in a class that is largely seen as weaker than in most years. But with the play-in tourney complete and the regular season behind us, we have a pretty good idea of what things look like pre-lottery and pre-tiebreakers to get a feel for how we think things could go.

So let’s have at it. The full first round projections are below based on where things sit ahead of the lottery and ahead of tiebreakers. Team need is largely not taken into account at this juncture because order remains unsettled.