Trading your star player to the Los Angeles Lakers is a prerequisite for winning the NBA Draft Lottery for anyone not named the Memphis Grizzlies. The Dallas Mavericks continue to be the gift that keeps on giving this NBA season after landing the number one pick of the NBA draft when they entered the lottery night with 1.8% odds of obtaining the pick.
The Memphis Grizzlies defeated the Mavericks in their second play-in tournament game to knock them into the lottery drawing, and it paid off. Not only did the Mavericks obtain the number one pick, but the San Antonio Spurs obtained the number two pick.
In fact, all of the Grizzlies' divisional rivals gained top 10 picks in the 2025 draft as the New Orleans Pelicans obtained the seventh pick and the Houston Rockets obtained the 10th pick. Meanwhile, Memphis won't own a first-round pick in the draft this year, after trading it with Marcus Smart to the Washington Wizards at the trade deadline in February.
With the lottery shaking out like it did, it showed another sign that the Grizzlies always get the short end of the stick when "luck" is involved.
Dallas got the special treatment Memphis didn't get 17 years ago
Dallas trading Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers this season wasn't the first time a team traded their star player to the Lakers and received the number one pick that season. In 2019, Anthony Davis requested a trade from the New Orleans Pelicans to the Los Angeles Lakers and was granted the trade there after New Orleans received the number one pick to select Zion Williamson.
The Pelicans entered the draft lottery that year with the ninth-best odds to win the lottery (6%), which was followed by the Grizzlies' selection of Ja Morant with the second pick. However, when the Grizzlies traded their star player, Pau Gasol, to the Lakers in 2008, they weren't met with the same fate on draft lottery night.
The Grizzlies had the fourth-best odds (13.7%) of landing the number one pick of the 2008 NBA draft and dropped down one position to fifth. The Grizzlies have never owned the number one pick in the draft in the franchise's 30-year history (24 in Memphis, 6 in Vancouver), but two of their divisional rivals have gained the first pick the same year after doing what the Grizzlies did in 2008.
The Grizzlies' offseason just got more interesting as all of their divisional rivals have the chance to upgrade their rosters without getting rid of much. Memphis will have to create its own luck if they want to continue on their what is supposed to be an upward trajectory.