Welcome to Sixers tank watch 4.0, as the team's pursuit of the protection of its first-round pick escalates with less than a month remaining in the regular season. The Sixers will hold onto their first-rounder in this June's 2025 NBA Draft if it falls in the top six; otherwise it will belong to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
As we do every Wednesday, let's break down the current state of the draft lottery standings and take a look at how things may change in the week ahead:
Lottery standings entering tonight
Here are how the lottery standings look entering Wednesday's action:
As has been the case for quite some time, the realistic range of landing spots for the Sixers ranges from No. 5 to No. 7, which has a massive impact on their potential probability of being in the top six. Their main adversaries in the race remain the Brooklyn Nets and Toronto Raptors, but due to Toronto's incredibly easy remaining schedule, Brooklyn looms as the greater threat to finish the season with a worse record than the Sixers.
All of this is very meaningful: at No. 5, the Sixers could withstand a team jumping them into the top four picks which are drawn in the lottery, at No. 6 they could only withstand a team behind them jumping if they also jump, at No. 7 they must jump into the top four in order to avoid leaving empty-handed.
As a reminder, the differences between landing in the No. 5 slot versus the No. 6 slot versus the No. 7 slot are stark when it comes to the likelihood of the Sixers hanging onto their pick:
| Lottery position | Chance of keeping pick |
| 1 | 100.0% |
| 2 | 100.0% |
| 3 | 93.0% |
| 4 | 81.1% |
| 5 | 64.0% |
| 6 | 45.8% |
| 7 | 31.9% |
| 8 | 26.3% |
| 9 | 20.2% |
| 10 | 13.9% |
| 11 | 9.4% |
| 12 | 7.1% |
| 13 | 4.7% |
| 14 | 2.4% |
So, how might the race change in the next seven days?
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The week ahead
Here are the upcoming slates for the Sixers, Nets and Raptors over the next week, with some analysis on the key matchups to watch:
Sixers: Wednesday @ Oklahoma City Thunder (56-12), Friday @ San Antonio Spurs (28-39), Sunday @ Atlanta Hawks (33-36), Monday @ New Orleans Pelicans (18-51)
Wednesday's game against the juggernaut Thunder has somehow turned into a tank battle of sorts, with Oklahoma City resting MVP frontrunner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and possibly holding out as many as four of their next five best players. Oklahoma City's remarkable depth should enable them to remain favorites, but the door has clearly opened for the Sixers to win that game. Of course, the team which benefits the most every time the Sixers win is the Thunder, who will receive of a lottery pick if the Sixers fail to land inside the top six.
Otherwise, the Sixers have a string of winnable games here, even with their own horrid roster situation. San Antonio will be without stars Victor Wembanyama and De'Aaron Fox for the remainder of the season, the Hawks are trying to find their footing heading into a barren Play-In Tournament scenario next month and the Pelicans are one of the few teams with a worse record than the Sixers. New Orleans just lost impressive young wing Trey Murphy III for the rest of this campaign and should be focused on competing with the Charlotte Hornets in the loss column.
Nets: Thursday @ Indiana Pacers (38-29), Saturday @ Indiana Pacers (38-29), Monday vs. Dallas Mavericks (33-36)
Indiana just won an overtime thriller on the road against a surging Minnesota Timberwolves team without any of Tyrese Halliburton, Pascal Siakam or Myles Turner, with old friend T.J. McConnell among their heroes down the stretch. The Pacers have generally found their groove over the last few months, particularly as Haliburton has returned to being one of the most prolific offensive players in the NBA. Winning either of their two games in Indianapolis will be a challenge for the Nets, but as we continue to discuss, Brooklyn plays with so much intensity and connectivity defensively that they can shrink any talent gap and conceivably compete.
As the Sixers proved last week, even the worst of teams can handle this version of the Mavericks, who are barely fielding enough players to get by right now and are facing the very real possibility of having to dress an injured player later on this season just to avoid forfeiting games. Beyond all of the basketball-related reasons why the Quentin Grimes-for-Caleb Martin swap has been a disaster for the Mavericks, it also took up every bit of their financial wiggle room, preventing them from being able to sign extra bodies like the Sixers have in recent weeks. The Nets might be favorites to beat Dallas at the Barclays Center.
Raptors: Thursday @ Golden State Warriors (40-29), Sunday vs. San Antonio Spurs (28-39), Monday @ Washington Wizards (15-52)
The Washington Wizards have unbelievably surged quite a bit of late, squandering their position in the top lottery slot as the Utah Jazz pile up losses. Some veterans have helped the Wizards' young talent, and the team is playing genuinely good basketball right now. The Raptors' battles against San Antonio and Washington will both be close to toss-ups, though the Raptors will likely be slight underdogs against the Spurs and favored by a bit over the Wizards.
So far, Toronto has showed far more aggression than the Sixers or Nets in their tanking efforts. From frequent rest for young players with fresh legs like Immanuel Quickley and key veterans like Jakob Poeltl, to the worst available players finishing out close games, the Raptors are beginning to pull out all the stops to try to improve their lottery positioning in spite of a schedule which caters to wins.
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