Washington will not be getting a bailout from the NBA this year. The Wizards will hold the ninth overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft after Tuesday’s NBA Draft Lottery.
The Wizards entered the lottery with the sixth-best odds after going 32-50 this season. They had less than a 40 percent chance of moving up into the top four, so getting stuck in the bottom half of the top ten isn’t a surprise, but falling to ninth is rough. Washington came into the lottery with better odds of moving up to one (9.0 percent) than they did of moving down to nine (3.