US-Sport: Information about the lottery, the mock draft and top picks Luka Doncic, DeAndre Ayton and Co.

The hottest phase of the college season has begun: The March Madness. A show run of the upcoming stars of the NBA, but who are the big players and what makes them so strong? Which German players will be drafted in 2018 and how does the draft work? SPOX answers all these questions about NBA Draft 2018.

Next to the Free Agency, the draft is the most exciting of the NBA offseason. A lot is at stake, as each pick can steer the future of the franchise in a different direction.

This makes it all the more important to understand how the order for the draft is determined.

In principle, the NBA is structured so that the bad teams get the best picks – and thus the opportunity for the best talents. But those who think that the worst team automatically gets the first pick are wrong. The picks of all non-playoff teams are drawn in a lottery.

Only probabilities are distributed that are graded as follows. Logically, the worst team has the highest probability.

The team in first place in this list is logically the worst team of the Regular Season. Here you can find the current standings.

all figures in percent

How exactly do you draw lots? There are 14 balls in total, numbered from 1 to 14. After 20 seconds of mixing, one ball is drawn from the lottery drum every ten seconds until you have four balls together, which then form a combination.

The order of the numbers is irrelevant. That is, the combination 1-2-3-4 is equivalent to the combination 4-3-2-1. This results in a total of 1,000 different combinations (the combination 11-12-13-14 is not taken into account).

These 1,000 different combinations are previously assigned to the 14 teams according to the above weighting. There are three rounds in total. A combination is drawn in each round. First the first pick is determined, then the second draft pick and finally pick number 3.

Each team also has the opportunity to trade their pick. However, this is not possible in two consecutive years. Three potential lottery teams are affected this year.

Page 1: How the draft works

Page 2: The potential first 15 picks of the drag

Page 3: The German Prospects