The headline winner of the May 10 lottery was Washington. The quiet winner was a team that wasn't even sweating the ping-pong balls for itself: the LA Clippers own the No. 5 pick — and it came from the Indiana Pacers.
Indiana finished tied for the league's worst record and tied for the best lottery odds at 14%, but the pick they were drawing for conveys to the Clippers. When it landed at No. 5, it was the Clippers — a roster built to win now — who suddenly had a top-five selection to either inject youth into an aging core or package as the centerpiece of a win-now trade.
Mocks have the Clippers taking a high-scoring combo guard like Illinois' Keaton Wagler at the slot — a youth infusion for a team that has leaned veteran for years. But the more interesting question is whether a contender even keeps a pick that valuable, or flips it for the kind of established player a top-five selection can headline a trade for.
Either way, it's a case study in why pick-protection language matters as much as lottery odds. Indiana did everything "right" by the tank math and still came away empty; the Clippers did nothing on lottery night and came away with a top-five asset. For where the rest of the order shook out, see the 2026 NBA Draft Board.