Draft lottery odds update: How likely Toronto Raptors are to get Cooper Flagg
Though the Toronto Raptors haven’t officially been eliminated from playoff contention this year, the official announcement of that is likely to be just a formality.
The Raptors have just seven games left in their season and sit five-and-a-half games back of the Miami Heat for the final spot in the NBA’s Eastern Conference Play-In round.
Unless Toronto wins all of their remaining games and Miami loses all but one of theirs (or something similar), Toronto will be sitting out of the NBA playoffs for the third year in a row.
And with confirmation that they won’t be playing in the postseason likely to come in the next few games, the Raptors could also have their odds locked in for the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery as soon as next weekend.
Toronto currently sits seventh in the reverse NBA standings, with four games behind divisional rivals in the Brooklyn Nets. The Raptors and Nets face one another in Toronto’s final divisional contest of the season this coming Sunday, April 6, in what could be a pivotal matchup but, in all reality, might not have much bearing on the final rankings.
Brooklyn and Philadelphia are the only two teams Toronto can catch at this point, as they sit five games behind the free-falling 76ers, who have dropped eight games in a row. Seventh is by far the most likely final landing spot in the draft lottery rankings for Toronto.
If the Raptors stay in the same spot over the course of the final two weeks of the regular season, they’ll end up with a 32 per cent chance at a top-four pick and a 7.5 per cent chance at the first overall pick, which seems all but guaranteed to be Duke star Cooper Flagg.
Toronto could also actually head in the other direction.
Given that Toronto’s been on a recent heater — and both the San Antonio Spurs and Portland Trail Blazers have lost their last four games — there is still a possibility the Raptors could see their odds at the top pick decrease even more this season. Toronto is 3.5 games ahead of San Antonio and four games ahead of Portland, both of whom they play over their final stretch.
The soonest Toronto could get locked into the seventh spot appears to be this Sunday, should they retain at least a three-and-a-half game cushion in either direction with all of Brooklyn, San Antonio, and Portland. One outcome that could see that occurring is with wins over Chicago and Brooklyn but a loss to Portland and Detroit.
Of course, they’d still need a little help from the Spurs and Trail Blazers, so it might be a little too early to play out all the possible scenarios with so many variables at play this week.
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