From The Sports Desk: Inside the drawing room

NBAFrom The Sports Desk: Inside the drawing roomNBC News takes you behind the scenes at the NBA draft lottery. Plus, the Spurs’ Victor Wembanayama gets ejected, and Erling Haaland is our next World Cup player to watch. Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Michael Winger, president of the Washington Wizards, holds the combination of numbers that won his team the first pick Sunday at the NBA Draft Lottery.Brian Sevald / NBAE via Getty ImagesShareAdd NBC News to GoogleMay 11, 2026, 3:00 PM EDTBy Rohan Nadkarni, Tim Rohan and Andrew GreifThe NBA draft lottery is one of the most consequential days of the NBA calendar. Every year, the bottom quarter of the league looks forward to the day when the league draws ping-pong balls, from behind closed doors, to determine the draft order. After a long season of losing, and perhaps some tanking, the teams’ fate comes down to … luck, the bounce of a ball.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Our Rohan Nadkarni was inside the secret drawing room as the ping-pong balls were drawn and takes you behind the scenes of what happened.Also, Erling Haaland of Norway is our World Cup spotlight today. For more NBA and soccer coverage, stay tuned to The Sports Desk newsletter and the NBC News website. NBA Draft LotteryInside the drawing room, each of the 14 lottery teams has a representative. There are various officials from the NBA, and the media is seated to the side of the plastic drum from which the lottery combinations will be drawn.Inside a sealed briefcase are 14 ping-pong balls, numbered 1 to 14. Those ping-pong balls are then placed in a plastic drum designed by Smartplay International, a company that specializes in devising lottery machines.There is an official timekeeper who purposefully faces away from the drum to avoid any perception of bias. After the drum is started up — and the balls start flying around within it — the timekeeper will let 20 seconds pas...