Atlanta Hawks win NBA draft lottery

CHICAGO (AP) — The Atlanta Hawks came in facing slim odds. They walked away with their biggest victory in years.

The Hawks won the NBA draft lottery on Sunday, landing the No. 1 pick and a potential cornerstone player in a year where there’s no clear-cut choice.

“At least I can go home and tell my wife on Mother’s Day, ‘Hey, at least we won the lottery,’” general manager Landry Fields said. “That’s her present. Yeah, there we go.”

The Hawks hit the jackpot despite just 3% odds after finishing 10th in the Eastern Conference at 36-46. They dropped their final six regular-season games and lost to the Chicago Bulls in the first round of the play-in tournament.

“It was a shock,” said Fields, who grinned ear to ear when deputy commissioner Mark Tatum announced the Hawks as the winners. “When I first saw that it wasn’t us between 10 and 12, that launched us into the top four. I was like, all right, we’ve got a real shot at this thing. A bit of surprise, but a lot of excitement.”

The Hawks haven’t won a postseason series since a surprising run to the Eastern Conference finals in 2021. They got knocked out in the first round in 2022 and 2023.

Atlanta has some big decisions to make this offseason, including whether to break up its backcourt of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray. Fields can build with the No. 1 pick — assuming he keeps it — though it’s not clear who will be taken first after Victor Wembanyama was the obvious choice for San Antonio last year.

“Our group has been fantastic,” Fields said. “There’s a whole lot of trust. They’ve put in the work. We’ll kind of lean into our process and take it from there.”

Washington, Houston, San Antonio and Detroit rounded out the top five. The draft is June 26-27 in Brooklyn.

Houston coach Ime Udoka was thrilled to get the third pick after the Rockets went 41-41 and missed the playoffs for the fourth straight year.

“Pleasant surprise when you move up the way that we did,” he said. “I feel like there’s a lot of qualified candidates out there.”

Washington and Detroit had the best chances to land the top pick at 14%. Only four teams have won the lottery with slimmer odds than Atlanta, with the biggest longshot being Orlando at