What you should know about Thunder-Rockets pick swap and its 2021 NBA Draft ramifications

Joe Mussatto

The Thunder plays at the Rockets on Sunday afternoon in a game where the result is all about the future. The real Thunder vs. Rockets intrigue will have to wait for NBA draft lottery night. 

The rebuilding Thunder will own a minimum of two first-round picks in the 2021 draft: the two best of its own, Miami’s and Houston’s thanks to a pick swap in the Russell Westbrook/Chris Paul trade

Heading into Saturday, the Rockets are 29th in the NBA standings, the Thunder is tied for 22nd and the Heat is 12th. If you reverse the standings to reflect where those teams could pick in the draft, the Rockets might pick second, the Thunder eighth and the Heat 19th. 

If that’s where the ping-pong balls land, the Thunder would pick eighth and 19th. 

Why not second? 

Because the Rockets pick is protected one through four. If Houston lands a top-four pick, the Rockets keep it. If the Rockets slip outside of the top four, the Thunder will snatch their pick since it will be far better than wherever the Heat pick falls. 

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What are the odds Houston falls outside of the top four?

Before the Saturday schedule: 48%. 

Tankathon.com lists the lottery odds attached to each pick. 

The bottom-three teams all have a 14% chance at the No. 1 pick. Before the 2019 draft, the worst team had a 25% chance of winning the lottery, but owners voted to flatten the odds to disincentivize tanking

The 29th place team, where the Rockets sit, has a 14% chance to pick first, a 13.4% chance to pick second, a 12.7% chance to pick third and an 11.9% chance to pick fourth.

Add those up, and the Rockets currently have a 52% chance to land in the top four and keep their pick. 

Houston has a 27.8% chance to fall to fifth and a 20.2% chance to fall to sixth, which is as far as the Rockets could slide. 

The Thunder will take a 48% chance to pick fifth or sixth and then again at No. 8, where its own pick is slated to land. 


Thunder guard Lu Dort attempts a pass against the Rockets. OKC and Houston will both be nervous on NBA draft lottery night.

Should the Thunder want the Rockets to win or lose?

The Rockets are losers of 19 straight games, but now Christian Wood has returned from injury and they shouldn’t be quite so bad. 

At the beginning of the season, the common thought was that the Thunder should want the Rockets to lose, but not lose too much given the top-four pick protection. 

But the logic has shifted. Shouldn’t the Thunder want the Rockets to finish with the worst record in the NBA? 

Experts agree the 2021 NBA Draft has a clear-cut top five: OSU’s Cade Cunningham, Gonzaga’s Jalen Suggs, USC’s Evan Mobley, and the G League Ignite’s Jonathan Kuminga and Jalen Green. 

The Thunder wants to pair another cornerstone player alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and its best chance is for Houston to fall below Minnesota and finish dead last in the standings. 

Why? Because the worst team can fall no lower than fifth on lottery night. And the odds the 30th-place Rockets would pick fifth are only slightly worse than a coin flip. 

The worst team has a 14% chance to pick first, a 13.4% chance to pick second, a 12.7% chance to pick third and an 11.9% chance to pick fourth. That adds up to a 52% chance — meaning a 52% chance Houston would keep its pick. 

But there’s a 48% chance the team with the worst record falls to fifth. In that case, the Thunder would steal the pick and select one of the Big Five. 

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What if Houston starts winning?

Let’s say the Rockets pass the Pistons, Magic and Cavaliers in the standings. It’s quite possible. 

That would mean Houston would finish with the fifth-worst record and have a 42% chance of picking in the top four. In other words, the Thunder would have a 58% chance of taking that pick plus its own pick. 

That’s better than the 48% chance in the previous scenario, but the upside isn’t nearly as enticing. 

The team that finishes with the fifth-worst record has just a 2.2% chance of picking fifth. That almost certainly takes Cunningham, Suggs, Mobley, Kuminga and Green out of the equation. 

There’s a 19.5% chance of picking sixth, a 26.7% chance of picking seventh, an 8.9% chance of picking eighth and a 0.7% chance of picking ninth for the team that finishes 26th in the standings (fifth-worst). 

None of this is in the Thunder’s control, but if it was, it’s deciding between a 48% chance at the No. 5 pick versus a 58% chance that it’s more like No. 6 or 7. 

The worst-case scenario either way for the Thunder is if Houston lands in the top four on lottery night. Instead of having two top-10 picks, OKC would likely have one top-10 pick and another pick (via Miami) in the high teens or low 20s. 

What’s the best-case scenario for the Thunder?

Getting extremely lucky. 

The odds shift daily with the standings, but the Thunder has about a 5% chance to land the No. 1 pick. 

If the Thunder slides to 25th or even 26th, its chances for the No. 1 pick would increase to 10.5% and 12.5%. That’s not out of the question with the younger lineups the Thunder has used after the All-Star break. 

The Thunder’s dream scenario is owning the No. 1 and No. 5 picks. That requires OKC to win the lottery and Houston to fall outside of the top four. 

The Thunder-Rockets result Sunday afternoon will slightly shift the odds in one direction or another, but really it’s just a waiting game for the two franchises. 

Thunder at Rockets

When: 1 p.m. Sunday

Where: Toyota Center, Houston

TV/Radio: FSOK, WWLS 98.1 FM