Why the 2028 pick swap is better than people think
Everyone keeps talking about Paul George like he’s the return we got for Jaylen Brown, but honestly the picks are the real story here and specifically the 2028 swap in which we get the better of the Clippers/76ers/Celtics 1st round pick. Since the NBA is switching to a new 3-2-1 lottery format in 2027-2029, where instead of just drawing for the top 4 picks and lining everyone else up by record (generalizing here but the maximum a team could fall was 4 spots), they draw all 16 lottery slots randomly. Every non-playoff team gets thrown into one big random drawing, top to bottom.
| Tier | Balls | Odds at pick 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Bottom-3 record | 2 | 5.4% |
| 4th-10th worst record | 3 | 8.1% |
| 9⁄10 play-in seed | 2 | 5.4% |
| 7⁄8 play-in loser | 1 | 2.7% |
Why does that matter for us? Because a swap right becomes way more valuable when everything’s randomized. Under the old system, a swap right was kind of meh, you basically just knew where the pick would likely land. Now, every extra team that’s bad gives us another lottery ticket, and we just take whichever one lands better
Heres what that actually looks like in a graph:
Here we assume that the avg lottery team has 2.3125 balls (37 total balls ÷ 16 teams) for 6.25% chance. If just 1 of the 3 teams tied to our pick ends up bad, our odds are literally just league average. But if 2 of them end up bad then we jump well above average, and if all 3 end up bad then our odds basically double. Which is the real value of “optionality” that Brad talks about in my opinion.
Realistically, probably just the Clippers end up being the one bad team out of the three. Boston and San Antonio both look like playoff teams right now, and Philly probably play-in caliber at least too. So I wouldnt expect the “all 3 bad” scenario which is the upside case. But with that in mind, our realistic shot is somewhere around a coin flip at a top 8 pick (roughly 54%) and if it does land in the lottery then the average expected landing spot is around pick 8. So basically not a guaranteed lottery pick, but a coin flip shot at a good one which is mostly riding on the Clippers staying bad (or 76ers).
That opens up interesting possibilities in 2028 offseason in which:
So TLDR the 2028 pick swap is worth more than a normal pick right because Boston effectively holds however many of the three teams end up in the lottery (Celtics/Spurs, Clippers, Sixers), and taking the best of multiple tickets beats holding just one. If only the Clippers end up bad, which is the realistic case right now, Boston’s odds are just league average. However because of the flattened odds in 2028, that pick will inherently assume more value than the current draft system. And the edge really shows up if two or three of those teams end up bad at once. Most likely we have a coin flip (~54%) at a top-8 pick, averaging out to roughly pick 8 if it lands in the lottery at all.
In my opinion it’s still a bad trade because I think JBs value is higher than 2 potential future lottery picks and max contract freedom in 2028. We probably could’ve traded for better odds with worse teams or more pick swaps/unprotected firsts. However, the return is higher than what I think the perceived value and we definitely have that “optionality” Brad is referring to.