How one night reshaped the NBA: Tatum's injury, lottery chaos and what's next

The NBA has had plenty of dates that force us to remember where we were, what we were doing and who we were with in the moment.

When LeBron James chose the Miami Heat on July 8, 2010. When Kevin Durant joined the Golden State Warriors on July 7, 2016. When Kobe Bryant dropped 60 points in the final game of his career on April 13, 2016. When Luka Doncic joined the Los Angeles Lakers just this Feb. 2 certainly meets the criteria, too.

But it's a rarity to witness two such events on the same day -- let alone just hours apart. Which is why Monday, May 12, 2025, won't be forgotten in NBA circles anytime soon.

Between the Dallas Mavericks parlaying the 11th-best lottery odds into the top overall selection -- and with it, the right to draft Duke phenom Cooper Flagg next month -- and the defending champion Boston Celtics losing Jayson Tatum for not only the rest of this year's playoffs, but likely the vast majority of next season with a torn Achilles tendon, it was a flurry of news and heartbreak and was truly a "shocking day all around," as one East scout said.

It was also massively consequential. For a league that has already slanted heavily toward Western Conference dominance, the combination of another generational talent landing in the West has only increased that divide. The lone true East superpower losing a top-5 player in his prime for 10-plus months turns it into a chasm.

As the dust still settles on the Mavericks' magical lottery and Tatum's franchise-altering injury, we canvassed the league on what lies ahead for the ever-expanding conference imbalance, for a now wide-open East and for a logjam in the West that just added another generational prospect.

League insiders on initial shock of Tatum's injury

Few injuries are as consequential as the one Tatum just suffered. The 27-year-old, who has the richest contract in the NBA, was entering the prime of his career and will most likely make his fourth consecutive All-NBA first team. He's well on his way to an all-time great career and already possesses a Hall of Fame résumé.

He's the best player on the defending champions, a team that entered Monday -- even while trailing New York Knicks -- as the heavy favorites to win the East.

"It's a completely unforeseen scenario," one East executive said. "This just doesn't happen to a guy like that."

Yes, the Celtics are staring at a financial cliff. But team president Brad Stevens and the Boston front office would likely have found a way to ease their luxury tax bill without a massive loss to their core. And while it's always dangerous to project too far into the future in the NBA, Boston was positioned to be at or near the top of the East for the rest of the decade.

"Your mind starts running through scenarios you never could've thought would happen," the executive said of Boston's potential mindset. "They have a lot of thinking to do."

Boston's hopes of repeating this season are all but gone; the Knicks can close out the Celtics on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET, ESPN).

And with Tatum essentially written off for the entire 2025-26 season, it's hard to see a scenario in which the Celtics don't retrench a bit this summer, with an eye on getting less expensive and building up to another Finals run in 2026-27.

"This already was their last chance with their team to go as far as possible [before the financial crunch]," a West scout said. "They'll have to get creative."

A weak East race becomes weaker -- and wide open

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Milwaukee and Miami were already headed out of the picture. The Heat found a way to scrape into the playoffs once again after winning 37 games, but were routed by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round after trading Jimmy Butler III during the season, showing Miami has lots of work to do to return to the East's elite.

The Bucks, meanwhile, find themselves at a crossroads after their own devastating injury, with Damian Lillard tearing an Achilles during the Bucks' five-game, first-round loss to the Indiana Pacers. That, plus three straight first-round exits, has left Giannis Antetokounmpo with an uncertain future in Milwaukee.

The Eastern Conference finals-bound Pacers could step into the void. Indiana has established an identity as a frenetic offense behind Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam at the controls, and has a young roster largely under team control moving forward (with the notable exception of center Myles Turner, a free agent this offseason).

The New York Knicks stand at the precipice of the franchise's first conference finals in 25 years, behind a cohesive starting five that's under contract for the foreseeable future. And Cleveland, despite a season crumbled by injuries and by the Pacers, will believe it can bounce back behind its own young core of Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen.

Other middling East teams could sense an opportunity to make aggressive moves to move up a tier, a strategy that otherwise might have hinged on whether Boston's dynasty truly took off.

"[Tatum's injury] makes people start having different thoughts about going after it," an East scout said. "'How close are you to making the Finals?' 'What do other teams' windows look like now?' All of that factors in."

Could the Orlando Magic choose to swing a deal to add to its core of Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner? Perhaps the Philadelphia 76ers, after some lottery luck gave them the third pick in June's draft, could get healthy and return to postseason contention, or Cade Cunningham and the rising Detroit Pistons could take another step forward.

Of all the possibilities, one is likely to be a focal point throughout the summer and next season.

"It makes the East worse, for sure," the scout said. "That's not good for the league."

Draft lottery results create new questions about the system

Tatum's injury overshadowed the absolute chaos that had overtaken the league a couple of hours earlier in Chicago. With Cooper Flagg atop every draft board in the league, there was an anticipation that rivaled the buzz for Victor Wembanyama in 2023.

But knowing Flagg's likely destination in June became secondary to the Dallas Mavericks winning the top pick with a 1.8% chance. And, because the San Antonio Spurs jumped to second and the 76ers leapt to third, this draft lottery was just the third in NBA history where the three worst records missed out on the top three picks.

"This is really a 'Careful what you wish for' moment for the league," one executive said.

The last time it happened was in 1993, when the Orlando Magic, a year after landing Shaquille O'Neal with the top pick, did so again to get Chris Webber. And, although they wound up trading Webber to the Warriors in the deal that brought Anfernee Hardaway to the Magic, Orlando winning back-to-back drafts caused the NBA to change the lottery rules the following season.

Is there a chance that could happen this time around? It seems unlikely, given these rules went into effect in 2019 after NBA commissioner Adam Silver's first attempt to change them a few years earlier had failed. But it is fair to wonder whether the stated goal of the changes -- discouraging tanking -- has worked, while simultaneously hurting the worst teams' chances to improve.

And yet there were some league insiders who were happy that the teams that spent the year trying to be at the top of the draft -- namely the Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards -- didn't succeed in securing the top pick.

"The good thing about [lottery night] is those teams didn't get help," a scout said. "Tank all you want, but it doesn't guarantee you anything."

One executive suggested to ESPN that if the league wanted to eliminate tanking, it should eliminate the draft entirely, and instead let teams create salary cap space to sign rookies to deals. But even that executive said there wasn't a realistic chance of that ever happening for plenty of reasons, including future draft picks being valuable trade currency.

The league also would undoubtedly point to teams such as Indiana and Denver, which have put together competitive rosters with no pick higher than seventh, as proof that a top pick isn't the only way to lay the foundation of a contender, even in a smaller market.

Draft lottery grows the conference divide

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While the headliner was Flagg landing in Dallas, the combination of the Mavericks and Spurs getting the top two picks is the latest moment where the Western Conference is getting an elite infusion of talent.

Since 2004, when Dwight Howard followed LeBron James in landing with Eastern Conference teams, there has been a steady run of generational prospects landing out West, from Anthony Davis to Karl-Anthony Towns to Zion Williamson to Victor Wembanyama and now Flagg. That doesn't even factor in other guys who landed on that side of the ledger who weren't seen in that same light, like Anthony Edwards or Doncic.

"The West just keeps getting richer," one executive said. "How come everybody keeps going to the West? For the veteran players, you could say it's better weather, going to California, better organizations. But they've also just gotten really lucky.

"It seems like every time there's one of these generational talents -- Victor, Zion, Anthony Davis -- they just end up in the West. It's just bad luck ... it is what it is."

Although this summer portends to be a particularly busy one from a transaction standpoint, 12 Western Conference teams currently believe they can contend for home court in the West next season: the Thunder, Rockets, Lakers, Nuggets, Clippers, Timberwolves, Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings, Phoenix Suns, the Mavericks and the Spurs.

The East, meanwhile, has Cleveland, New York and Indiana sitting at the top, followed by massive uncertainty in both Boston and Milwaukee, and then massive questions about the upside of every team after that. Imagine a world, for example, where Antetokounmpo winds up on a Western Conference team this summer?

"Cooper Flagg is going to the West for the next 10 years, Giannis could be headed West, Tatum is out of the mix for a year and the Celtics likely are, too," a scout said.

"Good for East teams who are trying to make the Finals."