Here's who will be representing Memphis Grizzlies at NBA draft lottery

Damichael Cole, Memphis Commercial AppealSun, May 10, 2026 at 10:04 AM UTC

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Here's who will be representing Memphis Grizzlies at NBA draft lottery

Memphis Grizzlies front office executives Tayshaun Prince and Zach Kleiman will represent the team during the NBA draft lottery process on May 10 in Chicago.

Kleiman, the Grizzlies' general manager and president of basketball operations, will be the team's representative in the drawing room. This means he will get a close-up look of the lottery results in real time before everything is aired on television (2 p.m. CT, ABC).

Prince, the Grizzlies' vice president of basketball affairs, will serve as the team's on-stage representative when the lottery is aired on television. He also served in this role the last time the Grizzlies were in the lottery, when they ended up with the ninth pick in 2024.

Both Kleiman and Prince have been in their current jobs with the Grizzlies since 2019.

The Grizzlies have the sixth-best odds to secure the No. 1 pick in the draft. They have a 37.2% chance overall to end up in the top four.

Memphis has never picked first, but including the days in Vancouver, the franchise has selected No. 2 overall five times. The Grizzlies are the only NBA franchise that both has never been to the NBA Finals or select No. 1 in a draft.

How the NBA draft lottery works

The Grizzlies are one of 14 teams eligible for the lottery. The first four picks are determined through the lottery drawing, while picks No. 5 through No. 14 are ordered by regular-season record from worst to best.

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The drawing itself takes place in a private room with NBA officials, team representatives, select media members. Ernst & Young auditors will oversee the process.

The pingpong balls and combinations

A set of 14 pingpong balls is used to create 1,000 possible four-number combinations.

With 9% odds at the No. 1 pick, Memphis is assigned 90 of those combinations. By comparison, the three teams with the best lottery odds each receive 140 combinations, reflecting their 14% chance.

Four balls are drawn to determine each winning combination. After a team secures one of the top four picks, it is removed from subsequent drawings.

DRAFT SIMULATIONS: 100 lottery simulations later, what we learned of Grizzlies’ NBA draft fate

Damichael Cole is the Memphis Grizzlies beat writer for The Commercial Appeal. Contact Damichael at damichael.cole@commercialappeal.com. Follow Damichael on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DamichaelC.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis Grizzlies NBA draft lottery team representatives, Tayshaun Prince

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