The Mavericks are sending Rolando Blackman back to Chicago on Sunday. Last year, he watched Mark Tatum reveal Dallas had won the lottery with a 1.8% chance. This time the odds are better and the stakes are just as high.
One year ago, Rolando Blackman sat on stage at McCormick Place in Chicago and watched NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum open the final envelope.
The Dallas Mavericks had won the No. 1 pick with a 1.8-percent chance. The four-time All-Star became the most unlikely good-luck charm in franchise history in that moment.
On Sunday he takes the stage again.
TThis time the Dallas contingent in the building looks considerably different. New team president Masai Ujiri will be in attendance for his first lottery as a Maverick, joined by CEO Rick Welts, who was in the room last year when Blackman won it, and president of business operations Ethan Casson. For Ujiri in particular, Sunday is his first major moment representing the franchise he just took over five days ago.
The odds are different this time around. Dallas enters with the eighth-best chances, a 6.7-percent shot at the No. 1 overall pick and a 31.9-percent chance of jumping into the top four.
Last year, Blackman was sitting with that 1.8-percent shot and the impossible happened. By comparison, Sunday's odds feel almost generous.
The draft class waiting at the top makes the stakes feel enormous. AJ Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer and Darryn Peterson headline a class that scouts have called one of the best in a decade. A top-four pick gives Dallas a legitimate co-star to build alongside Cooper Flagg. Falling to eighth in a class this loaded is a meaningful difference.
The timing could not carry more weight. The 2026 pick is the last first-round pick Dallas controls until 2031. If Blackman walks off that stage Sunday with another envelope, Ujiri would have a second cornerstone piece to build around Flagg in his first week on the job. If the balls do not cooperate, Dallas starts over at eighth and Ujiri begins his tenure without a high-end draft asset until the next decade.
Blackman was drafted by Dallas in 1981 and spent 13 seasons as one of the most beloved Mavericks of all time. Last May he helped them win the lottery. The franchise needs him to do it one more time.