ESPN’s plans for the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes — A.K.A. the NBA Draft Lottery — are coming into focus.
According to Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports, Kevin Negandhi will host the NBA Draft Lottery for the first time. The event is scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. ET next Monday, prior to Game 4 of the Boston Celtics-New York Knicks series.
Glass Break: Kevin Negandhi will host the NBA Draft lottery for first time in Chicago at 7pm ET Monday on ESPN (before Celtics-Knicks Game 4). Shams Charania will also be network insider for first time on program.
Main set analysts: Bob Myers, Kendrick Perkins, Jay Bilas@FOS
— Ryan Glasspiegel (@sportsrapport) May 7, 2025
Negandhi will be the third host of the lottery in as many years. Last year, when the NBA and ESPN decided to schedule the lottery for a Sunday afternoon prior to Game 4 of a Knicks-Pacers game on ABC, Elle Duncan served as host. In 2023, Malika Andrews hosted coverage of the lottery, which was scheduled later into the playoffs ahead of Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals on a Tuesday night.
Per Glasspiegel, there will also be a few new faces for this year’s coverage. ESPN’s lead NBA insider Shams Charania will make his lottery debut in place of the retired Adrian Wojnarowski. Analysts Bob Myers and Jay Bilas will also join ESPN’s lottery coverage for the first time, while the network’s NBA mainstay Kendrick Perkins returns.
Given the stakes of this year’s lottery (read: Cooper Flagg), there should be an outsized level of interest compared to most years. In 2023, when Victor Wembanyama was the consensus No. 1 overall draft pick, the lottery averaged 3.24 million viewers, which was the most-watched lottery telecast since 2019, when Zion Williamson was the consensus No. 1 overall pick and the telecast averaged 4.43 million viewers.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.