2026 draft lottery mostly holds to form

This year's draft lottery provided little surprise with only two lottery teams swapping positions within the top 10.

A year after the former Hillsborough franchise won the lottery for the 3rd time in 6 seasons, leapfrogging two teams from the No. 3 position, Erie (62-100) held on to the No. 1 spot. The draft order held form according to the 2025 final standings through the first six picks before the only change in this year's lottery: San Francisco, originally in the 8th position, swapped places with Merrill Creek at No. 7.

Three teams with the same record (68-94) finished six games ahead of Erie last year. El Paso, Florida, and Arkansas will choose 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, respectively. Hopatcong (74-88) will select 5th, followed by Allentown (75-87).

San Francisco (77-85) and Merrill Creek (76-86), who were separated by just 1 game in the standings, will go 7th and 8th, respectively. That's when the rest of the 1st round remained in reverse order of standings with the remaining .500 or better teams that missed the playoffs: Philly (81-81), Tucson (83-79), and Empire City (85-77). Rounding out the lottery portion of the 1st round are two new franchises: the St. Augustine Space Cowboys and, for now, "Team Andy."

The 12 teams that miss the playoffs are included in the draft lottery, which has been in place since the 2004 season to give less incentive for teams to tank for a better draft pick.

Mountain Top finished 9th after losing a one-game playoff to Hoboken in the 163rd game of the season and received 1 ball in the lottery. The number of balls for each team doubles after that, all the way to Erie, with 2,048 balls. After the 1st round, teams will select based on the reverse order of standings, so Merrill Creek will pick 7th and San Francisco will go 8th in subsequent rounds.

Mountain Top, which came into the league replacing Hillsborough last year, and Blue Ridge exited the league following the 2025 season with their players distributed via a dispersal draft among St. Augustine and "Team Andy."