Congratulation: Inside Danny Ainge’s first-ever time in the NBA lottery….

The Atlanta Hawks surprisingly got the No. 1 pick in the draft lottery and the Jazz dropped down to get the 10th pick.

CHICAGO — Danny Ainge has spent 43 years in the NBA, either as a player, coach or an executive. He’s been through just about everything the league has to offer and knows the ins and outs as well, or better, than anyone else.

But prior to Sunday, there was one thing Ainge hadn’t done in his four-plus decades in the NBA — enter the draft lottery drawing room.

Despite it being one of the only NBA firsts left for Ainge to experience, he was unfazed. It might as well have been any other Sunday afternoon.

There were a number of things that could happen — the Jazz could get a top four pick, they had a 6% chance of getting the No. 1 overall pick and there was even a chance that they could fall out of the top 10 and lose the pick.

Wasn’t Ainge just a little nervous?

“No, not at all,” he said, shaking his head with the ease of a man who has seemingly seen it all. “All the security and secrecy is amazing, but I have no control over anything.

“We always tell our players ‘control what you can control.’ If I wasn’t here, I’d be on the couch watching the results with my wife and this isn’t any different. There’s no reason to be nervous.”

The ABC broadcast of the lottery results is just that — results. The actual lottery drawing is done in a smaller, private meeting room inside the McCormick Place Convention Center.

A representative from each of the 14 lottery teams, a small number of NBA staff and security and 12 members of the media handed over their phones, smart watches and recorders, which were sealed in an envelope before people went through security.

That’s where the ping pong balls come out of the lottery machine that determined the order of the draft’s first 14 picks.

Despite going into the day with just a 3% chance at the No. 1 pick, the Atlanta Hawks had the first four-number combination that came out of the lottery machine.

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The Washington Wizards got the No. 2 pick, the Houston Rockets (from the Brooklyn Nets) were awarded the No. 3 pick and the San Antonio Spurs landed the No. 4 pick.

When it was announced that the Hawks had landed the top pick, there were murmurs around the room, people saying ‘wow’ quietly as the ping pong balls continued to move.

It was shocking that the Hawks had moved up from having the 10th best odds, but even that didn’t surprise Ainge.

“A 3% chance? So you’re saying there’s a chance,” he said. “Everyone in here had a chance. Now that (the Hawks) have it, all the pressure is on them.”

The results were put into envelopes (after it took a while for the envelope stuffer to find the Hawks’ card, which was way down at the bottom of the pile) and taken to the stage.

Once in the room where the lottery takes place, no one except for the person taking the results to the stage can leave until the the results have been revealed to the rest of the world.

The Jazz went into the day with the eighth-best odds at the No. 1 pick and a 26.3% chance at a top four pick, with the most likely scenario being them ending up with the eighth pick.

But there was an even more unlikely scenario that could have made the day a little sour for the Jazz. If three teams with worse odds than the Jazz jumped into the top four, that would have pushed the Jazz to the 11th spot, and at that point they would lose the pick, owing it to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Though two teams did leapfrog the Jazz into the top four, a third did not. Since the Hawks and Rockets had worse odds but landed in the top four, the Jazz will have the 10th overall pick in the upcoming NBA Draft.

Ainge noted that there wasn’t going to be that much difference in the type of player the Jazz would get had they ended up with the eighth pick vs. the 10th pick. He also wasn’t worried about whether or not the Jazz retained their pick or if it ended up conveying to OKC.

“No matter what happens, you’ve got about five minutes to feel sorry for yourself,” Ainge said. “Then it’s time to get back to work.”

Meanwhile, in the Skyline Ballroom at McCormick Place where the lottery results show was being broadcast by ABC, Thurl Bailey was sweating.

On stage representing the Jazz, the former player turned broadcaster was wearing a perfectly tailored green plaid suit with matching glasses and tie.

Underneath a fitted button-up shirt, he wore his Jazz jersey for good luck and he had two ping pong balls with the Jazz logo printed on them in his pocket as an extra totem.

As NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum began announcing the lottery results, starting with the 14th pick, going in inverse order, Bailey’s nerves rose.

Once Tatum had announced that the 11th pick would go to the Chicago Bulls and he hadn’t yet called out the Jazz’s name, Bailey was able to breathe a little easier.

“That is some seriously nervous stuff up there,” Bailey said. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been to the lottery. It’s scary, but at least we didn’t lose the pick.”

Also in the results show room and at the lottery for the first time was Bart Taylor, the Jazz’s vice president of player personnel. While Taylor is confident in his team’s evaluation of potential prospects and he understood the percentages heading into Sunday, he wasn’t as calm as Ainge.

“It’s very surprising that it was his first time in the drawing room considering how long he’s been an executive,” Taylor said said of Ainge before describing his own anxieties. “But yeah, of course I get nervous.

“There’s a chance you could move up and I know everyone is saying, ‘You don’t want to move up this year,’ but you always want to move up. There’s excitement around the possibility and that can shift the excitement of the team.”

The 2024 draft is largely considered to be a weaker one with fewer players who could be considered franchise cornerstones or ones whom people believe could turn into stars at the NBA level.

Even so, the movers and shakers of the league always want a better chance to get a good player than their competitors, and Taylor expressed mild disappointment with moving down to the 10th spot in the draft.

“Obviously not happy about it. We’d rather stay at eighth or move up,” Taylor said, “but we’ve been studying the draft already for the eighth pick and there’s still a lot of players that we liked and I think we’ll still get a good player at 10, so not too worried about it.”

Though the draft order is set — the Jazz also have the 29th and 32nd picks in addition to the 10th pick — we’ll have to wait until June 26 and 27 to find out which players will be selected.

Until then, the Jazz and the rest of the league will continue evaluating prospects. And Ainge was right, there’s no time at all to worry about what happened in the lottery.

About 90 minutes after the results show wrapped up, executives headed across the road to Wintrust Arena, where the G League Elite Camp scrimmages were about to begin.

On Monday, the NBA Combine kicks off in Chicago and teams will be interviewing players and analyzing them up close as they go through agility and shooting drills as well as scrimmages.