With the uncertainty of the draft lottery playing out almost over, let’s examine each lottery teams’ chances for ping pong magic. The irony of balls bouncing to determine a combination for a sport in which a ball is required is truly a line of symmetry. Picks four through fourteen will be determined by regular season record, one to three are all ping pong combinations. Ping pong combinations is a four-number combination which determines the outcome for each of the top three lottery slots. The worse the record of the team for that regular season, the better their odds are of finishing higher in the draft as picks four through fourteenth are determined by a losing record. The five worst teams have 250, 199, 156, 119, and 88 of the 1000 total combinations for the first overall pick. The remaining nine teams have a combined 188 combinations to crack number one overall. The same scenario is then done for picks two and three with the Suns having the highest combination of getting second overall if Boston wins the lottery and the Lakers have the best odds of finishing third overall if the Celtics and the Suns finish first and second. If either of those teams are eclipsed by a team lower in the lottery, the chain reaction would be dropping as little as one draft slot and as many as three slots. To simplify it even more, there’s an 81.2% (812 combinations) chance that one of the top five teams will win the lottery, so for every four out of five lottery simulation scenarios, Boston, Phoenix, Los Angeles Lakers, Philadelphia or Orlando will be posing with the winning envelope alongside NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum.
Boston: 25% chance of winning the lottery (250 combinations); guaranteed to finish no worse than fourth. The Celtics have 215 combinations for second overall in the scenario that any of the 13 teams above them jump ahead in the lottery, and if the scenario of two or three teams all jump ahead, the Celtics have 178 and 357 combinations for slots three and four. This pick is owned by Brooklyn, but the Celtics have the right to swap wherever this pick falls with their late first round pick. The Nets have buyer’s remorse indeed with a dreadful season only to be rewarded with not even a lottery pick, but late first rounder.
Phoenix: 19.9% odds of winning the draft lottery. The Suns can finish no worse than fifth overall, and the highest amount of combinations for an individual draft slot is fourth overall at 31.9 or 319 combinations.
Los Angeles Lakers: 15.6% chance of winning the draft lottery. It has a 15.7% chance of finishing second overall and a 15.6% chance of finishing third. The Lakers have the same amount of combinations to finish first as they do third, but the odds point to the direction of finishing either fourth or fifth with only one team between four and fourteen needing to jump ahead of them. The Lakers desperately need to finish in the top three otherwise the Philadelphia 76ers acquire this pick as well as Orlando would acquire the Lakers 2019 first round pick because league rules stipulate you cannot trade away your first-round pick in consecutive years (if you ask why Boston is able to acquire Brooklyn’s picks, the answer is that this years’ pick has the right to swap, therefore they don’t outright own it. Although it’s clear Boston will exercise the swap option, the Lakers will keep their top three pick, the Sixers will get the Lakers 2018 first rounder unprotected, and the Orlando Magic will get multiple future second round picks instead of a 2019 first rounder, so a lot is at stake although a draft pick initially is an unproven commodity but can bring a fan base some fresh hope.
Philadelphia: 11.9% chance of winning the lottery, but the Sixers also own the right to swap this pick with Sacramento if the Kings’ pick miraculously finishes ahead of the Sixers pick. The Sixers two best scenarios would be to win the lottery pushing out the Lakers pick to fourth overall if Boston and Phoenix stay in the top three or if any of the ten lower teams also jump into the top three. If Philadelphia finishes in the top three, it will be pushing out the Lakers unless they also finished in the top three which would net the Sixers their own pick and the Lakers pick which would fall anywhere from fourth to sixth overall. It seems complicated on paper, but it’s all a chain reaction.
Orlando: 8.8% chance of winning. The Magic owns the pre-lottery fifth overall slot, but can pick as high as first overall, but no later than eighth.
Minnesota: 5.3% chance of winning. The Timberwolves, AKA “young pups” with the roster they’ve assembled, can drop no lower than ninth overall, but the likelihood of that is .001%. To quell Timberwolves fans worries that this could happen, the best percentages scenario would be finishing at sixth overall. If one of the eight teams above them moves into the top three, and no team jumps them, Minnesota stays at sixth overall.
New York Knicks: 5.3% chance of winning. New York and Minnesota own the same record, but due to a coin flip tiebreaker, Minnesota has better odds to finish ahead of New York should any of the remaining Sacramento, Dallas, New Orleans, Charlotte, Detroit, Denver or Miami stand pat in their draft spots. There’s a 57.2% chance the Knicks will end up with the seventh overall pick and a 22.6% chance of finishing eighth, but they can really do no worse than tenth and mathematically it is almost impossible to finish eleventh because it would require three of the four best lottery teams who have the lowest number of odds to crack the top three to do so. To put this into perspective, the four best lottery teams by record have a total of 26 out of 1000 combinations for the best pick, 30 out of 1000 for second overall, and 38 out of 1000 combinations for the third overall pick.
Sacramento: 0% Chance for #1 overall. Philadelphia owns the right to swap this pick should it finish higher than Philadelphia, but if you’re a Kings fan on draft night you should be rooting for Philadelphia to win the lottery with the Kings finishing second or third overall instead of staying in the eighth overall slot. That being said, the Kings own 33 combinations for second overall and 39 combinations for third overall. This pick can’t mathematically drop further than eleventh overall, but if it were to fall outside the top ten the Chicago Bulls would acquire this pick.
Dallas: 1.7% chance for #1 overall; the Mavs’ best scenario has them finishing in ninth spot at 81.3% if they don’t stay in the eighth slot. If they were to drop further to tenth or eleventh on draft lottery night, miracles would be taking place. The pick can’t drop further than twelfth.
New Orleans: 1.1% chance of winning. This pick will most likely go to Sacramento as long as it falls outside of the top three. If the Pelicans manage to crack the top three with their total of 40 combinations out of 3000, the General Manager deserves GM of the year for acquiring DeMarcus Cousins while keeping their first-round pick. The chances of that happening are very unlikely, but the scenario would be extremely heist worthy. If it were to play out as the general consensus believes, the thought is that Cousins is a fantastic player who needs a change of scenery which will serve the Kings better as a franchise moving forward if the team is competent in player evaluation and drafting. Their pick can’t drop further than thirteenth.
Charlotte: 0.8% chance of winning. The Hornets can finish in the top three or eleventh (90.7%) to fourteenth, although fourteen would be almost mathematically impossible. They cannot finish anywhere between four and nine.
Detroit: 0.7 chance of winning. Detroit has a 93.5% chance of finishing with the twelfth pick with the only scenarios of them dropping to thirteenth or fourteenth would be if Denver or Miami jump into the lottery top three. The Pistons have 18 out of 2000 combinations to get the second and third overall pick.
Miami: 0.5% chance of winning. The last lottery team missing out on the playoffs to the Chicago Bulls in the standings on the last day can only finish with the fourteenth pick or crack the top three. To exemplify this point, there’s a 98.2% chance the Heat draft is fourteenth while .005, .006 and .007% chance of getting a top three pick or five out of 1000, six out of 1000 or seven out of 1000.
Now when you tune-in to the draft lottery on May 16, 2017 at 5:30 PST on ESPN, you have a lot more insight into how the Draft Outcome works. It’s easy to scream conspiracy theories (certain teams winning the lottery where the scenario is too good to be true or fishy) to benefit teams the league may deem more important due to the markets those teams reside in. The reality is that other than getting more combinations for the worst record for each lottery team, it’s all luck or should I say magic in the world of NBA lottery ping pong.
Talking Hoop 