NBA Draft Lottery

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The NBA Draft Lottery is an annual event selecting the top three picks of the following NBA Draft.

Contents

[edit] History

First established in 1985, it was at first a chance drawing for all first-round picks, with all non-playoff teams (in 1985 there were seven non-playoff teams in the National Basketball Association) having equal chance of landing the number one pick. The New York Knicks won the lottery in 1985 and made Patrick Ewing the number one pick. Some in the NBA were concerned about results when the worst team, the Golden State Warriors, drew the seventh and final lottery draft position. Also, controversy over the envelope of the New York Knicks also developed[citation needed].

In 1986, many lottery teams had traded their first-round draft picks, and as a result, the top two teams in the Draft Lottery were playoff teams, with the eventual NBA champion Boston Celtics picking second, a pick (Len Bias) which would eventually haunt the franchise (Bias, expected to be a star for years to come, died two days after the draft of a cocaine overdose; the team has not won a championship since). The Philadelphia 76ers, who won the lottery on the draw from a trade with the then-San Diego Clippers in the late 1970s where the Clippers picked up Joe Bryant in return for the 1986 first-round pick, traded it to Cleveland afterwards.

Thus began a rule change beginning in 1987 when only the top three picks would be selected by the traditional lottery, again with the same policy. Therefore, the team with the worst overall record cannot get a draft pick lower than fourth, and the bad luck such as that faced by the Warriors in 1985 could not happen again.

In 1990, however, the NBA changed the format of the lottery to give the worst team the most chances of landing the top pick. For the 11 non-playoff teams that season, the team with the worst record would have 11 chances, the second worse would have 10, etc. However, the Orlando Magic defied the odds by gaining two number one picks consecutively, despite the fact that they were the best non-playoff team the second year.

Thus, beginning with the 1995, lottery the chances were weighed even more, so that the best non-playoff team would only have a slim (0.5%) chance of receiving the top pick.

Thus, the term "lottery pick" in the NBA usually denotes a pick of one through fourteen overall. Furthermore, non-playoff teams in the NBA are called lottery teams

[edit] Process

The lottery is normally held during the fourth week of May. The 2007 draft lottery will be held Tuesday, May 22nd.

Fourteen ping pong balls numbered 1-14 are placed in a standard lottery machine and four balls are drawn at random to determine the winner. Just as in most traditional lotteries, the order of the numbers are not important, so although there are 24 different permutations of the same four numbers being drawn, all are treated as the same combination. That is, 1-2-3-4 is considered to be the same as 3-4-2-1. By eliminating the importance of the order of the numbers, the 24,024 (14! / 10!, or 14x13x12x11) possible combinations are reduced to 1,001. Of these, 1,000 are divided among all the non-playoff NBA teams. One sequence (11-12-13-14) is not assigned, and is ignored if drawn; this has never occurred in practice.

In the event a lottery pick is traded to another team, the record of the original team (whose pick it was before the trade) matters in determining eligibility for the lottery, and assignment of chances.

As of 2005, with 30 NBA teams, 16 qualify for the playoffs and the remaining 14 teams are entered in the draft lottery. These 14 teams are ranked in reverse order of their regular season record and are assigned the following number of chances:

  1. 250 combinations, 25% chance of receiving the #1 pick
  2. 199 combinations, 19.9% chance
  3. 156 combinations, 15.6% chance
  4. 119 combinations, 11.9% chance
  5. 88 combinations, 8.8% chance
  6. 63 combinations, 6.3% chance
  7. 43 combinations, 4.3% chance
  8. 28 combinations, 2.8% chance
  9. 17 combinations, 1.7% chance
  10. 11 combinations, 1.1% chance
  11. 8 combinations, 0.8% chance
  12. 7 combinations, 0.7% chance
  13. 6 combinations, 0.6% chance
  14. 5 combinations, 0.5% chance

In the event of a tie, a simple tiebreaker (usually a coin flip) is performed to determine which team gets the better position. The combinations for the spots in question are split evenly among the tied teams with any extra pick given to the winner of the tiebreaker.

The lottery is conducted with witnesses verifying that all 14 balls are represented once as they are placed in the lottery machine. The balls are placed in the machine for 20 seconds to randomize prior to having the first ball drawn. The remaining three balls are drawn at 10 second intervals. NBA League Officials determine which team holds the winning combination and that franchise is awarded the #1 overall draft pick. The four balls are returned to the machine and the process is repeated to determine the second and third picks. In the event that a combination belongs to a team that has already won its pick (or if the 1 unassigned combination comes up), the round is repeated until a unique winner is determined. When the first three teams have been determined, the remaining picks are given out based on regular season record with the worst teams getting the highest picks. This assures each team that it can drop no more than 3 spots from its projected draft position.

In the case where a lottery team trades its pick to a playoff team, the playoff team assumes the lottery team's position in all draft lottery situations, unless provisioned by the conditions of the trade.

For the 2006 NBA Draft, the NBA determined tie breakers on April 21st.

The odds for each team to get specific picks in the 2006 lottery (rounded to 3 decimal places):

Team Chances 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th
Blazers 250 .250 .215 .177 .358
Bulls (from Knicks) 199 .199 .188 .171 .319 .124
Bobcats 138 .138 .142 .145 .238 .290 .045
Hawks 137 .137 .142 .145 .085 .323 .156 .013
Raptors 88 .088 .096 .106 .262 .359 .084 .004
Timberwolves 53 .053 .060 .070 .440 .330 .045 .001
Celtics 53 .053 .060 .070 .573 .226 .018 .000
Rockets 23 .023 .027 .032 .725 .184 .009 .000
Warriors 22 .022 .026 .031 .797 .121 .004 .000
Sonics 11 .011 .013 .016 .870 .089 .002 .000
Magic 8 .008 .009 .012 .908 .063 .001 .000
Hornets 7 .007 .008 .010 .935 .039 .000
76ers 6 .006 .007 .009 .960 .018
Jazz 5 .005 .006 .007 .982

[edit] Lottery ceremony

The actual lottery (the draw of the ping-pong balls) is conducted in private, though observed by independent auditors. The results are subsequently presented in a short ceremony (typically broadcast live during the halftime of an NBA playoff game), in which the order of the lottery is announced in reverse order, from 14 down to 1. Representatives from each NBA franchise with a lottery pick, typically a general manager or other team executive, are present at the lottery ceremony. At the ceremony, it is often the case that the team who wins the number one pick will, if there is a consensus best player in the draft (or the team has decided whom to select), then unveil a team uniform with that player's name on it. In 1989, the lottery-winning Sacramento Kings made light of this tradition by unveiling a Kings' uniform with a question mark on it, as there was no clear-cut #1 pick that year. (The Kings eventually selected Pervis Ellison).

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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