I understand that teams who are tied will have the same (or almost exactly the same) number of combinations assigned to them out of 1000, but I don't totally get where the actual numbers come from. They're giving the worst team 250 and just working down from there somehow, but I don't quite see how they're doing it.

In any event, you're right that it doesn't make much difference for a team like Orlando, which has little chance at getting into the top 3 picks no matter what.

The other spoiler is the remote chance that Durant or ODom be cool and stay in school. That makes a deep draft...mediocre.

__________________

Right, for every good prospect that decides to stay in school, our pick gets 1 worse.

I can't believe that it took us 7 months before we figured out how the lottery works. It's a little complicated, but if you add up all the IQ's of the PF.com members, you get one big collective cyber-genius able to figure out how things work and which coaches should get fired, etc.

Considering the big men left at our pick I would be inclined to opt for a pure athlete that can make an impact on both sides of the ball.... therefore I nominate Darren Collison...
He's not on the nbadraft.net board but if he was guaranteed top 15 $'s he could be ours.
He reminds me of a young BJax... but better distributor.

__________________

Just an update on the Majjj.

Darko was out last night with back spasms.

Battie suited up in his absence.

The Magic suddenly changed their style and ran the whole game, which worked out quite well. They were able to beat the Jazzz and were up by 21 at one point before they almost choked it away.

Since the Pacers lost, ORL moved back into the 8th spot.


Here is my theoretical question of the day:

Which would be better for us?

1. The Magic barely make the playoffs in the 8th spot. We get the 15th pick in the draft and have 0% chance of losing it back to them.
2. Or... The Magic just miss the playoffs and finish in the 9th spot. We get the 14th pick in the draft, but have a 1.8% chance of losing it back to them. (That's a 1 in 55 chance! And the NBA definitely wants to keep a franchise in Orlando...)

__________________
"Will was rolling, wasn't he? I roll with the guy that's hot." MC

I wonder what the odds were when we landed the #2 pick.

To answer the question... I'd rather have the 7th pick... the Magic could still end up in the lotto next year where the pick is unprotected.

In 2003, we had the Memphis pick. They finished in a tie with the 5th worst record that year, and I believe they lost the coin flip with the Clippers, so they were slotted in the 6th position, which gave them 64 bingo combinations out of 1,000.

So, the odds were as follows:

1st pick- 6.4% (and Memphis would get to keep it)... LeBron
2nd pick- 7.2% (which happened, and was the best we could do)
3rd pick- 8.2%... Melo

So we had about a 78% chance of getting the 6th-8th pick (breakout was about 42% for 6th- Kamen, 33% for 7th-Hinrich, and 3% for 8th-Ford).


We got very lucky. The 6-8 spots were not that spectacular.

However, Memphis almost got lucky as all hell... if they could have just got that top pick.



NBA.com: Year-by-Year Lottery Probabilities

__________________
"Will was rolling, wasn't he? I roll with the guy that's hot." MC

if the magic run they will make the playoffs. the team they have is more suited to a running style than a half court pound it out style. i want the magic to make the playoffs personally since it really won't affect our pick much. i think it would be good experience for the twin towers. i also think it would be a good series for us to start with and make the pistons be serious right from the start of the playoffs.