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.

DraftExpress Profile: Darren Collison (http://draftexpress.com/viewprofile.php?p=1149)

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?

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.
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...)

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?

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.
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...)
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.

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 (http://www.nba.com/history/lottery_probabilities.html)

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.


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.

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.

Welcome back! Or have you been around and I just missed it.

If the Magic make the playoffs it will greatly effect the pick since they would pick no better than 16th even though a few teams out west would actually have better records but missed the post-season.

So we need them to miss the playoffs. No doubt about that. Darko and co can do what they want after this season but they have to miss the playoffs this year. Fair is fair, Dumars took a lot of heat for that trade and soon it will be time for the Magic to payup. They have been enjoying Darko and Arroyo for a full season already.

1 in 55 man. It's similar to the odds of hitting the 0 in roulette.

Or flipping a coin and getting tails 6 times in a row.


I'm looking forward to bench unit of:

#14 draft pick
Acker
JMax
Johnson
Samb

where are you getting 1 in 55?

where are you getting 1 in 55?

That'll be about the odds of Orlando getting their pick back when they finish one spot out of the playoffs and get lucky in the NBA bingo game (because the pick is top 5 protected). It's the scenario that would make us all go crazy with rage. The curse of Darko would be born. And so on.

Then, those bastards would probably sign Chauncey as a free agent and draft Kevin Durant with their #2 pick.

STARTING LINEUP:
Chauncey Billups (#2 pick)
JJ Reddick (#11 pick)
Kevin Durant (#2 pick)
Darko Milicic (#2 pick)
Dwight Howard (#1 pick)

* 1.6% chance of coming to an arena near you in 2008!!!

2006 NBA Draft Lottery Odds Calculator/Simulator (http://geocities.com/benschuarmer/draftlotto.html)

That'll be about the odds of Orlando getting their pick back when they finish one spot out of the playoffs and get lucky in the NBA bingo game (because the pick is top 5 protected). It's the scenario that would make us all go crazy with rage. The curse of Darko would be born. And so on.

Then, those bastards would probably sign Chauncey as a free agent and draft Kevin Durant with their #2 pick.

STARTING LINEUP:
Chauncey Billups (#2 pick)
JJ Reddick (#11 pick)
Kevin Durant (#2 pick)
Darko Milicic (#2 pick)
Dwight Howard (#1 pick)

* 1.6% chance of coming to an arena near you in 2008!!!

it could happen.

Chauncey Billups (#2 pick)
#3 by Boston, right?
Let's not shine up that line up too much.

I just wanted to point out the last article on 82games.com that details the turnover categories. This is something that we Pistons fans don't have to worry about thanks to our sure-handed veteran team.

Orlando, on the other hand, is having a hell of a time.

And their best player is the biggest culprit of all.

Dwight Howard:
Offensive Fouls- 41 (5th in the league)
Lost Balls- 86 (1st)
Traveling- 37 (2nd)
3-Seconds- 25 (3rd)
Bad Passes- 67 (not in top 10)

Total turnovers = 256 or 3.76 per game
So 3 of him would average the amount of TO's of the whole Pistons team.

The Piston with the highest # of TO's is Rip with 137... about half of DHose.

Another interesting stat is that Darko Milicic has 40 more blocks than turnovers in his career. Even with Detroit, he had a > 1:1 blck/to ratio. Alonzo Mourning is the only other player that I could quickly find with a similar ratio. I'm curious who else out there has that. Ratliff, Mutumbo maybe?

NBA Random Stat: Player Turnovers by type from 82games.com (http://www.82games.com/random29.htm)

Mark Eaton had 1,771 more blocks than turnovers during his career.

Another interesting stat is that Darko Milicic has 40 more blocks than turnovers in his career.



Talk about interesting stats.

How many players can say they had:

DNP's>Blocks>TO's.

plus they go fun ride in fire truck?:stirthepot:

Mark Eaton had 1,771 more blocks than turnovers during his career.

To be fair, Darko does have the ball tossed to him sometimes. I'm not sure Eaton was ever the intended receiver of a pass.

The losses by New York and Indiana really hurt out lottery chances.

How come Magic own Heat?
3-0 so far.

Mark Eaton had 1,771 more blocks than turnovers during his career.

That is actually pretty impressive. Looking at FGA per game and assists per game, Eaton looks like he touched the ball a fair amount.

Eaton's resume:
All-Star in 1989
DPOY in 1985, 86, and 89
Defensive 2nd team in 87 and 88.


So, just for fun, let's look at Eaton's #'s per game in that season and see how far Darko is from that level if given the same amount of minutes (35.5).

Player/ Pts/ Reb/ Ast/ Stl/ Blk/ TO/ PF
Eaton/ 6.2/ 10.3/ 1.0/ 0.5/ 3.8/1.7/3.5
DMilic/ 11.9/ 8.2/ 1.6/ 0.9/ 2.6/2.3/ 4.0



Although, it looks like Eaton's best year came in 84-85 when he had:
9.7 pts, 11.3 rebs, 1.5 ast, and 5.6 blocks!

Although, it looks like Eaton's best year came in 84-85 when he had:
9.7 pts, 11.3 rebs, 1.5 ast, and 5.6 blocks!

5.6 blocks! Damnnnn!

5.6 blocks! Damnnnn!

If you use the scoring I picked up from 82games for Sprocket Points about blocks...

- on average a blocked shot has a 62% chance of going in, so a block is worth two points times 0.62 or 1.24 points saved, plus...

- the blocking team gets the ball 57% of the time after a block and has another possession, so 0.57 * 0.98 (average value of a FGA) is 0.56 points generated,

...then Eaton's 5.6 produced or saved over eleven points a game.

Double damnnnn!

I- on average a blocked shot has a 62% chance of going in, so a block is worth two points times 0.62 or 1.24 points saved, plus...

That really surprises me. Blocked shots actually end up going in more than half the time? I didn't think you even got credit for a block if you deflected a shot but it still went in.

EDIT: Oh, you must mean that it had a 62% chance of going in if you didn't block it...LOL. Obviously. But I wonder how that gets measured. Blocks happen around the basket far more often than they happen on the perimeter, so that would account for the higher percentage, but that seems like it would be a difficult stat to measure.

It can't be measured, only estimated.

I would guess that they just took the FG% from inside the paint after excluding all shots that were blocked and used that.

There are many complicating variables here, but it probably is not a bad % to use.

It can't be measured, only estimated.

I would guess that they just took the FG% from inside the paint after excluding all shots that were blocked and used that.

There are many complicating variables here, but it probably is not a bad % to use.

I think that's what they do. They look at where blocks happen (shots closer to the hoop tend to be blocked more often than long jumpers) and the average shooting percentage from those areas of the court. I'm not sure how many areas they use (but I do think it's more than paint / not), but when they put them together you get 62%.

You could probably argue that Eaton, being barely able to move from the paint, was probably blocking a higher than average share of close in shots that were even more likely to go in, making his points erased / points produced number even higher. It's a good day when you line up for the jump knowing you have a dozen or so points in your pocket.

So, do we intentionally let the Nets win on Friday?

We could do the same with the Knicks on April 9th.


We could just say some of our key guys have the flu, and let the scrubs battle it out.

Lottery Pick Nerds might dig this...

http://media.sacbee.com/smedia/2007/04/12/01/lottery.source.prod_affiliate.4.pdf

thats kinda cool. aren't you busy?

Always.