Philadelphia 76ers Learned Harsh Lesson In 2015 NBA Draft

The 2015 NBA was the perfect set up for a rebuilding Philadelphia 76ers team. Their picks could have played out as 1-6-11-19. Instead, the first round netted them a lone pick at three. But Sam Hinkie learned a valuable lesson

1-6-11 (and in some circles, 19)

Google it with the term “NBA lottery”. You will find a page filled with articles, discussions, and hopeful commentary of the Philadelphia 76ers fans who shared a dream that the Philadelphia 76ers would net the first pick, the sixth pick, the eleventh pick, and even the nineteenth pick of the 2015 NBA draft. So much hope for a fanbase whose regular season record left them nothing but an NBA draft to look forward to. Hopes dashed. Dreams destroyed. Oh what might have been. Oh, but don’t let me get ahead of the story here. Let’s revisit that fateful and painful experience to see if we have learned anything, shall we? It’ll be okay.

They didn’t get the ninteenth pick. The Oklahoma City Thunder had a top eighteen protected pick, and finished with the fourteenth pick of the 2015 NBA draft. But we had three more to go.

They didn’t get the eleventh pick. The Miami Heat had a top ten protected pick, and finished with the tenth pick of the 2015 NBA draft. Two down. But we had two more to go.

They didn’t get the sixth pick. In fact, the Los Angeles Lakers pick not only remained in the top five, but leapfrogged the pick of the Sixers into the two spot. Three down, but surely the Sixers would land the top pick of the draft, right? But we had a shot at the first pick of the NBA draft.

They didn’t get the first pick. The Sixers landed the third pick of the NBA draft, again.

The lottery of the 2015 NBA draft broke the back and perhaps even the spirit of the Philadelphia 76ers fans. You see, they had bought into the “Trust The Process” movement, and saw how the NBA picks might manifest in that glorious glut of selections to be had. Yes, the odds were not exactly in favor of the team realizing their success, but the belief was that the team would certainly capitalize on one additional pick in that first round. Yes the Sixer fans were wooed out of the safety of skepticism into the allure of fates smiling on the franchise for one night, the same fates that had frowned upon the team for the past several years.

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Ah, what the magic of a lottery will do to sanity!

But one person was neither shaken nor dismayed. He was neither broken-hearted nor broken-spirited. One man sat cold, calculating, and observant. The NBA odds were stacked against the Philadelphia 76ers much like the odds at the Las Vegas casinos are stacked against any gambler. So the man had two choices: accept defeat, or fight the system. He chose neither. You see, the man we are referring to is the president and general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, Sam Hinkie. He knows odds. And he knows how to beat them.

Much like the fictitious Star Trek character Captain James T. Kirk, when facing a no-win situation known as the Kobayashi Maru, Sam Hinkie did not accept the no-win terms of the NBA draft lottery. So he changed the game, or at least the effective odds. In the 2015 NBA draft, the odds of the team optimizing that draft and picking the best slot of each of their first round effective picks was far less that one chance in a thousand. That is due to the fact that so many of the picks fell upon lottery teams, and they fell at or above their anticipated slot in the draft.

So much for letting the odds decide.

So how could the Philadelphia 76ers beat the odds, odds which were designed specifically to thwart a team from doing so? Well, that’s where the team needed to become a little creative. First of all, the protect draft picks of the teams from the 2015 NBA draft were set up that if they failed to convey in that year, they simply rolled forward. We discussed the 2016 draft in some depth earlier in the season. The protected picks of the Oklahoma City Thunder (top 15 protected) and Miami Heat (top 10 protected) have fallen out of the protected range as both teams have improved sufficiently to be post-season hopefuls this year. Currently, the Thunder pick projects at the 26th slot, which that of the Miami Heat likely will fall to the Sixers in the 22nd slot. But there is more. The Sixers added the right to swap either pick of the Heat or the Thunder with that of the Golden State Warriors. It just so happens that the Warrior pick will likely be last in the first round. But Hinkie added insurance to make sure he had those picks in his account.

Meanwhile the pick of the Los Angeles Lakers had gone from a top five protected pick to that of a top three protected pick, which even as the Lakers sit with the second worst record in the league, still gives that pick a 44.2% chance of sliding into the pocket of the Sixers on lottery night.

And then, most of all, the Sixers own pick. Even by finishing with the worst record of the NBA, the Sixers odd of obtaining the first pick of the 2016 NBA draft are a less than optimistic 25%. But Sam Hinkie did not settle for his odds alone. In an off-season trade, he procured the right to swap the first round draft pick with that of the Sacramento Kings, whose current standing of 24th in the league nets them a 4.3% chance at the top pick. Since the Sixers can swap at their option, those odds are added to that of the teams, giving the Philadelphia 76ers a 29.3% chance of taking the first pick in the NBA draft.

So lets examine these 2015 odds again? Less than a 1 in 1000 chance of conveying all picks. How about the 2016 NBA draft chances? Well , with the Thunder and Heat picks guaranteed, as is the pick of the Sixers to fall in the top five, the only variable right now is that of the Los Angeles Lakers pick at 44.2%.

While it’s no certainty, the odds have certainly improved tremendously. So don’t dampen your hopes just yet Philadelphia. Our hopes for a great draft night in the 2016 NBA draft certainly have a pulse.