The Sixer Sense
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NBA Draft Lottery: Philadelphia 76ers Odds

By Josh Wilson

Jun 25, 2015; Brooklyn, NY, USA; General view of the full first round draft board at the conclusion of the first round of the 2015 NBA Draft at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 25, 2015; Brooklyn, NY, USA; General view of the full first round draft board at the conclusion of the first round of the 2015 NBA Draft at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports /
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The neutral scenarios

Jun 25, 2015; Brooklyn, NY, USA; NBA commissioner Adam Silver speaks at the conclusion of the first round of the 2015 NBA Draft at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 25, 2015; Brooklyn, NY, USA; NBA commissioner Adam Silver speaks at the conclusion of the first round of the 2015 NBA Draft at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports /

These next few scenarios aren’t necessarily bad, but they aren’t great either.

The first scenario is getting the fourth and fifth overall picks. For this to happen, the Sixers and Lakers would both have to miss out on the three lottery drawings (a total of 449 — out of 1,000 — combinations are owned between the two), and then get into the sorted-by-record section of the lottery picks. The Sixers would retain their own pick at fourth, and then receive the Lakers at fifth.

The trouble with this is figuring out what to do with the fourth and fifth pick in this year’s draft. There isn’t much incredible talent that we know of past the third (or even second) overall pick, so the Sixers may want to look at trading one or both of these picks for some existing NBA players if this situation occurs.

Odds of this scenario: 4.4%

Along the same lines of the previous scenario is getting the third and fourth overall pick. This would mean that the Sixers won the third drawing with their own combination, and the Lakers won none of them.

Odds of this scenario: 5.7%

These scenarios seem quite negative for Sixers fans who have sat through so much losing. To go through a 10-72 season and not have the top overall pick to show for it would be tough, but both of these situations leave the Sixers with two picks in the top five of the NBA Draft, which should be considered pretty remarkable. It would be nicer to have one of the picks be one or two, but we’ll get to that.

These scenarios are not very likely to occur, as both of them have less than a 6 percent chance of actually occurring. Crazier things have happened, however.

Next: The good scenarios