The NBA Draft Lottery is later this month, and Philadelphia 76ers fans should be preparing themselves for the worst, and hoping for the best. Here are the odds for the best and worst case scenarios.
It’s the month of May, and for most NBA fans, that means it’s time to get excited about some serously exciting playoff basketball. Not for Philadelphia 76ers fans.
For Sixers fans, May has been all about one thing over the last few years — the NBA Draft Lottery. This is where the final order of the NBA Draft that will come in the summer is solidified. This year, it’s especially important for the next few seasons of the franchise.
This being the third year of the Philadelphia 76ers true rebuild process, it’s time to start getting things on the upswing. With a fairly weak free agent class this year, and a potential four first-round draft picks for the Sixers to claim, their best bet at an upswing season is to have a really fantastic draft showing.
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The team with the top pick this year is bound to take Ben Simmons, a forward that has the potential to play guard in some offensive schemes out of LSU. Some would argue that Duke guard Brandon Ingram is better, and should be taken instead with the first overall pick. Both of these players potentially could be franchise-changing players, and could be leaders in the Sixers’ next chapter.
Forget about fit — any team that takes them can worry about that later. Simmons and Ingram are young and their talents are mostly untapped. They can be molded into just about anything at this point in their athletic careers.
The Sixers have the top odds in this year’s draft. At the bare bones, they have a 25 percent chance at winning the top overall pick with their own lottery balls. They do, however, have the opportunity to swap with the Sacramento Kings if the Kings’ pick is better than theirs, increasing their odds at the top two by just a little.
They can also own the Los Angeles Lakers pick, as long as it falls outside of the top three overall picks.
On top of that, they also have the Miami Heat’s pick at 24 and the Oklahoma City Thunder’s pick at 26.
The odds of different scenarios can be confusing, so my goal here is to clear up some of the numbers for different situations, while also talking about best case and worst case scenarios with the lottery coming up this month.
The first slide of this post is an overview of what the lottery is and how it works. If you already are familiar with that, the third slide is where the different scenarios and odds begin.
Next: Lottery Background
Lottery background
The NBA Draft Lottery was first held in 1985. After an awful way of determining the draft order with coin flips, the NBA decided it was time for a change. The new lottery system has also been criticized, but it’s definitely better than what existed prior to 1985.
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After some trial and error, the lottery system we know today was introduced. The weighted lottery system is done with a regulation lottery machine and 14 numbered table tennis balls. Before the draft, the league gives each lottery team a certain number of four-number combinations (out of 1,001 possible).
Since there are actually a total of 1,001 four-number combinations (statistically this is calculated by a mathematic combination formula, 14 C 4, in an nCr format), an odd number, the combination of 11-12-13-14 is omitted and if it is drawn (this has not occurred since this format has been adopted) it is discarded, since no team ever owns that combination.
The league, in a private area with team representatives present, draws four ping-pong balls, and the team that owns that combination of balls gets the top pick. They do that for two more times — given that no repeat combinations occur — and fill out picks two and three. The remaining 12 lottery picks are filled out by record, which is why the team with the worst overall record can not get a pick any worse than four, and the second worst overall record can get any worse than 5, and so on.
The Sixers own 250 of their own four-number combinations, and the Kings (who they can swap with, if they get a pick better than the Sixers) have 28 combinations.
The Sixers odds are pretty good, given that they own the most combinations, but just how good are they?
If you’re looking for a fun (or possibly depressing) lottery simulator, Tankathon’s version is fun.
Next: The bad scenarios
The bad
It’s not all good for the Sixers. Over the last few years, despite having pretty bad records, the Sixers have had little luck with the ping-pong balls, never drafting better than third overall. Luck definitely has not been in their favor, but this is the first season that they have secured the worst record, which is a surprising fact to some.
This year is a year that they need to have a better outcome, since the top two picks are players that could be real superstars moving forward. If they fall to three, there isn’t a whole lot that’s in their control, and they may be forced to take a player that could end up being a bust.
The worst possible lottery scenario is that the Sixers get the fourth overall pick in the lottery only. The Sixers, if they just get number four, may have to trade up if they really want to rebuild through this year’s draft. This may lead to a premature shipping out of players like Jahlil Okafor or Nerlens Noel.
If they keep the fourth pick for themselves, there isn’t a whole lot they can do with it, and will be at the mercy of the three teams before them, because those prior three teams will have taken most, if not all of the Sixers top prospect choices.
The only way this scenario can happen is if none of the Sixers’ 250 combinations, or the Kings’ 28 are drawn in the three four-number drawings. The Sixers actually have a higher chance of getting just the fourth pick than they do the first pick.
When you realize the Sixers have a higher probability of getting the fourth pick than the first pick. pic.twitter.com/XYCRWydPXx
— The Sixer Sense (@SixerSense) May 1, 2016
Odds of this scenario: 35.7%
A little worse than just the fourth overall pick is just getting the third overall pick. This is pretty much the same concept as just the fourth, in a draft that’s been called a two-player draft. The best options will have been taken, and the Sixers will have to settle for a lesser player.
After Simmons and Ingram have been taken, it’s kind of a “well, what do we do with this?” situation.
The Sixers could still take an impactful player like Kris Dunn or Jamal Murray with the third pick, though, so it’s not all bad, but it would still be an incredibly disappointing lottery outcome.
Odds of this scenario: 17.8%
Next: The neutral scenarios
The neutral scenarios
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
The good
There are multiple situations that I would consider to be “good” outcomes of the lottery drawing.
The first scenario is the Sixers getting the top overall pick and the fifth overall pick. This would give the Sixers the power to select Simmons or Ingram, and then also use the fifth overall pick to their choosing. They could trade it if other teams are looking to move up in the draft, or take a player that may help them win this upcoming season.
They will have less of a say at five as far as who is available, but two top five picks with one of them being first overall is not bad at all.
Odds of this scenario: 3.4%
Even better than that would be the top pick and the fourth overall pick. This would be considered the best situation by some, but others hope that the Lakers pick falls in the top three since this year’s draft is very light in talent.
If the Lakers pick is retained by Los Angeles this year, the Sixers will be able to claim it in future years. If it lands at four, the Sixers will get it this year.
Odds of this scenario: 8.9%
Another decent scenario would be the Sixers getting either of the top two overall picks as well as the Lakers pick at four.
Odds of this scenario: 16.8%; Odds of either top-2 and the Lakers at either 4 or 5: 23.2%
For some, the best scenario possible would simply be the Sixers getting just the first overall pick. With this pick, the Sixers have complete control over who they pick, and they can save the Lakers’ pick that they obtained in the Michael Carter-Williams trade for next season, which should have a better draft class. The odds of this are higher than 25 percent because of the possible swap situation with the Sacramento Kings.
Odds of this scenario: 27.8%
A top-two pick only may do the trick for the Sixers. With the top overall pick, they can choose who they want. With the second overall, they will likely get either Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram, whichever the top overall team doesn’t pick. So either of these picks could be considered a success, and there’s a likely chance that they will get one of those two picks.
Odds of this scenario: 52.6%
Next: Possible outcomes that involve the Lakers
Lakers situations
There are a lot of possible things that could occur with just the Lakers’ and Sixers picks that could cause some serious jealousy between the franchises’ fan bases. It’s interesting to see the possibilities and how likely they are to occur.
First off is the most “Sixers” situation to occur. This would be the Lakers hopping up to get the top overall pick, and Philadelphia getting its worst possible pick at fourth overall.
Odds of this scenario: 7.1%; Odds of Lakers in top-3 and Sixers at 4: 19.9%
There is a 23.2 percent chance that the Sixers get a top two pick as well as the Lakers’ pick this year. There is a 44.2 percent chance overall that the Sixers will get the Lakers’ pick this year. If they don’t get it next year, they will likely get it next year (protection stipulations still apply).
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And lastly, a generic situation that could occur that may still spark anger in Sixers fans is the Sixers pick falling out of the top two, and the Lakers’ pick coming in at fifth.