Adjusting Lottery Odds Based on Every Lottery Franchise's Fortunes

Is “winning” the NBA Lottery truly random?

The NBA draft is based upon a lottery system where every team, based on its record, is granted a certain number of chances to win. There are 14 ping-pong balls, each with a number on it, placed into the lottery machine. Four balls are taken out.

There are 1,001 possible combinations of numbers which can be drawn, and each team is assigned a range of possibilities. The combination 11-12-13-14 is disregarded. The other 1,000 are designated to teams.

The worst the team was, the more possibilities they get. The worst team gets 250 combinations and the best team gets five.

That’s all perfectly reasonable, right? Except it doesn’t quite work out the way you would expect. In the 19 years that the lottery has been conducted in the present manner, the worst team has gotten the top pick twice. They’ve gotten the second pick six times, the third pick five times and the fourth seed six times.

The eighth-worst team and lower combine for 125 chances of winning the lottery, yet they’ve combined to win three times, one more than the top pick.

This is what gives people the impression that perhaps the NBA lottery isn’t quite as “random” as you might think.

Just as all picks haven’t had the same kind of success, neither has every team. The Los Angeles Clippers, a team which the NBA would love to see succeed, has coincidentally had the most success in the lottery.

They have won the lottery five times in all, although twice they owed their pick to another team. They have won it three times in the current format with the balls, as opposed to the envelopes which were drawn before that.

The team with the worst luck has been the Memphis Grizzlies, who have never won in 12 lottery attempts. They have won the second pick five times.

The point is that the lottery, whether intentional or unintentional, has not treated all teams equally.

So how do the teams rank in terms of historical success? How will this affect the actual lottery?

Technically, it won’t affect them at all, unless of course, you buy into the notion that the lottery is rigged.

Based on historical success in the current system, this is the order I expect that the teams will draft in. Please note that because the envelope style system was completely different, I did not include those results. I also did not include the 66-ball system, which was in use for four years. The stats are only for the present 1,001-ball system which has been in use since 1994. 

14. Houston Rockets

Houston has been in the lottery seven times, and it's improved its position by an average of .6 positions per year.  What’s interesting here, though, is other than the one time it won in 2002, it selected exactly where it was expected to pick.

With only five balls in this year’s draft, don’t expect that to change any time soon.

13. Phoenix Suns

The Suns have never advanced their position in the lottery. They fell one spot in 1999. Other than that, they’ve always drafted exactly where they were supposed to draft. They have just six possible combinations, and none of them will be coming up in this year’s draft. 

12. Milwaukee Bucks

Milwaukee has been in the lottery 12 times, and it won twice. It has improved its pick twice and it’s fallen three times. It has seven balls this time, and there doesn’t seem to be any prevailing reason to think that David Stern would want to give them a “boost,” so it should stand pat where it is.

11. Portland Trail Blazers

Portland has been in the lottery five times, and it's won it once and drawn the third pick once. It moved up both times. When it won, it had the fifth seed. When it got the third pick, it had the sixth-most combinations.

It also didn’t get any of their combinations picked when it had the most combinations in 2006, but only ended up with the fourth pick. It had a bit of luck in the past, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see it get third pick this year, but other more “deserving” teams are destined to move up. 

10. Detroit Pistons

Detroit has only ever had a combination of any kind drawn one time in its history, and that was back in 1994. In seven times it's been in the lottery, it's dropped three times. That’s exactly what will happen again this year. 

9. Toronto Raptors

The Raptors have been in the finals 12 times. They’ve moved up twice. In 2006, they won with the fifth-best chance. In 1996, they got the second pick with the third-most chances. Other than that, the movement they’ve made has been in the wrong direction, dropping five times. That’s exactly what will happen this year. 

8. Golden State Warriors

A real testament to the continued "success" of the Golden State Warriors is that fact they’ve been in the lottery 17 times in the last 19 years. Can I get a woohoo?

In those 16 tries (the 17th is this year), they’ve had their numbers come up just three twice. They drew the best pick in 1995, and they got the third-best in 2002. They fell five times. This year will make it six. 

7. Sacramento Kings

You could make an argument that the Kings have even worse luck than the Timberwolves or Grizzlies when it comes to the lottery. They’ve been in the lottery 10 times and have never had their number come up at any point.

They've never had a top pick. They’ve never had a second pick. They’ve never had a third pick.

They've dropped four times in the draft, but never gone up. For them, staying even is a win, and they won’t do that this year either. 

6. New Orleans Hornets

Of every team in the NBA lottery this year, the team which has had the greatest fortune has been the New Orleans Hornets. In 1999, when they were in Charlotte, they won the third pick in the lottery with the 13th-best chance.

No team has climbed as many spots in the present era. New Orleans will get a lottery pick this year, but not with its own selection.

5. Cleveland Cavaliers

The two times in the lottery ball era that Cleveland had the NBA’s worst record, it won the lottery. Both times, it ended up drafting franchise-caliber players. While the going is still early on Kyrie Irving, the going looks good.

Cleveland may have won last year (not coincidentally when they really needed to, if you’re a conspiracy buff), but it won’t get a selection this year. 

4. Washington Wizards

Washington has been in the lottery 12 times, and it's gotten the top pick twice. It has never won a second or third pick, though. If Wizard fans want some consolation, they won the top pick with the third-best chance (like they have this year) in 2001.

Of course, they used that pick for Kwame Brown. I doubt that makes you feel better. 

3. Charlotte Bobcats

The Bobcats won the third pick in 2006, the only time they won a lottery pick. While I don’t see Stern “commissioning” them out of the lottery altogether, I see teams to being put ahead of them. I would be more surprised to see them win the lottery than to land the fourth pick, though.

Their position here is tenuous, but this is the best I see them doing. 

2. New Orleans Hornets

There are three reasons that I see the Hornets landing this spot, not with their own pick, but with the Timberwolves' pick.

First, it would just fit with Minnesota’s string of bad luck to have this pick pay off.

Second, it’s hard to believe that David Stern didn’t sell the Hornets without a wink and a smile in regards to the lottery.

Third, if the Timberwolves pick is drawn, then it makes Stern look like a genius for getting the Hornets that pick in the Chris Paul trade.

1. Brooklyn Nets

If you’ve followed the ways of the NBA draft lottery, you know that there are certain times such as the 2008 lottery (when the Bulls won the Derrick Rose lottery in spite of having just a 1.7 percent chance) where the fix was obviously in.

When it’s good for the NBA, the NBA has not been shy about making sure the right team “wins” the lottery.

The Nets are moving to Brooklyn. They are in danger of losing Deron Williams if they don’t land a star. Nothing says “Dwight Howard trade bait” like “Anthony Davis.”

What magnifies this situation even more is that if the team misses out on the lottery, it doesn’t get a first-round pick at all.

What’s really bad for the NBA is the Brooklyn Nets spending the next half-dozen years in perennial suckitude, which is what happens if they don’t land a top-three pick. Expect them to win the lottery.