NBA Draft 2015: Updated Lottery Odds, TV Schedule and Predictions
Organizations have been completely altered by the events of the NBA draft lottery; think of the New York Knicks' landing Patrick Ewing, or the San Antonio Spurs' bringing aboard Tim Duncan. In the NBA, one player can change a franchise for the better.
Tuesday night's drawing could lead to one of those seasons for whichever team ends up with the top overall selection. So to prep you for the event, we'll take a look at the television schedule and odds as well as break down what is likely to happen.
Schedule
| Tuesday, May 19 | 8 p.m. ET | ESPN |
Odds
| Minnesota Timberwolves | 16-66 | 250 | 25% | 21.5% | 17.8% |
| New York Knicks | 17-65 | 199 | 19.9% | 18.8% | 17.1% |
| Philadelphia 76ers | 18-64 | 156 | 15.6% | 15.7% | 15.6% |
| Los Angeles Lakers | 21-61 | 119 | 11.9% | 12.6% | 13.3% |
| Orlando Magic | 25-57 | 88 | 8.8% | 9.7% | 10.7% |
| Sacramento Kings | 29-53 | 63 | 6.3% | 7.1% | 8.1% |
| Denver Nuggets | 30-52 | 43 | 4.3% | 4.9% | 5.8% |
| Detroit Pistons | 32-50 | 28 | 2.8% | 3.3% | 3.9% |
| Charlotte Hornets | 33-49 | 17 | 1.7% | 2.0% | 2.4% |
| Miami Heat | 37-45 | 11 | 1.1% | 1.3% | 1.6% |
| Indiana Pacers | 38-44 | 8 | 0.8% | 0.9% | 1.2% |
| Utah Jazz | 38-44 | 7 | 0.7% | 0.8% | 1% |
| Phoenix Suns | 39-43 | 6 | 0.6% | 0.7% | 0.9% |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | 45-37 | 5 | 0.5% | 0.6% | 0.7% |
Predictions
The first prediction is one that will leave fans of the Minnesota Timberwolves, New York Knicks or Philadelphia 76ers quite sad: At least one unexpected team will jump into the top three picks and bump one of the above teams to the No. 4 selection.
I'm not exactly going out on a limb here. In the past 10 years, a team with the sixth-best lottery odds or worse has jumped into the top three picks a whopping eight times. Paradoxically, the improbable has been the probable at the NBA draft lottery.
Granted, in a draft that many people generally consider to have four potential stars, dropping to the fourth pick might not be as detrimental as in years past. Still, every organization wants to earn as high a pick as possible to give itself, if nothing else, some options when it is on the clock.
A team like the Sixers, for instance, could probably find a player it could really use if it landed a top-four selection. And the lottery is a chance for Philly to talk to a few of those players, according to Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Here's another prediction: There won't be a conspiracy to get the Lakers or Knicks the top overall pick. After all, how is commissioner Adam Silver supposed to decide between one of the league's most iconic teams and its biggest media market?
And even if the Lakers and Knicks end up with the top two picks, in whichever order, there was always decent odds that such a thing could happen. Even Phil Jackson acknowledged the unlikelihood that the team with the best lottery odds, the Timberwolves, would earn the top pick, via Peter Botte of the New York Daily News:
"You guys I'm sure have looked at the draft picks from the last 30 years and seen that the No. 1 (seed) only won three times, is that right? Last 30 years, the team with the first pick has only won three times and the fourth pick has never won. There are all these numbers out there that are kind of unusual. So it's a real crapshoot. There's no doubt about it.
"
My completely unscientific, purely speculative prediction for the draft order? The Timberwolves, Sixers, Sacramento Kings, Knicks and Lakers will comprise the top five picks.
Los Angeles will be watching the proceedings very carefully, of course. The Lakers have a first-round pick that is top-five-protected (it will go to the Sixers if the Lakers drop out of the top five) and have the fourth-best odds of winning the draft lottery, meaning two teams behind them would have to jump into the top three to bump them to the No. 6 pick.
There is just a 17.2 percent chance of that happening, according to Max Rappaport of NBA.com.
And since the lottery went to 14 teams in 2004, a pairing of two teams with the fifth-best odds or worse has jumped into the top three picks just three times. So, much to the chagrin of the draft-pick-hoarding Sixers, the Lakers likely hold on to their pick.
On the other hand, in the immortal words of Lloyd Christmas, "So you're telling the Sixers there's a chance!"
The Sixers almost assuredly won't get the top-10-protected pick the Miami Heat own, either. For one thing, there is just a 9.1 percent chance of the Sixers' ending up with that pick, as noted by Rappaport.
For another, since the lottery went to 14 teams in 2004, no team with the 11th-best odds or worse has jumped into the top three.
But yeah... there's a chance.
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