Before the Miami Heat try to go out and prove that when pressured they do not always resort to isolation basketball, Tuesday night will be the NBA’s annual draft lottery.
It matters every year, this year for slightly different reasons than normal. Kyrie Irving of Duke is almost certain to go No. 1 overall, followed by Derrick Williams of Arizona. After that, things could really shake up depending on the draft order. There’s a feeling among some scouts that the difference between spot 8 and spot 20 is not that great this year, so you will likely see more of teams drafting for need rather than taking the best player.
This is no envelope in a jar system any more, David Stern is not grabbing frozen envelopes. There are 14 balls in a lottery machine, with the numbers 1-14 on them — that means there are 1,001 potential combinations that can come out (order does not matter), and 1,000 of those combinations are assigned to teams. Then the machine pulls out four balls and the team with that combination gets the first pick. That process is repeated two more times for the second and third picks, after that the draft goes in order of record from worst to first.
Here are the draft percentages:
1. Minnesota Timberwolves 25 percent chance of getting the top pick (they have 250 combinations)
2. Cleveland Cavaliers, 19.9 percent chance
3. Toronto Raptors, 15.6 percent chance
4. Washington, 11.9 percent chance
5. Sacramento Kings, 7.6 percent chance
6. Utah Jazz (from Nets), 7.5 percent chance
7. Detroit Pistons, 4.3% chance
8. Cleveland Cavaliers (from Clippers), 2.8 percent chance
9. Charlotte Bobcats, 1.7 percent chance
10. Milwaukee Bucks, 1.1 percent chance
11. Golden State Warriors, 0.8 percent chance
12. Utah Jazz, 0.7 percent chance
13. Phoenix Suns, 0.6 percent chance
14. Houston Rockets, 0.5% chance