How the lottery works

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« Durant, Green make All-Rookie First Team | Main | Welcome to Draft Lottery Central »

How the lottery works

2008 NBA DRAFT LOTTERY: WHAT WILL HAPPEN? -- Courtesy of the NBA

The 2008 NBA Draft Lottery, where ping-pong balls supplant basketballs as the tools of determining supremacy, will be held on Tuesday, May 20, at the NBA Entertainment Studios in Secaucus, New Jersey.

The 24th annual edition of the NBA Draft Lottery will determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of 2008 NBA Draft.

Fourteen ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14 will be placed in a drum. There are 1,001 possible combinations when four balls are drawn out of 14, without regard to their order of selection. Prior to the Lottery, 1,000 combinations will be assigned to the 14 participating Lottery teams by a computer.

The Miami Heat finished the season with the NBA's worst record (15-67), so they will be assigned 250 combinations. The Golden State Warriors, the best team in the lottery at 48-34, will have five combinations out of 1,000.

Four balls will be drawn to the top to determine a four-digit combination. The team that has been assigned that combination will receive the number one pick. The four balls are placed back in the drum and the process is repeated to determine the number two and three picks. (Note: If the one unassigned combination is drawn, the balls are drawn to the top again.)

The order of selection for the teams that do not win one of the top three picks will be determined by inverse order of their regular season record. Thus, Miami can pick no lower than fourth, Seattle (20-62) no lower than fifth and Minnesota (22-60) no lower than sixth.

The actual Lottery procedure will take place in a separate room prior to the national broadcast with NBA officials and representatives of the participating teams and the accounting firm of Ernst & Young in attendance.

Following the drawing, team logo cards will be inserted into envelopes marked 1 through 14 by an Ernst & Young representative. These envelopes then will be sealed and brought on-stage, where the announcement of the Lottery results will be made by NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver. A second representative from each participating team will be seated on-stage. Neither the Deputy Commissioner nor the team representatives will be informed of the Lottery results prior to the opening of the envelopes.

The team whose logo is in the last envelope opened will pick first in NBA Draft 2008, to be held on Thursday, June 26, at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Following are the chances out of 1,000 for teams in 2008 NBA Draft Lottery:

2008 NBA DRAFT LOTTERY CHANCES
(Out of 1,000)

Following are the 14 teams in 2008 NBA Draft Lottery who did not qualify for the 2008 NBA Playoffs. Each team will be assigned a certain number of combinations out of 1,000. The third column below lists the number of combinations each team will have in the NBA Draft Lottery. The three columns on the right list the percent chances that teams have at getting one of the top three picks.
2008 NBA Draft Lottery Probabilities

Team Record Chances 1st Pick 2nd Pick 3rd Pick
Miami 15-67 250 25.00% 21.47% 17.72%
Seattle 20-62 199 19.90% 18.78% 17.07%
Minn. 22-60 138 13.80% 14.24% 14.54%
Memphis 22-60 137 13.70% 14.16% 14.48%
New York 23-59 76 7.60% 8.44% 9.47%
L.A. Clips 23-59 75 7.50% 8.33% 9.37%
Milw. 26-56 43 4.30% 4.93% 5.77%
Charlotte 32-50 28 2.80% 3.26% 3.87%
Chicago 33-49 17 1.70% 2.00% 2.40%
N.J. 34-48 11 1.10% 1.30% 1.57%
Indiana 36-46 8 0.80% 0.95% 1.15%
Sac 38-44 7 0.70% 0.83% 1.01%
Portland 41-41 6 0.60% 0.71% 0.87%
G. State 48-34 5 0.50% 0.59% 0.72%

Courtesy of the NBA

Posted by at May 20, 2008 12:50 a.m.

Comments

#130367

Posted by West Seattle Dan at 5/20/08 1:57 a.m.

Great Job Gary...
You get Extra Credit for your fine Statistics work and do not need to pass the Spring 2008 Math WASL to continue working as a Sonics blogger.

Thanks for the fine Work.

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#130370

Posted by unregistered user at 5/20/08 2:21 a.m.

Even with all the math..theres always that one team that comes out of nowhere to beat the odds and take one of the top positions..

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#130401

Posted by buddhabrad at 5/20/08 7:07 a.m.

This is the theory anyway.

Of course we all now that they actually pick the lottery balls in a separate room because "of logistical reasons". Funny, states have being doing lottery ball drawings on TV live for 20 years. But the NBA can't figure it out?

Yeah, right.

The whole lottery is fixed. Look at the recent results.

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#130422

Posted by kenobi at 5/20/08 8:35 a.m.

I agree. I think the whole lottery was started to get Patrick Ewing into New York. I said so to friends before, and after.

obiken

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#130429

Posted by unregistered user at 5/20/08 9:01 a.m.

if the lottery was fixed, durant and oden both would not have gone to the west coast. the nba wanted at least one of them on the east coast if not both.

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#130475

Posted by BLYKMYK at 5/20/08 10:59 a.m.

"The whole lottery is fixed. Look at the recent results."

- LOL yup...look at those recent results. Teams like Toronto, Portland, Orlando, Milwaukee getting the first overall pick...CONSPIRACY!!!

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#130485

Posted by buddhabrad at 5/20/08 11:27 a.m.

Actually, I'd say they are purposely spreading the talent to the small market teams, while at the same time allowing Boston to accumulate talent thru really lop-sided trades.

No. Of course the NBA would never fix the lottery. That would be as crazy as having referees betting on games they are calling.

Oh....wait....

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#130498

Posted by unregistered user at 5/20/08 12:12 p.m.

a ref betting on a game thats un-heard of.... who would do sucha thing lol.... to put tthings in perspective... they do the ball thing behind close doors..couldnt be fixed lol NBA is hilarious...$$$$

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#130525

Posted by unregistered user at 5/20/08 1:48 p.m.

So this info is courtesy of (cut and pasted from) the NBA. Good to know it wasn't Gary crunching the numbers.

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#130531

Posted by thirsty at 5/20/08 1:59 p.m.

what i'd like to know is this ...

isn't it possible that one or more of the 14 teams have their combinations pop out more than once. wouldn't that mean that one or more of the 14 teams gets more than one of the first 14 lottery picks?

does that ever happen?

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#130539

Posted by BLYKMYK at 5/20/08 2:17 p.m.

"Actually, I'd say they are purposely spreading the talent to the small market teams, while at the same time allowing Boston to accumulate talent thru really lop-sided trades.

No. Of course the NBA would never fix the lottery. That would be as crazy as having referees betting on games they are calling.

Oh....wait...."

- So, the argument is that they are trying too hard to help out the small market teams? I thought everyone knew that Stern rigged the draft to help the Knicks.

Making fault premises to help support your argument doesn't make your argument any more logical. There is no statistical evidence of any team/type of team getting preferential treatment in the draft.

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#130541

Posted by BLYKMYK at 5/20/08 2:23 p.m.

"what i'd like to know is this ...

isn't it possible that one or more of the 14 teams have their combinations pop out more than once. wouldn't that mean that one or more of the 14 teams gets more than one of the first 14 lottery picks?

does that ever happen?"

- It is my understanding that if Seattle is combination 0001, 0003, 9999 etc. and 0001 gets picked first (so Seattle gets the first pick) and then the next sequence is 9999 then they have to put the balls back into the ball and redraft...

THIS...is the reason why they dont televise the ping pong ball process.

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#130578

Posted by unregistered user at 5/20/08 3:27 p.m.

Who will be representing the Sonics on-stage?

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#130580

Posted by unregistered user at 5/20/08 3:29 p.m.

Assistant GM Rich Cho will represent the Sonics behind the scenes during the drawing & Durant will sit on stage as the winners are announced.