OT: NBA Draft Lottery Open Thread

Submitted by Mr Mackey on

The NBA Draft Lottery is tonight at 8:30 on ESPN.

The Timberwolves have the best odds, with a 25% chance to get the 1st pick.

The next best odds go to the following teams:

1. T-Wolves - 25%

2. Cavaliers - 19.9%

3. Toronto - 15.6%

4. Washington - 11.9%

5. Sacramento - 7.6%

6. Utah - 7.5%

7. Detroit - 4.3%

8. Cavaliers part 2 - 2.8%

9. Charlotte - 1.7%

10. Milwaukee - 1.1%

11. Golden State - 0.8%

12. Utah part 2 - 0.7% 

13. Phoenix - 0.6%

14. Houston - 0.5%

MGoCooper

May 17th, 2011 at 7:58 PM ^

For those moments when Enes Kanter just isn't good enough. Go Dumars go!

 

::Prepares self for another embarrassing European selection by Joe Dumars::

BRCE

May 17th, 2011 at 9:54 PM ^

Dumars has made this team just good enough to not get a top 3 pick and obviously bad enough to not make the playoffs.

Unless you get really, really lucky, that is NBA purgatory. You're probably never going to have team better than, say, Atlanta, with a bunch of #7/#8 picks.

 

M-Wolverine

May 17th, 2011 at 7:58 PM ^

But I didn't think there's be enough interest for something that takes like ten minutes. But I'm glad someone else is interested. Go Pistons ping pong balls! (Yes, i know they don't use ping pong balls anymore).

M-Wolverine

May 17th, 2011 at 8:34 PM ^

They've actually gone back to it (probably a few years back). They went from envelopes, to the balls, to some really complex numbered odds system, back to the balls (probably when they went to only the 1st three picks rather than the whole lottery).

JudgementDay

May 18th, 2011 at 7:13 AM ^

As a Jazz fan this is slightly insulting, I think the Jazz will select Walker as they have a need for a point gaurd after traiding Williams to NJ.  I think this is a good pick for utah and would fit well with Favors and give the Jazz a promising young team to build on.

gajensen

May 17th, 2011 at 9:16 PM ^

Joe has had some misses in the  draft, but he's had more hits than not lately.

Greg Monroe was 2nd All-Rookie, and really should have been on the 1st team.
Jonas Jerebko was a starter in 09-20 as a 2nd rounder.
Austin Daye will likely start in 10-11as a former #15 pick.
Stuckey was 2nd team All-Rookie as a #15 pick.
He picked up Arron Afflalo who is starting for the playoff Nuggets.  He should have kept him, but that's a different story.

The hopes for this team lie in the hands of Joe D draft picks.

Mr Mackey

May 17th, 2011 at 8:14 PM ^

Most of the projected drafts have the Pistons around #7, taking either Jan Vesely (Czech Republic) or Bismarck Biyombo (Spain). So, it could be another European pick for Dumars. Let's hope this one goes a little better...

Also, does it seem like this draft doesn't have much superior talent? John Wall, Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, and Blake Griffin from the few recent drafts were pretty obvious big-time players, but this year the two top players are Kyrie Irving and Derrick Williams. IMO, no real standout player

Fhshockey112002

May 17th, 2011 at 8:16 PM ^

With so many of the top kids returning to school this might be one of the worst years to draft in the top 10.  Instead of paying for a top 10 talent you are forced (NBA rookie pay scale) to pay that money to someone with say top 15-20 talent.

jmblue

May 17th, 2011 at 8:20 PM ^

I think it's time for the NBA to expand the playoffs.  When the Lottery was first instituted, only seven teams missed the playoffs, so you either played in the postseason or got a guaranteed high pick.  Now 14 teams are in the lottery, so it's now possible to miss the playoffs and still not get a very good pick.  The second half of the Lottery is like this no-man's land that's hard to escape from, because teams there don't get to draft the kind of impact player they need to make the playoffs.  Sacramento and Milwaukee are longtime no-man's land residents.  The Pistons are in danger of remaining there as well.

JClay

May 17th, 2011 at 8:23 PM ^

I agree with your point that the #8-14 teams generally don't get an impact player, but adding those teams to the playoffs helps nothing. They're still SO FAR behind the elite teams and have no chance at competing with them. You'll just see more 4-0 sweeps. If you actually want to add some semblence of parity to the league, you won't do it by draft/playoff tweaks, it'll come by allowing teams to franchise tag players so they can't take their talents to super teams in major media markets.

jmblue

May 17th, 2011 at 8:36 PM ^

Well, if they expanded the playoffs, I would not want them to have seven-game series for the added teams.  Here's what I'd do:  

Ten playoff teams per conference.  The top six seeds get a bye.  The bottom four play a best-of-three series (#7 vs. #10, #8 vs. #9) and then the winners advance to play the #2 and #1 seeds, respectively.  #3 still would play #6, and #4 vs. #5.

This would mean that a team would either make the playoffs or get a top 10 pick.  Even if the #9 and #10 teams per conference have little chance of going deep in the playoffs, this at least gives them something to play for at the end of the season.  This is an important point.  Right now, NBA games involving non-playoff teams in the final month of the season are awful, because the non-playoff team doesn't care.  During the league's glory years in the '80s, 16 teams made the playoffs and only seven missed them, so almost every team in the league was in the hunt for a playoff spot, resulting in meaningful games.  Now there are just too many teams out of the hunt with 15 games to go, just mailing it in.

 

 

 

 

WolvinLA2

May 17th, 2011 at 8:25 PM ^

I actually think being the 7 or 8 seed in the playoffs is worse than the end of the lottery.  You usually get swept or close to it in the first round, yet you don't have a shot at a pick above 15.  If you just miss the playoffs, you at least have a shot at a top 10 pick because of the lottery. 

jmblue

May 17th, 2011 at 8:27 PM ^

But look at the percentages above.  There are six (!) teams in the lottery that don't even have a 2% chance at winning it.  The odds are so long that it's almost pointless even having a lottery for them.  You may as well give them a shot at the playoffs, and give them something to shoot for at the end of the season.

WolvinLA2

May 17th, 2011 at 8:33 PM ^

Oh of course - if you're 10-14 you have a very slim chance at the #1 pick, for sure.  But each of those teams has a pretty decent shot at the #8 pick, which is still pretty good, and a bad but realitistic shot at top 5.  At worst, you get #14.  However, the teams who just missed the playoffs are stuck in their slots no matter what. 

jmblue

May 17th, 2011 at 8:37 PM ^

That's not how it works.  They draw the lottery for the top three picks, and then the other spots are arranged in order of teams' records.  Those teams can't get the #8 pick.  It's either top-3 (extremely unlikely) or end of the lottery.

jmblue

May 17th, 2011 at 10:01 PM ^

I don't care what their record is.  Basketball works well with large playoff participation.  When teams have nothing to play for, the games are unwatchable.  Who paid attention to the last two months of the Pistons' season?

Hurricane

May 17th, 2011 at 8:19 PM ^

Nothing will top the 03 draft in terms of overall talent and Joe Dumars' utter failure to draft any of that talent.  Players selected after Darko at #2: Anthony, Wade, Bosh, Kaman, Hinrich, TJ Ford, David West, Boris Diaw, and BRIAN COOK. Then he drafted Carlos Delfino ahead of Kendrick Perkins, Leandro Barbosa, Josh Howard, Luke Walton, and Mo Williams.  Please Joe D draft a player with a pulse this year.

gajensen

May 17th, 2011 at 9:24 PM ^

Carlos Delfino is still in the league, playing 32 minutes a game, and starting for the Bucks.

He may not be competing for All-NBA team honors, but he cannot be criticized as far as late first-rounders go.

and...Brian Cook?  Boris Diaw?  TJ Ford?  Not players I would namedrop.

mmiicchhiiggaann

May 17th, 2011 at 8:20 PM ^

I really want Pistons to get top 3 and take the chance on Kanter- Irving and Williams are great but since neither are guranteed homerun I'd love to take the risk if possible.