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Draft Lottery Odds Breakdown
Posted by: Andy-Larsen on May 18th, 2010
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.
The NBA Draft Lottery is today and with some luck, a top-3 pick that could change our franchise. But what are the exact odds of the Jazz moving up from #9? Let’s do a quick investigation.
The Draft Lottery works like this: 14 ping pong balls are numbered 1 through 14, and placed in a standard lottery machine. Of these, 4 balls will be selected. This means there are 1,001 combinations of balls possible (14!/(10!*4!), for you math geeks like me). Each team is then given a certain amount of combinations, based on how poorly they did during the regular season (from Wikipedia):
- 250 combinations, 25.0% chance of receiving the #1 pick
- 199 combinations, 19.9% chance
- 156 combinations, 15.6% chance
- 119 combinations, 11.9% chance
- 88 combinations, 8.8% chance
- 63 combinations, 6.3% chance
- 43 combinations, 4.3% chance
- 28 combinations, 2.8% chance
- 17 combinations, 1.7% chance
- 11 combinations, 1.1% chance
- 8 combinations, 0.8% chance
- 7 combinations, 0.7% chance
- 6 combinations, 0.6% chance
- 5 combinations, 0.5% chance
In the case of tied teams (like we are with the Clippers, both tied teams receive the average number of combinations between their picks. Therefore, we have 28 + 17 /2 =22 combinations in our favor.
The NBA picks 4 balls from the lottery machine, looks up which team holds that winning combination, and gives that team the first pick in the draft. Then, the balls are returned to the lottery machine, and a new combination is drawn. If a team is picked that has already won, different balls are picked until a new team’s combination appears. This happens for the first 3 picks in the draft, and then picks 4-14 are assigned based on regular season overall record. Thus, the worst team in the NBA is guaranteed at least the #4 pick. The representative from each team (the topic of much Jazzbots conversation recently) watches this process, just to make sure nothing sinister is going on.
Later, after the NBA knows the results, it reveals the draft order in reverse (starting at 14) on ESPN to build suspense. To me, this is less fun than actually watching the lottery balls would be, but oh well.
The Knicks tied for the 8th worst record in the league, but we lost a coin flip with the Clippers, so we have the 9th spot currently. Interestingly, that coin flip doesn’t change the odds of us getting a top pick, it just cements our position at #9 if we lose the lottery. In order for that to change, we have to either
a) win the lottery for 1 of the top 3 spots, or
b) have a team below us win the lottery, so that we would be shifted downward.
Therefore, we can only receive the 1-3 picks or the 9-12 picks. Here are the odds of all possibilities:
1st pick: 2.2%
2nd pick: 2.57%
3rd pick: 3.08%
9th pick: 78.75%
10th pick: 13.0%
11th pick: 0.4%
12th pick .01%
Let’s be clear, the odds are not in our favor, and it would take a small miracle to have us move up in the draft order. Still, you should definitely wear every possible piece of lucky clothing you own today.
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well, i would like to know who represented us. and i also would like to know if we could use the memphis trade to move up. possibly 3 or 4??????
Now that we are locked in to #9 who are we gonna pick?
I say Ekpe Udoh!
Thanks for the lesson Andy, i was a little lost watching the Lottery……… but i have one more question, how the league attribute all the combinations to each team, by random or there is an order ?
Not many people would take the time to come up with all of that Andy. Good work!!
Cole Aldrich or Greg Monroe if still available. Lose Boozer.
If all of the pre-draft predictions are accurate, Cole Aldrich may be the best player we can land in this years draft. The sad facts are that I don’t believe he will be the differance maker in the future against the hated Lakers. (unless he by chance hates them as much as Utah fans do).
Will somebody please shed some light on the probabaility of moving up in the draft to negotiate a better pic. (JR aka Jazzaholic, I’m looking for you here buddy!) Sources have stated that the russian owner of the Nets would love to serve is country right by landing AK as a huge publicity boost between New Jersey and Moscow. Did anyone see the “punch in the guts ” look he had on his face last night when NJ slipped from 1st pick to 3rd? Not at all what he was expecting. That leaves him with the probability of adding a guy like Favors or Cousins to play alongside Lopez instead of Wall or Turner. This leads me to my original question…?
Is there a chance that the Russian owner would consider a trade to acquire AK and our 9th pick in turn that he hands over his 3rd pick which would give us a chance to land a more athletic player like Cousins or Favors? I know, I know, neither Favors or Cousins could replace Boozer and AK so we take an immediate step backwards. BUT would it not free up our 2 largest financial concerns which would in turn allow us to spend some money on one of the many better free agents available? If we got Favors, we could easily allow Booz to go find whatever it is that he is looking for but would still be in need of a center. If we got Cousins, we could still send Booz packing, have the BIG athletic guy we have always needed and then we could make an offer to a leader/player such as Ray Allen to join a great core of players (and fill in for Korver if he was included in the original package deal.)
Wher does that leave us?
PG – DWill, Yata
SG – CJ, Matthews, Allen (or whoever) maybe Shannon Brown
PF – Millsap, Favors, or Cousins , free agent?
or
C – Cousins, Fes, Memo Tomic 2011
and 2011 pick from Memphis (for Ronnie B)
Harpring or Horney fill the coaching void left by Ty Corbin
Shed Koufas and Price ASAP
Things could be looking up! Cross your fingers fellow Jazz fans
This is probably way off topic – but I just wanted to chime in on how much I HATE LA. After watching Game 2 of the Suns series, which is probably just (in the words of an LA journalist) yet another intermission before the big show, it suddenly occured to me: sports suck. Every year its always LA – ALWAYS! They are an unstoppable, hellish force that always manage to come out on top EVERY YEAR! It’s sickening – vomit inducing!
The worst part is: the players think it’s all them! As though they’re the reason the Lakers are making another championship run when, in fact, it’s the 91 + million in salaries the Lakers are able to afford!
Which brings me to another irritating point: what the hell is the point of the salary cap? The only thing it is doing is making it impossible for smaller market teams to compete with those in the larger market. Teams like LA can afford to pay the tax, while the Jazz cannot – so, why even have it at all? Or why not enforce a hard cap, creating strict penalties for those teams who do go over – wouldn’t that make the NBA fair?
Yeah, it would.
And then ESPN would have nothing to report every morning – and the millions upon millions of band wagoners who consistently make Kobe-AKA Satan-Bryant’s jersey number one would find themselves running around in circles in search of another so-called dynasty.
Why is such a thing fun to watch? Is there really anybody outside of LA who is hoping for Kobe to, in his own words, “Get one more cookie?”
I guess that’s why we should respect the Jazz that much more – they are a smaller market team who consistently deliver, despite having the odds stacked against them. The fact that they’ve gone to the Finals twice is very impressive when you consider that few teams have accompkished such a feat.
However, the fact remains that the FAKERS will always be number one, counting off the number of games before their upteenth championship, because they have more damned money than anybody else! They get all the players, all the calls, and all the luck; and then they sit back and smile smugley, knowing full well that the crown has been gift wrapped for them.
And that’s the end of my rant … Go Jazz.
Aldrich will be the best for nobody…… How a guy with such a regression can be a top ten choice, (this year, loose 4pts 2rbds 1blks 4% at FG and 12% at FT in his numbers….. ) and Cousins have great chance to be the next Olowokandi, big potential and so lazy…..
the nets will be able to buy their way up too, along with a lot of teams actually. most of the owners out there can afford the luxury tax easily.. so my question is: is the larry miller corp in trouble financially?
Andy- Since I don’t really follow the college ball scene I’m relying on you to post like you did last year and fill us in on your predictions and what direction you think the Jazz should go
Cole Aldrich did slip in some stats, it’s true. He blocked more shots though (30 more than the previous year).
It’s too bad there isn’t another player like Brook Lopez in this draft.