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There is not much hope for several teams in bottom half of the NBA. However, the hope that those teams do have will be on full display Tuesday night when the order of the NBA draft is decided.
Where? ESPN
When? 7:30 PM EST
Why is it a thing?
The NBA Draft Lottery is an annual event hosted by the NBA every year to decide who takes home the number one overall pick in the draft that particular year. It is used to avoid deliberate tanking for players but is often accused of being rigged.
How it works:
1000 different numbers are assigned to each team in the lottery. The number of combinations your team is assigned is dependent as to how bad your team was the previous season. For instance, since the Suns were the worst team in the NBA last year, they have the most number combinations at 250. After that, fourteen white balls are put into a lottery machine. Since four different balls are drawn, there are 1001 different combinations that can be drawn. Of all those combinations, one is disregarded with the remaining 1000 assigned to teams, which was mentioned previously. The NBA uses this process to decide the first, then second and third picks in the draft.
Here is the order and odds for each team in the lottery:
1. Pheonix Suns- 25% chance at #1 overall pick
2. Memphis Grizzlies- 19.0% chance at #1 overall pick
3. Dallas Mavericks- 13.8% chance at #1 overall pick
4. Atlanta Hawks- 13.7% chance at #1 overall pick
5. Orlando Magic- 8.8% chance at #1 overall pick
6. Chicago Bulls- 5.3% chance at #1 overall pick
7. Sacramento Kings- 5.3% chance at #1 overall pick
8. Cleveland Cavaliers- 2.8% chance at #1 overall pick
9. New York Knicks- 1.7% chance at #1 overall pick
10. Philadelphia 76ers- 1.1% chance at #1 overall pick
11. Charlotte Hornets- 0.8% chance at #1 overall pick
12. Detroit Pistons- 0.7% chance at #1 overall pick
13. LA Clippers- 0.6% chance at #1 overall pick
14. Denver Nuggets- 0.5% chance at #1 overall pick
15. *Boston Celtics- 2.9% chance at 2nd or 3rd overall pick
The Prize:
Unlike last year, there is no consensus number one overall pick in this year's NBA draft. While most people are saying DeAndre Ayton should be the first overall selection, the Luka Doncic train has been picking up steam over the recent weeks.
As you can see, while the NBA Draft Lottery is considered to be a large event, it can have immense consequences. If the Cleveland Cavaliers did not win the 2003 NBA Draft Lottery, who knows how the current landscape of the league would look? All it comes down to is a silly ping-pong ball.