How Has the Draft Lottery Shaped the NBA

[wolves_89]

I was looking back over the last 20 years (1992-2012) of the draft to see which teams have been helped and hurt the most by the draft lottery. In my estimation the success of the teams listed below has been greatly influenced by the lottery.

Teams Hurt By the Lottery

Minnesota
- 1992 Moved from 1->3, drafted Christian Laetner instead of Shaquille O’Neal or Alonzo Mourning
- 1993 Moved from 2->5, drafted Isaiah Rider instead of Anfernee Hardaway
- 1994 Moved from 3->4, drafted Donyell Marshall instead of Grant Hill
- 2011 Moved from 1->2, drafted Derrick Williams instead of Kyrie Irving

Vancouver (the franchise has had more luck since moving to Memphis)
- 1996 Moved from 1->3, drafted Shareef Abdur-Rahim instead of Allen Iverson
- 1997 Moved from 1->4, drafted Antonio Daniels instead of Tim Duncan

Charlotte
- 2005 Moved from 3->5, drafted Raymond Felton instead of Deron Williams
- 2012 Moved from 1->2, drafted Michael Kidd-Gilchrist instead of Anthony Davis

Sacramento
- 2009 Moved from 1->4, drafted Tyreke Evans instead of Blake Griffin or James Harden

Miami (they used free agency to build a winner)
- 2008 Moved from 1->2, drafted Michael Beasley instead of Derrick Rose

Boston (they overcame bad luck by trading for Garnett)
- 2007 Moved from 2->5, traded pick (instead of being able to draft Kevin Durant)


Contending Teams Built with Luck in the Lottery

Oklahoma City
+ 2007 Moved from 5->2, drafted Kevin Durant
+ 2009 Moved from 4->3, drafted James Harden

Chicago
+ 2008 Moved from 9->1, drafted Derrick Rose

Los Angeles Clippers
+ 2009 Moved from 3->1, drafted Blake Griffen

San Antonio
+ 1997 Moved from 3->1, drafted Tim Duncan

Houston
+ 2002 Moved from 5->1, drafted Yao Ming

Orlando
+ 1992 Moved from 2->1, drafted Shaquille O’Neal
+ 1993 Moved from 11->1, drafted Chris Webber (traded for Anfernee Hardaway)

Philadelphia
+ 1996 Moved from 2->1, drafted Allen Iverson


Up and Coming Teams Due to Luck in the Lottery

New Orleans
- 2005 Moved from 2->4, drafted Chris Paul instead of Deron Williams
+ 2012 Moved from 2->1, drafted Anthony Davis

Cleveland
+ 2011 Moved from 8->1, drafted Kyrie Irving


Are there other teams that have benefited or been held back by the draft lottery?

[Ive]

2003 NBA Draft

The Detroit Pistons, championship contenders who lucked into the #2 overall pick, select....... Darko Milicic over Carmelo, D-Wade, and Bosh.

[RIPskaterdude]

The Kings have been screwed by the draft lottery since 2009 (when they had the worst record in the NBA). I believe they've moved back from their original spot every year since then, even though they still got Cousins out of it in 2010.

[Iplaytolose]

2003 NBA Draft

The Detroit Pistons, championship contenders who lucked into the #2 overall pick, select....... Darko Milicic over Carmelo, D-Wade, and Bosh.

Just imagine Wade coming off the bench for them...

[wolves_89]

The Kings have been screwed by the draft lottery since 2009 (when they had the worst record in the NBA). I believe they've moved back from their original spot every year since then, even though they still got Cousins out of it in 2010.

I only listed changes in lottery position that affected where elite players ended up. There were a number of other moves up and down in the lottery that involved players with less talent (for example the Wolves have moved down 9 times in total, but only the four cases listed had a major impact). I also didn't list cases where teams moved up significantly but wasted the pick (Darko and Thabeet for example).

[bibby1023]

Kings have no moved up in the lottery since 1989 when we had the 1st overall pick...sad times.

[statsman]

Kings have no moved up in the lottery since 1989 when we had the 1st overall pick...sad times.

Well, there's probably 535 million reasons why that's about to change in this year's draft lottery.

[blind prophet]

The Kings have been screwed by the draft lottery since 2009 (when they had the worst record in the NBA). I believe they've moved back from their original spot every year since then, even though they still got Cousins out of it in 2010.

Hey we got "Never Nervous Pervis"

[wolves_89]

Kings have no moved up in the lottery since 1989 when we had the 1st overall pick...sad times.

At least the Kings fans can remember having had one bit of luck in the lottery, the Wolves have never moved up (in 15 tries).

[Jake0890]

Charlotte getting MKG instead of Davis is the worst to my memory. The fact that a team with the worst winning percentage in NBA HISTORY gets the #2 pick is beyond me. Not to mention their window just got pushed back even further because MKG is obviously not as good as Davis.

Personally, the lottery sucks and needs to go away.

[blind prophet]

Charlotte getting MKG instead of Davis is the worst to my memory. The fact that a team with the worst winning percentage in NBA HISTORY gets the #2 pick is beyond me. Not to mention their window just got pushed back even further because MKG is obviously not as good as Davis.

Personally, the lottery sucks and needs to go away.

Nah people would throw too many games.

Just put the action live, and not behind closed doors.

[RIPskaterdude]

I don't get why the team with the worst record in the NBA has a better chance of getting the #4 pick than the #1 pick.

[FlashFlare]

2003 NBA Draft

The Detroit Pistons, championship contenders who lucked into the #2 overall pick, select....... Darko Milicic over Carmelo, D-Wade, and Bosh.

Just imagine Wade coming off the bench for them...

Wade probably wouldn't end up being the player he's become. SVG gave Wade the reigns of the team in '04 and that really contributed to Wade's growth. In the playoffs his rookie year, that's when Wade took his game to superstar level.

In Detroit, Larry Brown wouldn't have played him...

[statsman]

Personally, the lottery sucks and needs to go away.

I am not sure how you replace it. I suppose you go with the NFL's model and base it purely on record. How do you prevent one or more teams from blatantly tanking when there is a franchise player coming out of college? Doesn't impact the NFL as much because of the number of players critical to a team. But in the NBA, one player can make a huge difference.

[wolves_89]

Charlotte getting MKG instead of Davis is the worst to my memory. The fact that a team with the worst winning percentage in NBA HISTORY gets the #2 pick is beyond me. Not to mention their window just got pushed back even further because MKG is obviously not as good as Davis.

Personally, the lottery sucks and needs to go away.

I would probably rate Vancouver moving from 1 to 4 in 1997 (and losing Tim Duncan) and Minnesota moving from 1 to 3 in 1992 (and losing Shaquille O'Neal) as being worse. Both Duncan and O'Neal were considered to be among the best talents of their generation when they were drafted (and both turned into Hall of Fame players).

[statsman]

Nah people would throw too many games.

That's usually my thought on this. But as we have seen, teams with awful records still get screwed in the draft lottery.

Just put the action live, and not behind closed doors.

At a minimum, this would at least eliminate the conspiracy theories. But under the current system, it doesn't alleviate the fact that the worst team has higher odds of getting a #4 pick than a #1 pick.

[wolves_89]

Nah people would throw too many games.

That's usually my thought on this. But as we have seen, teams with awful records still get screwed in the draft lottery.

Just put the action live, and not behind closed doors.

At a minimum, this would at least eliminate the conspiracy theories. But under the current system, it doesn't alleviate the fact that the worst team has higher odds of getting a #4 pick than a #1 pick.

It seems like it would improve the lottery if past results had some weighting on future lotteries. For example, teams that move up due to the lottery would have some modest decrease in future lottery odds, while teams who end up moving down would get some small increase to their odds in the future. That way bad teams that get screwed year after year in the lottery would hopefully have their luck even out over a stretch of years.

[AQuintus]

Nah people would throw too many games.

Who cares? If a team wants to throw games, and lose millions of dollars in ticket sales doing so, they should be able to.

Also, it's not like it isn't happening anyway. The term "tanking for draft picks" exists in the current NBA for a reason.

[SaveOurBullets]

Nah people would throw too many games.

Who cares? If a team wants to throw games, and lose millions of dollars in ticket sales doing so, they should be able to.

Also, it's not like it isn't happening anyway. The term "tanking for draft picks" exists in the current NBA for a reason.

Then imagine how much worse it would be if teams knew they could guarantee themselves the next once in a generation prospect. It's an affront to the integrity of the game.

[Sofia]

Can someone who can be bothered to figure it out post the odds of getting 4th from 1st? Surely the chance of dropping 3 spots in less than 25%?