Updated: Timberwolves Draft Lottery Odds....

[SlideRuleJockey]

The Timberwolves and Grizzlies ended up with identical records, and one will get the the three spot, and the other the four spot in the NBA Draft Lottery. I believe that will be decided later this month by a coin flip.

Updated: The Timberwolves won the coin flip with the Grizzlies and end up at the three slot.

Normally the three spot would get 156 Ping Pong Ball Combinations, and the four spot would get 119. Because of the tie, these will be split up with 138 to the three spot, and 137 to the four spot.

Here are the odds for the three and four spots this year:

3 Spot. Minnesota Timberwolves
Pick: Pick Odds:
Pick #1: 13.800000%
Pick #2: 14.244135%
Pick #3: 14.538395%
Pick #4: 23.824875%
Pick #5: 29.047518%
Pick #6: 4.545077%

4 Spot. Memphis Grizzlies
Pick: Pick Odds:
Pick #1: 13.700000%
Pick #2: 14.159333%
Pick #3: 14.476846%
Pick #4: 8.508151%
Pick #5: 32.326294%
Pick #6: 15.570531%
Pick #7: 1.258844%

Sticky?

[Devilzsidewalk]

I hope the Wolves get the 6th pick and draft Kevin Love

[revprodeji]

I should see if we can make all of Devil's posts in green.

[shrink]

Hey sliderule, let me ask you a question.

What are the odds that the coin flip matters, and they both miss out on a Top 3 pick?

For one team, its pretty simple, but I had problems regressing it too much. For example, If you know MIN doesn't win a Top 3 pick, the chance that MEM does is greater. You can quickly determine the odds neither wins the first pick. But I may be overthinking here, but when you move to pick two, it gets more complicated, because MIA has a greater chance of getting that first pick, and if so, that improves the Wolves and Grizz chance of getting the second pick. It stacks up twice as high for the third pick, when its far more likely MIA and SEA have picked the top two picks (in some order) and increase our odds, and less likely GSW and IND were the first two picks, decreasing the odds. That's 12 factorial combinations (assuming MIN and MEM don't win) each with their own odds.

I assume I'm overthinking it, and this can be simplified easily, but I'm rusty on probability theory. Do you know what the odds are that neither MIN nor MEM will get a top 3 pick?

[prefuse73]

Just to make sure I am reading the numbers correclty, whether we get the 3rd spot or the 4th spot, the highest probablility in either scenario is that we end up picking at #5. I am not sure I understand that logic. Shouldn't we have the best chance to stay at the spot 3 or 4 depending on the coin flip?

on a good note, it looks like our chances of getting in the top 2 does not change much whether we pick #3 or #4.

[deeney0]

Unless I've made an error, the coin flip only comes into play if neither Memphis nor the Wolves pick in the top three, so 1-.138-.1424-.1454-.137-.1416-.1448 = .1508. Problem with that number is that you just subtracted the chance that both teams move up -twice-, so you need to add that back in, which, if I did my math correctly, is 0.1802. (comes from (0.138+0.1424+0.1454)*(0.137+0.1416+0.1448)). So, add those together, you get a 33.1% chance the coin flip actually matter, which is larger than I thought it would be, so maybe I made an error somewhere.

[SlideRuleJockey]

Bump.

Opening post updated to reflect coin flip results.

[gjn19]

are these odds cummulative or not?

in other words: the odds to get pick#1 or pick#2 is 14% or 28%?

[deeney0]

Yes, it's cumulative, the odds of getting 1 or 2 is 28%.

[john2jer]

The good news from the coin flip is we can't drop to 7th. Which, knowing the Wolves, was likely to happen.