Draft Lottery 2025 Tonight @ 7pm TSN

[Quattro]

The silver lining in all this is it should dissuade teams from tanking.

I'm not sure why this would be the case. Would you rather be the Jazz, who tanked and didn't make the playoffs and ended up with the 5th pick, or the Raptors, who also tanked (not hard enough) and didn't make the playoffs and have the 9th pick?

And there's your answer to the dissuasion question.

The Raptors. Easily.

[raptorforlife88]

The silver lining in all this is it should dissuade teams from tanking.

I'm not sure why this would be the case. Would you rather be the Jazz, who tanked and didn't make the playoffs and ended up with the 5th pick, or the Raptors, who also tanked (not hard enough) and didn't make the playoffs and have the 9th pick?

And there's your answer to the dissuasion question.

I think it's fairly marginal. The Jazz will wind up with a decent prospect, but nothing surefire, and not what they were aiming at. They are not going to be tanking again unless they're trading Markannen who is significantly less tradeable now than he was. Markannen is not going to be sitting again, so this is their roster going forward.

They have some young talent, but nothing that you'd look at and think this player is going to be a star, or even this player is going to be as good as Brandon Ingram which is a bad sign. Cause Ingram is a solid player and not anyone who makes me think the Raptors are going to finish in the top 6 next year.

So it mostly seems like they've built a roster of younger players, lots of whom have looked very mediocre, some of whom could be an ok rotation piece, and maybe a couple of starters in there.

I don't think the difference in picks between 5 and 9 is so significant that you'd rather be the Jazz. I don't even think the Raptors are in a good situation, I just don't think there's much there for the Jazz now and they'll be picking in the 7th-12th range next year (unless they too get that lottery luck).

If you're asking me whether I'd rather have the Raptors top end of Barnes, Ingram, Quick, Poetl, RJ, along with the 9th plus Jakobe, Gradey etc. over the Jazz top end of Markkanen, Collins, Kessler, Sexton, George, plus the 5th and like Sensabaugh, Filipowski etc.. and likely no top 3 picks in the future for either team, I think I'm going to take the Raptors pretty easily. It's not as if the future Jazz picks they accumulated are significantly valuable with Doncic on LA, and Minny being good.

[DelAbbot]

I'm not sure why this would be the case. Would you rather be the Jazz, who tanked and didn't make the playoffs and ended up with the 5th pick, or the Raptors, who also tanked (not hard enough) and didn't make the playoffs and have the 9th pick?

And there's your answer to the dissuasion question.

If the outcome (worst team picks 5th, 7th worst picks 9th) was known and predetermined before the season, then I would say it's better to pick 9th because the cost of going from 7th worst to THE worst record is not worth the gain from 9th pick to 5th pick. It's exponentially harder to tank for THE worst.

But this single outcome doesn't represent the actual distribution of outcomes / probabilities of draft lottery. So I would support tanking as much as we can - which Masai did not do since our record at 8-31.

[NinjaBro]

Woke up this morning and I'm still pissed. So disgusted that I couldn't even drink my morning coffee.

[raptorforlife88]

I'm not sure why this would be the case. Would you rather be the Jazz, who tanked and didn't make the playoffs and ended up with the 5th pick, or the Raptors, who also tanked (not hard enough) and didn't make the playoffs and have the 9th pick?

And there's your answer to the dissuasion question.

If the outcome (worst team picks 5th, 7th worst picks 9th) was known and predetermined before the season, then I would say it's better to pick 9th because the cost of going from 7th worst to THE worst record is not worth the gain from 9th pick to 5th pick. It's exponentially harder to tank for THE worst.

But this single outcome doesn't represent the actual distribution of outcomes / probabilities of draft lottery. So I would support tanking as much as we can - which Masai did not do since our record at 8-31.

I think this is technically correct. The odds are the odds, and you're better of if you're finishing last, but then I do think it's also worth factoring in the percentage chance of dropping like Washington, Utah and New Orleans did and what that may require doing to your roster to ensure you finish in the bottom 3 or 4. Washington will be back again, but Utah is going to have both Markkanen and Collins (after picking up his player option and aiming for a new contract) wanting to play next year and not tank again.

If nothing else it feels better to see the results of it play out with Utah having lost their best chance of getting a more surefire prospect (unless the draft gods smile on them next year from a different slot).

[ATLTimekeeper]

I'm not sure why this would be the case. Would you rather be the Jazz, who tanked and didn't make the playoffs and ended up with the 5th pick, or the Raptors, who also tanked (not hard enough) and didn't make the playoffs and have the 9th pick?

And there's your answer to the dissuasion question.

If the outcome (worst team picks 5th, 7th worst picks 9th) was known and predetermined before the season, then I would say it's better to pick 9th because the cost of going from 7th worst to THE worst record is not worth the gain from 9th pick to 5th pick. It's exponentially harder to tank for THE worst.

But this single outcome doesn't represent the actual distribution of outcomes / probabilities of draft lottery. So I would support tanking as much as we can - which Masai did not do since our record at 8-31.

I think this is technically correct. The odds are the odds, and you're better of if you're finishing last, but then I do think it's also worth factoring in the percentage chance of dropping like Washington, Utah and New Orleans did and what that may require doing to your roster to ensure you finish in the bottom 3 or 4. Washington will be back again, but Utah is going to have both Markkanen and Collins (after picking up his player option and aiming for a new contract) wanting to play next year and not tank again.

If nothing else it feels better to see the results of it play out with Utah having lost their best chance of getting a more surefire prospect (unless the draft gods smile on them next year from a different slot).

When you look at success rates, the odds start to flatten significantly after #3. The relative gain in opportunity from 5 to 9 isn't significant.

[ontnut]

If we're going to talk statistics and probabilities, the math says there's a 0.012% chance that the top 3 picks played out the way they did. That's a 1 in 8,319 chance. The NBA lottery has been around for 40 years, so you'd have to repeat the entire history of the NBA lottery 200 times for this to ever happen again.

You have a 2-3x higher chance of getting a perfect SAT score (1 in 3,400).
If you played high school sports, the odds of you going pro or to the Olympics is 1 in 1,400, so 6x more likely than this top 3 lotto.
You're about 10x more likely to have been born with an extra finger or toe (1 in 500-1000).
You're also about 10x more likely to catch a foul ball at a random baseball game you attend.
Getting a hole in one is about a 1 in 12,500 chance.

We're talking about some prettttty low probabilities here.

The probability of any specific order of 3 teams, even if it was WAS, UTA, CHA or something like that, is extremely low

This.

Do people not understand statistics?

To work backwards and re-create a specific outcome is going to look like astronomically small odds when you start with a 1.8% chance winning.

That's the hard part, but it's a possibility. We only had what? 5x the chance (or 6% more). Would it be rigged if we won? Collectively there was a ~15% chance that we were getting jumped by at least two teams above us in the standings.

I understand statistics pretty well.

It's not just the 1.8% that was suprising, although it was. It's the 1.8% combined with the 6.3% for the Spurs leapfrogging in the same year (and then tack on PHI too). Esp in a year where there is a clear narrative for all 3 teams.

The odds for WAS/UTA/CHA in that order would've been 1 in 419. Which as you said, was an unlikely outcome from the start; however, it's still an order of magnitude 20x from what actually played out. That's an exceedingly rare event, and exactly why there are so many conspiracy theorists and fans alike challenging the results of the draft as rigged.

[ontnut]

The probability of any specific order of 3 teams, even if it was WAS, UTA, CHA or something like that, is extremely low

This.

Do people not understand statistics?

To work backwards and re-create a specific outcome is going to look like astronomically small odds when you start with a 1.8% chance winning.

That's the hard part, but it's a possibility. We only had what? 5x the chance (or 6% more). Would it be rigged if we won? Collectively there was a ~15% chance that we were getting jumped by at least two teams above us in the standings.

Do people not understand how billion dollar businesses work?

The probability of the order of 3 teams being anything like WAS, UTA, CHA was a BIG FAT ZERO, does not matter what the math tells you. Talk about math focused stats people missing the context again...

The post below put it perfectly.
viewtopic.php?p=118539730#p118539730

So you're just saying it's rigged and the odds don't matter, right?
I wouldn't put it past them and this year's results def look sus AF.

[PushDaRock]

I'm not sure why this would be the case. Would you rather be the Jazz, who tanked and didn't make the playoffs and ended up with the 5th pick, or the Raptors, who also tanked (not hard enough) and didn't make the playoffs and have the 9th pick?

And there's your answer to the dissuasion question.

If the outcome (worst team picks 5th, 7th worst picks 9th) was known and predetermined before the season, then I would say it's better to pick 9th because the cost of going from 7th worst to THE worst record is not worth the gain from 9th pick to 5th pick. It's exponentially harder to tank for THE worst.

But this single outcome doesn't represent the actual distribution of outcomes / probabilities of draft lottery. So I would support tanking as much as we can - which Masai did not do since our record at 8-31.

glad to have you on board team compete!!!

[PushDaRock]

Woke up this morning and I'm still pissed. So disgusted that I couldn't even drink my morning coffee.

Messing with your daily caffeine intake is unacceptable, someone must pay for this!!!

[Nebuchadnezzar]

There are a couple option for how tanking is not worth it here:

A.The odds are too flat now to risk gutting your team and losing as many games as possible. Washington, Charlotte, Utah.

B. You can say we should have lost more and been like Philly:
1. If we would have lost more substantially as a strategy, we would have most likely been below Philly and not got that spot
2. By this logic we should have won more, got into the play in and lost as the optimal outcome

C. If you believe the draft lottery is rigged, then we should have never tanked in the first place.

Game over forever TWO

[billy_hoyle]

The probability of any specific order of 3 teams, even if it was WAS, UTA, CHA or something like that, is extremely low

This.

Do people not understand statistics?

To work backwards and re-create a specific outcome is going to look like astronomically small odds when you start with a 1.8% chance winning.

That's the hard part, but it's a possibility. We only had what? 5x the chance (or 6% more). Would it be rigged if we won? Collectively there was a ~15% chance that we were getting jumped by at least two teams above us in the standings.

I understand statistics pretty well.

It's not just the 1.8% that was suprising, although it was. It's the 1.8% combined with the 6.3% for the Spurs leapfrogging in the same year (and then tack on PHI too). Esp in a year where there is a clear narrative for all 3 teams.

The odds for WAS/UTA/CHA in that order would've been 1 in 419. Which as you said, was an unlikely outcome from the start; however, it's still an order of magnitude 20x from what actually played out. That's an exceedingly rare event, and exactly why there are so many conspiracy theorists and fans alike challenging the results of the draft as rigged.

Isn't ~half of that 20x accounted for in the single 1.8% vs 14% win?

1.8 vs 14 is almost a order of magnitude larger.

There are 14 teams in the lottery, Philly had the 5th best chance at winning a spot, but that STILL makes the math look astronomical when you compare to the bottom 3 teams in the terms you're using.

What's the narrative for the Spurs?

They have two players Fox and Castle that overlap with Harpers skill set. Why would the Spurs be given that pick? What's the narrative there?

[PushDaRock]

This.

Do people not understand statistics?

To work backwards and re-create a specific outcome is going to look like astronomically small odds when you start with a 1.8% chance winning.

That's the hard part, but it's a possibility. We only had what? 5x the chance (or 6% more). Would it be rigged if we won? Collectively there was a ~15% chance that we were getting jumped by at least two teams above us in the standings.

I understand statistics pretty well.

It's not just the 1.8% that was suprising, although it was. It's the 1.8% combined with the 6.3% for the Spurs leapfrogging in the same year (and then tack on PHI too). Esp in a year where there is a clear narrative for all 3 teams.

The odds for WAS/UTA/CHA in that order would've been 1 in 419. Which as you said, was an unlikely outcome from the start; however, it's still an order of magnitude 20x from what actually played out. That's an exceedingly rare event, and exactly why there are so many conspiracy theorists and fans alike challenging the results of the draft as rigged.

Isn't ~half of that 20x accounted for in the single 1.8% vs 14% win?

1.8 vs 14 is almost a order of magnitude larger.

There are 14 teams in the lottery, Philly had the 5th best chance at winning a spot, but that STILL makes the math look astronomical when you compare to the bottom 3 teams in the terms you're using.

What's the narrative for the Spurs?

They have two players Fox and Castle that overlap with Harpers skill set. Why would the Spurs be given that pick? What's the narrative there?

Pairing Giannis with Wemby for the new Twin Towers

[SFour]

It's kind of funny how based on the reactions, people are acting like if we picked top 4, we were going to end up with a franchise talent but now that we pick 9th we will end up with a role player.

Quick look at the projected 1st team All-NBA and you would see Tatum 3rd pick, SGA 11th pick, Mitchell 13th pick, Giannis 15th pick, Jokic 41st pick.

Sure, everyone wants the highest pick possible but there's high end talent that will go anywhere in a draft, it's all a crap shoot.

You can also look at the Raptors core players, Ingram/RJ/Barnes were the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th pick.....the people that are in love with tanking are the same ones that will hate on these core players which were all top lotto picks.

[Potential]

The lesson is to avoid being one of the top 3 worst teams in the league. 3 years in a row the worst record got #5

[WuTang_CMB]

Watch on YouTube

[sidsid]

I'm not sure why this would be the case. Would you rather be the Jazz, who tanked and didn't make the playoffs and ended up with the 5th pick, or the Raptors, who also tanked (not hard enough) and didn't make the playoffs and have the 9th pick?

And there's your answer to the dissuasion question.

If the outcome (worst team picks 5th, 7th worst picks 9th) was known and predetermined before the season, then I would say it's better to pick 9th because the cost of going from 7th worst to THE worst record is not worth the gain from 9th pick to 5th pick. It's exponentially harder to tank for THE worst.

But this single outcome doesn't represent the actual distribution of outcomes / probabilities of draft lottery. So I would support tanking as much as we can - which Masai did not do since our record at 8-31.

I think this is technically correct. The odds are the odds, and you're better of if you're finishing last, but then I do think it's also worth factoring in the percentage chance of dropping like Washington, Utah and New Orleans did and what that may require doing to your roster to ensure you finish in the bottom 3 or 4. Washington will be back again, but Utah is going to have both Markkanen and Collins (after picking up his player option and aiming for a new contract) wanting to play next year and not tank again.

If nothing else it feels better to see the results of it play out with Utah having lost their best chance of getting a more surefire prospect (unless the draft gods smile on them next year from a different slot).

But we've had that discussion many times during this tank year on this board. We know what it would have taken to get lower: trading veterans, and doing it earlier. Will you get as much for Jak as you wanted? Maybe not, but you will get added assets regardless. Boucher won't be on this team because of salary commitments anyway. We shed the rest of the vets at the deadline.

Our situation is confusing because the FO 180s from a tanking asset accumulation stance to a talent gaining/asset sheading stance on a dime. Most teams, like the Jazz, are maximizing a patient, focused approach. The roster will only start to shift once they've also shifted their approach.

[causal_fan]

A conspiracy theorist might say that the NBA rewarded Dallas for sending Luka to the Lakers or since the last 2 lotteries have been won by play-in teams it's the NBA way of discouraging blatant tanking.

[Badonkadonk]

It's kind of funny how based on the reactions, people are acting like if we picked top 4, we were going to end up with a franchise talent but now that we pick 9th we will end up with a role player.

Quick look at the projected 1st team All-NBA and you would see Tatum 3rd pick, SGA 11th pick, Mitchell 13th pick, Giannis 15th pick, Jokic 41st pick.

Sure, everyone wants the highest pick possible but there's high end talent that will go anywhere in a draft, it's all a crap shoot.

You can also look at the Raptors core players, Ingram/RJ/Barnes were the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th pick.....the people that are in love with tanking are the same ones that will hate on these core players which were all top lotto picks.

No you don't understand, you need to stay perpetually bad until you hit on the *right* 2nd, 3rd and 4th picks, or a generational talent /s

[OhCanada]

I want to see Masai pick the best player in this draft at #9. Send a big **** you to Adam Silver.

But its not gonna happen because Cooper Flagg is the best player in this draft.

We don't know that.

Its not even close. Hasnt been for years. He's the best player in this draft, next draft, the year before this draft. He was supposed to be in next years class with Dybansta, Peterson, Boozer etc. and was the best in that class reclassified to this class a year younger and is still the best. Dallas gets him because Mark Cuban sold, they gave Luka to LA and this is how the NBA works.