2026 First Round Pick Armageddon

[Zonkerbl]

I'd say the best player is taken in the top 3 about half the time. & more often at 3, I'd bet, than at 1.

Studies have shown that the number one overall has the greatest chance of being a Hall of Famer....

The main problem with all this stuff is that the metrics are not really "objective" in any strict sense.

What happens, for example, when you look at HOF as the phenomenon to be explained rather than as the explanatory metric: what % of HOF players were drafted #1, for example?

...There’s a weird bump at number five that also seems to be strong. But obviously that doesn’t carry over from year to year, just a relic of who was selected at five.

All of this is a "relic" (i.e. a graph) of who was selected when. Moreover, the minute you break scale things start to fall apart.

To take a random example, consider the '08 draft. When you see Michael Beasley, O.J. Mayo, Joe Alexander, Jerryd Bayless, Jason Thompson, Brandon Rush & Anthony Thompson all lottery picks, while Ryan Anderson, Serge Ibaka & Nic Batum are at the bottom of R1, not to mention DeAndre Jordan & Goran Dragic down in R2, you understand that a simple formula like pick position does not suffice to explain anything.

Of course, in general, better players are taken near the top than near the bottom -- it'd be a weird world in which that were not true in some general sense.

But that fact has no significant impact on any particular set of outcomes. It didn't help Anthony Bennett succeed to take a single example -- & of course the real problem is not the "single example" but the colossal number of "exceptions" to any so-called rule.

You still want a higher pick rather than a lower one. Just as you don't want the waiter to tell you they're out of the dish you'd like for dinner. Not even if the one still available is better.

I eyeballed the top 3 picks for the last 20 years, it's a numbers game. #1 has, like, a 15% chance of being a hall of famer, 25% chance of being a starter on a championship contender, 25% chance of being decent(think Kwame Brown), and a 35% chance of being driven out of the league due to injuries or being a bust. The probabilities shift a little, but not a lot, for the second and 3rd pick. It's a crap shoot.

[doclinkin]

I doubt the draft is purely random. What i would do (as commush) is run the lotto several times and make sure I'm ok with the result. If I wanted to discourage tanking I'd make sure someone outside the worst 5 gets a top 3 each year.

That only means more teams will be tanking. As there’s reward for the middling teams to get in the mix instead of the dubious benefit of being in the play in games with little chance of advancing.

That’s part of the problem now. When teams like Dallas can suddenly jump into the top, it looks more palatable for a team to miss out on a last month playoff push because there’s a chance that they will get rewarded. There’s a far stronger chance that one of the many non-terrible teams jumps into the top four spot then there is for the worst teams to land at #1.

I do like the wrinkle that play in teams get to still be in the lottery. That may work to our benefit when we finally are decent.

[dobrojim]

What I liked about the system I proposed was that the
most you could drop was 3 places. The picks are selected beginning with the last pick in the lottery.
After a team is picked, the chances for the remaining (teams)
increases. And another team is added to the remaining
teams. The chances of being taken increase each round.
The potential for negative movement is never more
than 2 places.

[closg00]

The next tank-off game is not until Tuesday, Mavs vs Nets.

[nate33]

Tanking update:

After a glorious loss to Utah, we are firmly in 4th-to-last place. New Orleans has won 7 of their last 11 and has risen above the dregs of the league and no longer appear to be a factor in the tanking race. It's down to Sacramento (14 wins), Brooklyn and Indiana (15 wins), Washington (16 wins), then there's a gap before we get to Utah (19 wins), New Orleans (20 wins) and Dallas (21 wins).

A couple of things I'm keeping my eye on:

New Orleans being half-decent has taken some pressure off of Utah to tank. I think Utah is content to be 5th-to-last, knowing it will be real hard to make up ground on the bottom 4. 5th-to-last gives them a 99.4% chance of keeping their pick. Watch out for Dallas though. They've lost 15 of their last 17 and may start putting pressure on Utah. Hopefully, with Flagg back from injury, they can win a couple more games.

Phoenix is not a lock to make the playoffs. Brooks is likely out for the season and Mark Williams just hurt his foot after somehow playing 56 of the first 60 games of the season. They're the 7th seed now, but could easily lose the play-in tournament against GSW, LAC and POR. They probably won't fall further than the 8th seed, but the key is for them to finish with a worse record than the two losers of the East play-in bracket. If things break right in the play-in tournament, Phoenix misses the playoffs, and the two East teams that lose the East play-in have a better record than Phoenix. That would put Phoenix in 12th-to-last place and give them a 7.2% chance of a top 4 pick - which would swap to us.

The Wizards have the 3rd hardest remaining strength of schedule. (Dallas and Minnesota are 1st and 2nd.) Sacramento has the 3rd easiest remaining schedule. Brooklyn has the 6th easiest. Indiana has the 9th hardest.

[doclinkin]

Moved from the Jazz game thread:

Treating the lottery like a random mathematical occurrence is not how this works....
Go look at the results....
Stop quoting me how the percentages read out, and look at the end results.....
The draft lottery is not random and it's some foolishness going on behind closed doors....
If it was truly random I'd agree with your sentiment, but we all know this thing is rigged.....

All the more reason to game the system and eliminate chance. So even if the system awards someone else, we have a safety net. That’s been the point of this front offices strategy. Stack the odds to get as many swings at the piñata as possible. And do everything you can to dodge the worst case scenario.

Never know. One of these days we might get the benefit of the rigging. Though I’d say John Wall counts. Kid with home town ties comes to DC. Nice story.

If it was rigged I’d say the thing I think that works in our favor is the Trae and AD redemption story. So it’s not just that we successfully tanked, but that we are the good guys who look out for NBA all stars. Like a wildlife rescue agency for wounded superstars. That way If we win it’s not because we were rewarded for mocking the system (as the Jazz do) but we “did it the right way”.

That way the story is we built a foundation of youth and put a series of good mentors around them to train them up. Valanciunas. Smart. Middleton. McCollum. Then upgraded those stars with down on their luck veterans who can come in and lead the young heroes. Teach them what it’s like to finally win a bit. Trae. AD. The wounded warriors who just need a cause to believe in.

Then we land a hero we land in the draft.

Who has a better story in the East? I mean, the Nets have the biggest market of course. The Hawks are poised to break out. But the Wiz as scrappy underdogs who finally start winning does have a good look to it.

Competing narratives though:

All American Flagg gets a running buddy. Three Texas teams will battle for control of the future. Except does the NBA want to reward perpetual gadfly Cuban?

Last year’s breakout star Halliburton gets a partner in crime. Rewarding Indiana for never tanking. Except they are tanking this year.

I’m biased but I think we’ve got the best story. We lose with dignity. Not because we are lying about being terrible, but just because even at full strength we are playing the JV team against the state champs night after night. Until we get a real star. And two grizzled vets to carry us to victory.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Heartening words perhaps.

That said, as anyone who has studied probability knows,
assuming each draw is an independent event, past
results don't influence future events. 5 coin flips to
heads doesn't change the probability of the 6th flip.

But you knew that.

Maybe I am terrible at statistics, but the chances of landing heads 5 times is (1/2)**5=1/32.

A sixth xonsecutive heads would be ((1/2)**6=1/64.

The chances of that not happening are 63/64.

After that fifth heads, I would bet someone else's farm on tails.

Pulling upon my high school math days, I believe the odds of getting heads six times in a row are one-in-sixty-four BEFORE you flip your first flip. After already getting heads five times in a row, the sixth flip has 50-50 odds irrespective of the five (or however else many) flips that previously resulted.

Only a witch, a warlock, or a leprechaun can flip six heads in a row.

[doclinkin]

What about a Wizard?

[doclinkin]

Frankly, I would wear Washington Warlocks gear.

And why is our WNBA team not the Witches?

[nate33]

Moved from the Jazz game thread:

Treating the lottery like a random mathematical occurrence is not how this works....
Go look at the results....
Stop quoting me how the percentages read out, and look at the end results.....
The draft lottery is not random and it's some foolishness going on behind closed doors....
If it was truly random I'd agree with your sentiment, but we all know this thing is rigged.....

All the more reason to game the system and eliminate chance. So even if the system awards someone else, we have a safety net. That’s been the point of this front offices strategy. Stack the odds to get as many swings at the piñata as possible. And do everything you can to dodge the worst case scenario.

Never know. One of these days we might get the benefit of the rigging. Though I’d say John Wall counts. Kid with home town ties comes to DC. Nice story.

If it was rigged I’d say the thing I think that works in our favor is the Trae and AD redemption story. So it’s not just that we successfully tanked, but that we are the good guys who look out for NBA all stars. Like a wildlife rescue agency for wounded superstars. That way If we win it’s not because we were rewarded for mocking the system (as the Jazz do) but we “did it the right way”.

That way the story is we built a foundation of youth and put a series of good mentors around them to train them up. Valanciunas. Smart. Middleton. McCollum. Then upgraded those stars with down on their luck veterans who can come in and lead the young heroes. Teach them what it’s like to finally win a bit. Trae. AD. The wounded warriors who just need a cause to believe in.

Then we land a hero we land in the draft.

Who has a better story in the East? I mean, the Nets have the biggest market of course. The Hawks are poised to break out. But the Wiz as scrappy underdogs who finally start winning does have a good look to it.

Competing narratives though:

All American Flagg gets a running buddy. Three Texas teams will battle for control of the future. Except does the NBA want to reward perpetual gadfly Cuban?

Last year’s breakout star Halliburton gets a partner in crime. Rewarding Indiana for never tanking. Except they are tanking this year.

I’m biased but I think we’ve got the best story. We lose with dignity. Not because we are lying about being terrible, but just because even at full strength we are playing the JV team against the state champs night after night. Until we get a real star. And two grizzled vets to carry us to victory.

I don't think the lottery is rigged every year. I think, more often than not, it's legit. I do think they step in on occasion. They rigged the Ewing lottery for New York for sure. And you'll never convince me they didn't rig the Cooper Flagg lottery to compensate Dallas for agreeing to ship Luka to the Lakers. And they probably rigged the Wemby lottery for San Antonio.

I don't think they'll rig it this year, but if they do rig anything, I think they'll try and punish the shameless tankers. I would put Utah and Indiana in that group. Perhaps we are in that group too. I'd like to think we are tanking more organically, but obviously I'm biased.

[JWizmentality]

I predicted LeBron to Cleveland, Wemby to San Antonio, John Wall to Us. I even said Flagg to Dallas but I didn't think it would be that brazen given Dallas odds. But Silver did it anyway. That's not random. After Wemby to San Antonio, nobody should belive this is random. To nate's point, not every year but when there's generational talent on the line. For sure. This draft is deep so they might leave well enough alone.

[pcbothwel]

Moved from the Jazz game thread:

All the more reason to game the system and eliminate chance. So even if the system awards someone else, we have a safety net. That’s been the point of this front offices strategy. Stack the odds to get as many swings at the piñata as possible. And do everything you can to dodge the worst case scenario.

Never know. One of these days we might get the benefit of the rigging. Though I’d say John Wall counts. Kid with home town ties comes to DC. Nice story.

If it was rigged I’d say the thing I think that works in our favor is the Trae and AD redemption story. So it’s not just that we successfully tanked, but that we are the good guys who look out for NBA all stars. Like a wildlife rescue agency for wounded superstars. That way If we win it’s not because we were rewarded for mocking the system (as the Jazz do) but we “did it the right way”.

That way the story is we built a foundation of youth and put a series of good mentors around them to train them up. Valanciunas. Smart. Middleton. McCollum. Then upgraded those stars with down on their luck veterans who can come in and lead the young heroes. Teach them what it’s like to finally win a bit. Trae. AD. The wounded warriors who just need a cause to believe in.

Then we land a hero we land in the draft.

Who has a better story in the East? I mean, the Nets have the biggest market of course. The Hawks are poised to break out. But the Wiz as scrappy underdogs who finally start winning does have a good look to it.

Competing narratives though:

All American Flagg gets a running buddy. Three Texas teams will battle for control of the future. Except does the NBA want to reward perpetual gadfly Cuban?

Last year’s breakout star Halliburton gets a partner in crime. Rewarding Indiana for never tanking. Except they are tanking this year.

I’m biased but I think we’ve got the best story. We lose with dignity. Not because we are lying about being terrible, but just because even at full strength we are playing the JV team against the state champs night after night. Until we get a real star. And two grizzled vets to carry us to victory.

I don't think the lottery is rigged every year. I think, more often than not, it's legit. I do think they step in on occasion. They rigged the Ewing lottery for New York for sure. And you'll never convince me they didn't rig the Cooper Flagg lottery to compensate Dallas for agreeing to ship Luka to the Lakers. And they probably rigged the Wemby lottery for San Antonio.

I don't think they'll rig it this year, but if they do rig anything, I think they'll try and punish the shameless tankers. I would put Utah and Indiana in that group. Perhaps we are in that group too. I'd like to think we are tanking more organically, but obviously I'm biased.

Nate, I have a really hard time believeing it was rigged...HOWEVER... People have run this chained probability analysis and its not a good look.
Take last year in 2025 and forget the specific teams, and even the specific spots.
Do you know the odds of a team picking 11th (1.8%) or worse (Teams picking 11-14) to get the 1st pick? ~3% for ANY of the 4, not just the Mavs.
Do you know the odds of a team picking 8th (6%) or worse (Teams picking 8-14) to get the 2nd pick? ~25% for ANY of the 7, not just SAS.
Then you follow that with the nominal jump by he 76ers, which is much higher at ~50%.

Im being very charitable with the sequencing, but it boils down to a 0.09% chance that teams picking in their spots, OR WORSE, would make the jump.
That is less that 1 in 1,000....
Sure Jan

[The Consiglieri]

Studies have shown that the number one overall has the greatest chance of being a Hall of Famer....

The main problem with all this stuff is that the metrics are not really "objective" in any strict sense.

What happens, for example, when you look at HOF as the phenomenon to be explained rather than as the explanatory metric: what % of HOF players were drafted #1, for example?

...There’s a weird bump at number five that also seems to be strong. But obviously that doesn’t carry over from year to year, just a relic of who was selected at five.

All of this is a "relic" (i.e. a graph) of who was selected when. Moreover, the minute you break scale things start to fall apart.

To take a random example, consider the '08 draft. When you see Michael Beasley, O.J. Mayo, Joe Alexander, Jerryd Bayless, Jason Thompson, Brandon Rush & Anthony Thompson all lottery picks, while Ryan Anderson, Serge Ibaka & Nic Batum are at the bottom of R1, not to mention DeAndre Jordan & Goran Dragic down in R2, you understand that a simple formula like pick position does not suffice to explain anything.

Of course, in general, better players are taken near the top than near the bottom -- it'd be a weird world in which that were not true in some general sense.

But that fact has no significant impact on any particular set of outcomes. It didn't help Anthony Bennett succeed to take a single example -- & of course the real problem is not the "single example" but the colossal number of "exceptions" to any so-called rule.

You still want a higher pick rather than a lower one. Just as you don't want the waiter to tell you they're out of the dish you'd like for dinner. Not even if the one still available is better.

I eyeballed the top 3 picks for the last 20 years, it's a numbers game. #1 has, like, a 15% chance of being a hall of famer, 25% chance of being a starter on a championship contender, 25% chance of being decent(think Kwame Brown), and a 35% chance of being driven out of the league due to injuries or being a bust. The probabilities shift a little, but not a lot, for the second and 3rd pick. It's a crap shoot.

I would love to see the consensus grades on the blue chip zones+top 10's of classes regarded as strong over the years, and see hit rates in that criteria, it wouldn't shock me at all, if it's better, it usually is. A bunch of QB's still went higher than they should have for instance in the '22 QB class, but considering the class was much ridiculed at the time for being the worst QB class since 2014, the hit rate was ghastly, as had been projected.

Not all classes are the same, I use the NFL more, simply because I have better recall for it. As an example, the '12, '17, '18, '20, '21 '23, and '24 QB classes were regarded as strong to very strong in the year before and the year of selection. All of those classes ended up reasonably strong with minor caveats (RGIII and Watson were never the same after a mix of injuries, and off field issues, so '12 and '17 looked much stronger early on than they do today, and '21 has bounced around a lot based on the fortunes of Lawrence and Jones but is generally regarded as a disappointment versus expectations). Meanwhile the '13, '14, '19, '22, and '25 QB classes were all regarded as garbage the past dozen years, and the league was correct across the board on all of them.

It wouldn't shock me at all if the NBA is similar, hit rates are stronger in good years, weaker in disaster class years like say '00, or '13, or '20 (emerging as a PIF dream class where nearly all the hits are outside the blue chip zone), or '24. When I look back in general going back to the early nineties, it definitely seems like it. The bad classes that I can remember, or more mid classes ('97, '00-'01, '06, '09, '13, '20, '24) if memory serves, were rightly called, and most of the strong classes were as well. Again, wouldn't surprise me at all if the hit rates, when league circles perceive strength, are just better, because in my experience, while all classes include misses where hits were expected up top, and hits, where nobody knew a superstar was hidden, I think the general class grades have been pretty quite on point.

[The Consiglieri]

Tanking update:

After a glorious loss to Utah, we are firmly in 4th-to-last place. New Orleans has won 7 of their last 11 and has risen above the dregs of the league and no longer appear to be a factor in the tanking race. It's down to Sacramento (14 wins), Brooklyn and Indiana (15 wins), Washington (16 wins), then there's a gap before we get to Utah (19 wins), New Orleans (20 wins) and Dallas (21 wins).

A couple of things I'm keeping my eye on:

New Orleans being half-decent has taken some pressure off of Utah to tank. I think Utah is content to be 5th-to-last, knowing it will be real hard to make up ground on the bottom 4. 5th-to-last gives them a 99.4% chance of keeping their pick. Watch out for Dallas though. They've lost 15 of their last 17 and may start putting pressure on Utah. Hopefully, with Flagg back from injury, they can win a couple more games.

Phoenix is not a lock to make the playoffs. Brooks is likely out for the season and Mark Williams just hurt his foot after somehow playing 56 of the first 60 games of the season. They're the 7th seed now, but could easily lose the play-in tournament against GSW, LAC and POR. They probably won't fall further than the 8th seed, but the key is for them to finish with a worse record than the two losers of the East play-in bracket. If things break right in the play-in tournament, Phoenix misses the playoffs, and the two East teams that lose the East play-in have a better record than Phoenix. That would put Phoenix in 12th-to-last place and give them a 7.2% chance of a top 4 pick - which would swap to us.

The Wizards have the 3rd hardest remaining strength of schedule. (Dallas and Minnesota are 1st and 2nd.) Sacramento has the 3rd easiest remaining schedule. Brooklyn has the 6th easiest. Indiana has the 9th hardest.

Great breakdown. I did a looksie at the worst teams a few days ago, and gave us the 2nd easiest remaining schedule behind Sac (I considered eyeballing Dallas but decided not to, that could be foolish). The big problem facing us climbing to 1st to 3rd worst territory is how hard the remaining schedule is for Indiana and Brooklyn, they have very few games left against the dregs and nearly all of them are road games. Oddly, Sac is probably easier to catch, than Indiana or Brooklyn.

The George injury helps a lot for the tank, and with the lost to Utah, we now only have 5 games left against dregs....so its looking better and better that our pick will indeed be 100% protected and the focus pretty soon, good luck continuing for the tank, can be on climbing to 3rd or 2nd worst.

I agree with the Suns as well, the big problems there are #1 they generated SO MANY damn wins October-February, that it may just be too late PLUS the rest of their schedule is reasonable, they probably have at worst 40-42 wins, last time I checked by season end, and the other piece of bad news would be the tanking moves that have happened for the Clippers and Warriors since....the Warriors are just massively injury riddled, losing their best two players, Clippers traded someone, I forget who, the Trailblazers aren't trying to lose, but they also aren't good (one of the points i consistently made about not liking the Deni trade but being okay with it to some extent, was simply the Trailblazers situation, which would probably have been the wizards, maxing out as a 35-40 win team unless lottery luck happened)....

So, I think if the Warriors hadn't sustained injuries to Butler and Steph, and if the Clippers hadn't been so wishy washy and if Portland was a bit better, I think the Suns tumbling into the lottery would have been likely, even w/a hot start, but with the hot start, plus largely every team in the playing alongside of them having bad luck? It's still probably not going to happen, but it's possible, which is a lot better than it looked New years, when the Suns won about 4 games more than I projected in December.

[nate33]

Tanking update:

After a glorious loss to Utah, we are firmly in 4th-to-last place. New Orleans has won 7 of their last 11 and has risen above the dregs of the league and no longer appear to be a factor in the tanking race. It's down to Sacramento (14 wins), Brooklyn and Indiana (15 wins), Washington (16 wins), then there's a gap before we get to Utah (19 wins), New Orleans (20 wins) and Dallas (21 wins).

A couple of things I'm keeping my eye on:

New Orleans being half-decent has taken some pressure off of Utah to tank. I think Utah is content to be 5th-to-last, knowing it will be real hard to make up ground on the bottom 4. 5th-to-last gives them a 99.4% chance of keeping their pick. Watch out for Dallas though. They've lost 15 of their last 17 and may start putting pressure on Utah. Hopefully, with Flagg back from injury, they can win a couple more games.

Phoenix is not a lock to make the playoffs. Brooks is likely out for the season and Mark Williams just hurt his foot after somehow playing 56 of the first 60 games of the season. They're the 7th seed now, but could easily lose the play-in tournament against GSW, LAC and POR. They probably won't fall further than the 8th seed, but the key is for them to finish with a worse record than the two losers of the East play-in bracket. If things break right in the play-in tournament, Phoenix misses the playoffs, and the two East teams that lose the East play-in have a better record than Phoenix. That would put Phoenix in 12th-to-last place and give them a 7.2% chance of a top 4 pick - which would swap to us.

The Wizards have the 3rd hardest remaining strength of schedule. (Dallas and Minnesota are 1st and 2nd.) Sacramento has the 3rd easiest remaining schedule. Brooklyn has the 6th easiest. Indiana has the 9th hardest.

Great breakdown. I did a looksie at the worst teams a few days ago, and gave us the 2nd easiest remaining schedule behind Sac (I considered eyeballing Dallas but decided not to, that could be foolish). The big problem facing us climbing to 1st to 3rd worst territory is how hard the remaining schedule is for Indiana and Brooklyn, they have very few games left against the dregs and nearly all of them are road games. Oddly, Sac is probably easier to catch, than Indiana or Brooklyn.

The George injury helps a lot for the tank, and with the lost to Utah, we now only have 5 games left against dregs....so its looking better and better that our pick will indeed be 100% protected and the focus pretty soon, good luck continuing for the tank, can be on climbing to 3rd or 2nd worst.

I agree with the Suns as well, the big problems there are #1 they generated SO MANY damn wins October-February, that it may just be too late PLUS the rest of their schedule is reasonable, they probably have at worst 40-42 wins, last time I checked by season end, and the other piece of bad news would be the tanking moves that have happened for the Clippers and Warriors since....the Warriors are just massively injury riddled, losing their best two players, Clippers traded someone, I forget who, the Trailblazers aren't trying to lose, but they also aren't good (one of the points i consistently made about not liking the Deni trade but being okay with it to some extent, was simply the Trailblazers situation, which would probably have been the wizards, maxing out as a 35-40 win team unless lottery luck happened)....

So, I think if the Warriors hadn't sustained injuries to Butler and Steph, and if the Clippers hadn't been so wishy washy and if Portland was a bit better, I think the Suns tumbling into the lottery would have been likely, even w/a hot start, but with the hot start, plus largely every team in the playing alongside of them having bad luck? It's still probably not going to happen, but it's possible, which is a lot better than it looked New years, when the Suns won about 4 games more than I projected in December.

Yeah, I don't really think the Suns are going to be caught by Golden State, LAC, or Portland, but they still have to win the play in tournament to make the playoffs. If the Suns are without Brooks and maybe Williams, they could very well lose those 2 games.

Then it's just a matter of their record being worse than the East play-in losers. And right now, those potential East losers are: Orlando, Miami, Charlotte, and Atlanta with 34, 35, 32 and 32 wins respectively. (Phoenix has 35 wins.)

[dobrojim]

Re the Suns

low probability event for sure but assuming they end up a play-in team, they are on the knife edge of ending
in the lotto. So if lightning strikes, the pick swap could be in play. But like I said, low probability event.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

What about a Wizard?

You're on fire, doc!

Lol

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Frankly, I would wear Washington Warlocks gear.

And why is our WNBA team not the Witches?

Me, too. We could have a warlock on the front on a new slogan on the back:

"Get that Washington Warlocks Mojo!"

[The Consiglieri]

Moved from the Jazz game thread:



Competing narratives though:

All American Flagg gets a running buddy. Three Texas teams will battle for control of the future. Except does the NBA want to reward perpetual gadfly Cuban?

Last year’s breakout star Halliburton gets a partner in crime. Rewarding Indiana for never tanking. Except they are tanking this year.

I’m biased but I think we’ve got the best story. We lose with dignity. Not because we are lying about being terrible, but just because even at full strength we are playing the JV team against the state champs night after night. Until we get a real star. And two grizzled vets to carry us to victory.

I don't think the lottery is rigged every year. I think, more often than not, it's legit. I do think they step in on occasion. They rigged the Ewing lottery for New York for sure. And you'll never convince me they didn't rig the Cooper Flagg lottery to compensate Dallas for agreeing to ship Luka to the Lakers. And they probably rigged the Wemby lottery for San Antonio.

I don't think they'll rig it this year, but if they do rig anything, I think they'll try and punish the shameless tankers. I would put Utah and Indiana in that group. Perhaps we are in that group too. I'd like to think we are tanking more organically, but obviously I'm biased.

Nate, I have a really hard time believeing it was rigged...HOWEVER... People have run this chained probability analysis and its not a good look.
Take last year in 2025 and forget the specific teams, and even the specific spots.
Do you know the odds of a team picking 11th (1.8%) or worse (Teams picking 11-14) to get the 1st pick? ~3% for ANY of the 4, not just the Mavs.
Do you know the odds of a team picking 8th (6%) or worse (Teams picking 8-14) to get the 2nd pick? ~25% for ANY of the 7, not just SAS.
Then you follow that with the nominal jump by he 76ers, which is much higher at ~50%.

Im being very charitable with the sequencing, but it boils down to a 0.09% chance that teams picking in their spots, OR WORSE, would make the jump.
That is less that 1 in 1,000....
Sure Jan

Yep, so many people last years lottery read like Bots: just referring to us, "it's rigged," contingent as nutters basically, and I half understood it. In this day and age how do you keep something so utterly brazen, out of the press, and quiet. Otoh, this league has been as littered with cheating, and rigging and all manner of nonsense for more than 45 years. So much bull---- has gone down, including players caught gambling, refs caught gambling and the Knicks warm envelope etc. And we also know that the league basically is more distorted than any other league outside European soccer in terms of its willingness to abide the big clubs essentially consistently vacuuming up any elite talent that accidentally lands with the wrong franchise (see Orlando, Milwaukee and Giannis).....

Now add that the full climb up in '25, the odds of which were 1 in 1000, combined with how many freaking 1-3% chance type things happening since the inaugural lottery as well? If you scroll through every draft, just look at Cleveland alone and how suddenly Cleveland had all the luck on earth on every side of the LeBron Drafting-Departure+Return? But yeah, you can add the math from last year, supposedly 1 in 1000, and I think someone that looked at all the times some team totally beat the odds and snagged the 1 (I think collectively the odds of those ones, I think Penny Hardaway going to Shaq's team was an example) was like combined 1 in 12,000 or something.

The reality is, that while it's insane to imagine its happening, at least superficially, thinking about league pulling this nonsense, #1, this is absolutely the league that would do it, if any league would (where the league is built around players and a handful of franchises, unlike the NFL, or NHL, or MLB etc, where fandom is entirely team based), and secondly the math reality of it, last year, and all of wholistically, it's simply not credible. Possible? Technically yes? But probable? Hell, its more likely that we would have won an NBA title in '19 than anything of this happening, that the Jazz won the title last year than this happening. That's the problem to me. A miracle happening once or twice? Okay. A miracle, unlikely math scenario playing out over and over whenever the league needs it for marketing or to kill bad press, if memory serves from last year, like 7 or 8 timeas in 40 lotteries? Um, no, it's not believable, and the fact that an absolute ---- load of them were tailor made to pour water on bad NBA press, like the Mavs last year, Cleveland in both directions the previous decade, Orlando in the nineties, Cleveland itself landing LeBron in '03, NY and Ewing.....there's no way this is all up and up when you combine the math, with the storylines, it's obvious NBA meets hollywood horse ----.

[Zonkerbl]

Lol remember when they rolled out Juan Dixon to argue the players aren't taking steroids? Good times