Race to the bottom: Who's our biggest competition?

[Manocad]

Both teams lost well it’s looking more likely we gone pick 6th

Considering the Rockets just moved a game closer to the Pistons and the other bottom five teams didn’t move, how do you figure that the odds of the Pistons picking 6th increased?

[buzzkilloton]

538 updated win projection time. These were just updated after the Rockets/Magic game fwiw.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2021-nba-predictions/

1. Rockets 19wins
2.Wolves 20wins
3.Magic 22wins
4.Thunder 23wins
5. Pistons 23wins
6. Cavs 25 wins

Its really going to go down to the wire. I really fear the Thunder lose every game despite the projections having them win a few.

[The Moose]

538 updated win projection time. These were just updated after the Rockets/Magic game fwiw.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2021-nba-predictions/

1. Rockets 19wins
2.Wolves 20wins
3.Magic 22wins
4.Thunder 23wins
5. Pistons 23wins
6. Cavs 25 wins

Its really going to go down to the wire. I really fear the Thunder lose every game despite the projections having them win a few.

This seems about right to me. But I also could see the thunder not winning 3 more ganes. I think we’ll finish 5th by ourself.
A loss against the Cavs will have huge impact on whether we could end up all the way at 6th

[NYPiston]

I'm even more certain now that they finish 5th and 6th isn't out of the realm of possibilities if they beat Cleveland tomorrow night. These were the games to win if Orlando and OKC were going to win if any. They're useless and Houston is only useful when it's designed to screw the Pistons.

[Snakebites]

Both teams lost well it’s looking more likely we gone pick 6th

Considering the Rockets just moved a game closer to the Pistons and the other bottom five teams didn’t move, how do you figure that the odds of the Pistons picking 6th increased?

I think 5th became more likely due to Orlando's loss to Houston. The chance of 6th is unchanged though.

Rockets wins don't matter anymore. They have a really tough schedule to close things out- they may or may not even get to our current win total (17) this season, and they certainly won't pass us.

[Manocad]

It would be a riot to see the Pistons finish with the 6th worst record then win the #1 pick after watching some people here scream “Failure! Weaver and Casey should have been fired!”

[Snakebites]

I still stand behind my thinking a few weeks ago that we finish with a worse record than Minnesota.

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They've performed at a pretty similar level to us since Towns came back, have 2 fewer wins than us, and a harder schedule to close it out.

So I'm not sure what the basis for this optimism is.

MF what's the basis of ANY optimism?

I'm a pretty tolerant mod who really doesn't play this card all that often (I think even people on these boards who don't like me much as a poster will generally agree on this point), but you'd do well to not call me this in the future. Thanks.

[ducler]

So both Thunder and Magic lost those winnable games and we're hosting Cavs tonight. Cavs have lost 7 of their last 10, we have lost only 6 of our last 10.

Sounds bad for us but Weaver has already done his part of the job with 7 players listed as out for the game.

Sekou Doumbouya (concussion protocol)
Jerami Grant (quad contusion)
Cory Joseph (bronchitis)
Mason Plumlee (rest)
Wayne Ellington (rest)
Dennis Smith Jr. (knee soreness)
Rodney McGruder (elbow sprain)

Our rotation should be the following:
C: Stewart/Okafor
PF: Bey/Cook
SF: J. Jackson/Sirvydis
SG: F. Jackson/Diallo
PG: Hayes/Lee

For the moment, only 3 players are listed as out for the Cavs : Nance, Windler and Dotson.

Their rotation should be the following:
C: Allen/Hartenstein
PF: Love/Wade
SF: Okoro/Prince
SG: Sexton/Osman
PG: Garland/Dellavedova

Should be a fun game to watch! And preferably to lose for the Pistons...

This game is the 4th out of our crucial 5 stretch composed of winnable games (OKC, CLE) and games against teams on B2B who have the habit of resting people (LAC, WAS, DAL). We are currently 1-2 in that stretch, finishing 1-4 could very well help us.
Then 11 out of our 13 remaining games will be against Playoffs or Play-in teams. The 2 others will be the last crucial ones (vs ORL and vs MIN). The Magic game in particular must be a lose.

[Pharaoh]

Anyone got the link for the Lotto odds?

Cause from memory there ain't much difference between finishing with the 3rd, 4th or 5th worst record.

It was always going to come down to Lottery luck - regardless of if we finished worst or 5th worst.


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[ducler]

Anyone got the link for the Lotto odds?

Cause from memory there ain't much difference between finishing with the 3rd, 4th or 5th worst record.

It was always going to come down to Lottery luck - regardless of if we finished worst or 5th worst.


Sent from my SM-G781B using RealGM mobile app

There it is: http://www.tankathon.com/pick_odds

[Pharaoh]

Anyone got the link for the Lotto odds?

Cause from memory there ain't much difference between finishing with the 3rd, 4th or 5th worst record.

It was always going to come down to Lottery luck - regardless of if we finished worst or 5th worst.


Sent from my SM-G781B using RealGM mobile app

There it is: http://www.tankathon.com/pick_odds

Thank you.



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[ducler]

Anyone got the link for the Lotto odds?

Cause from memory there ain't much difference between finishing with the 3rd, 4th or 5th worst record.

It was always going to come down to Lottery luck - regardless of if we finished worst or 5th worst.


Sent from my SM-G781B using RealGM mobile app

There it is: http://www.tankathon.com/pick_odds

Thank you.



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If we finish 4th or 5th worst, there's a big big risk we fall out of the top 5.

In this particular draft, we can't take the risk.

[Manocad]

There it is: http://www.tankathon.com/pick_odds

Thank you.



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If we finish 4th or 5th worst, there's a big big risk we fall out of the top 5.

In this particular draft, we can't take the risk.

And that's the part I don't get. It's like saying that if the Pistons don't get Cade, Suggs or Green all hope for building a championship team is lost. As I stated previously that's premature and short-sighted, especially considering where the team is already. If the Pistons finished with the worst record because Weaver's draft picks turned into so-so rookies who couldn't beat anyone, may or may not be around in a couple of years and they got Cade in the draft, are they better off in the grand scheme? I don't think so.

[Laimbeer]

Thank you.



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If we finish 4th or 5th worst, there's a big big risk we fall out of the top 5.

In this particular draft, we can't take the risk.

And that's the part I don't get. It's like saying that if the Pistons don't get Cade, Suggs or Green all hope for building a championship team is lost. As I stated previously that's premature and short-sighted, especially considering where the team is already. If the Pistons finished with the worst record because Weaver's draft picks turned into so-so rookies who couldn't beat anyone, may or may not be around in a couple of years and they got Cade in the draft, are they better off in the grand scheme? I don't think so.

You almost certainly need a superstar to be a serious title contender, and I'm pretty sure Bey or Stewart won't be that. In this market your best (only?) path is through the draft.

This raises an interesting hypothetical - if we land outside the top four, would we trade Bey and/or Stewart to move up? My guess is a team with a top four pick wouldn't do it.

[flow]

Anyone got the link for the Lotto odds?

Cause from memory there ain't much difference between finishing with the 3rd, 4th or 5th worst record.

It was always going to come down to Lottery luck - regardless of if we finished worst or 5th worst.


Sent from my SM-G781B using RealGM mobile app

1st Worst - 14% - 13.4% - 12.7% - 12.0% - 47.9%
2nd worst- 14% - 13.4% - 12.7% - 12.0% - 27.8%
3rd worst- 14% - 13.4% - 12.7% - 12.0% - 14.8%
4th worst- 12.5% - 12.2% - 11.9% - 11.5% - 7.2%
5th worst- 10.5% - 10.5% - 10.6% - 10.5% - 2.2%

.

[ducler]

Thank you.



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If we finish 4th or 5th worst, there's a big big risk we fall out of the top 5.

In this particular draft, we can't take the risk.

And that's the part I don't get. It's like saying that if the Pistons don't get Cade, Suggs or Green all hope for building a championship team is lost. As I stated previously that's premature and short-sighted, especially considering where the team is already. If the Pistons finished with the worst record because Weaver's draft picks turned into so-so rookies who couldn't beat anyone, may or may not be around in a couple of years and they got Cade in the draft, are they better off in the grand scheme? I don't think so.

I don't see it this way. I'm very confident with our roster going further. Isaiah, Saddiq and now Killian all look like good pieces to build on. We need to compliment them well to build a future force.

My point is, we stayed in the bottom 3 all season long while rookies have shown promises, we all know that the Draft is 4-deep, so it would be quite unfortunate to jump out of the top 3 in the last 20% of the season and increase our risk to pick 6th or 7th.

Even if we're currently better than a majority of tanking teams, picking top 4 in this Draft can only help our team growth. Plus, looking at the mock draft positions 5 to 9, most of the guys available are SF I don't see any of them better than Saddiq. Picking 1 to 4 guarantee us to have young promising player on a position not already occupied by one of our youngsters (I consider that Killian, Cade and Suggs can all play 1 or 2).

I just ran the lottery 10 times... 5, 6, 1, 5, 6, 6, 6, 2, 4, 5... Hope we'll be more lucky than that! (11th try was a 7 for the record)

[NYPiston]

Anyone got the link for the Lotto odds?

Cause from memory there ain't much difference between finishing with the 3rd, 4th or 5th worst record.

It was always going to come down to Lottery luck - regardless of if we finished worst or 5th worst.


Sent from my SM-G781B using RealGM mobile app

It's all about finishing in the top 5 as this is a top 5 draft then steep drop off so you want to finish as high as possible to mitigate the chances of dropping out of the top 5. Just like last season, finish 5th and the odds favor a drop out of the top 5.

For instance, the odds are 33% of dropping out of the top 5 if they finish 3rd, 43.7% if they finish 4th and 55.6% if they finish 5th.
Interestingly, if they finish 5th, the odds of finishing 1-4 are all relatively equal. 10.5% chance to finish 1, 2 or 4 and 10.6% chance to finish 3rd. Kind of weird how that 10.6 pops in there.

People are focused on the odds of winning the #1 pick but it's really important to stay in the top 5.

[DetroitSho]

They've performed at a pretty similar level to us since Towns came back, have 2 fewer wins than us, and a harder schedule to close it out.

So I'm not sure what the basis for this optimism is.

MF what's the basis of ANY optimism?

I'm a pretty tolerant mod who really doesn't play this card all that often (I think even people on these boards who don't like me much as a poster will generally agree on this point), but you'd do well to not call me this in the future. Thanks.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh whatever. Minny literally has to play at a pace of 1 whopping win greater than the Pistons outside of the game that they face each other, and of course win the game they play, and you're acting like I said we can win the championship.

It's totally doable and quite frankly it's kind of already happening. Will it? Maybe not. But since I said it before and nothing has changed to make it impossible, I'll stand by it until it's not possible. Feel free to not comment if what I'm saying is so absurd.

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[Manocad]

If we finish 4th or 5th worst, there's a big big risk we fall out of the top 5.

In this particular draft, we can't take the risk.

And that's the part I don't get. It's like saying that if the Pistons don't get Cade, Suggs or Green all hope for building a championship team is lost. As I stated previously that's premature and short-sighted, especially considering where the team is already. If the Pistons finished with the worst record because Weaver's draft picks turned into so-so rookies who couldn't beat anyone, may or may not be around in a couple of years and they got Cade in the draft, are they better off in the grand scheme? I don't think so.

You almost certainly need a superstar to be a serious title contender, and I'm pretty sure Bey or Stewart won't be that. In this market your best (only?) path is through the draft.

This raises an interesting hypothetical - if we land outside the top four, would we trade Bey and/or Stewart to move up? My guess is a team with a top four pick wouldn't do it.

I'm not saying a team doesn't need a superstar to win a championship and never did. Why people keep overlooking that it beyond me. My argument is that all is NOT lost if the Pistons don't draft 1-3 in THIS DRAFT, as if that's the only possibility of adding a superstar to this team, ever, because every superstar was drafted 1-3.

I will still argue that if the Pistons land another quality young player to go with the current roster, and next year the Pistons have a team that can win 45-50 games and make a decent playoff run with a bunch of kids under team control while having the cap space to sign a superstar, there will be an option available either via a trade or free agency. Especially if it's a player who's just hitting superstar status and is looking for that first max contract that his current team doesn't have cap space to offer, is disgruntled with his current situation, etc. No one will ever convince me that Detroit can't draw a superstar that wasn't drafted because "cold weather, the city sucks, blah blah blah." Detroit hasn't drawn a big free agent superstar because the team's OUTLOOK sucked. Now you're talking new arena which is once again a top notch facility, a chance at a championship (in this example), and money.

[Manocad]

Anyone got the link for the Lotto odds?

Cause from memory there ain't much difference between finishing with the 3rd, 4th or 5th worst record.

It was always going to come down to Lottery luck - regardless of if we finished worst or 5th worst.


Sent from my SM-G781B using RealGM mobile app

It's all about finishing in the top 5 as this is a top 5 draft then steep drop off so you want to finish as high as possible to mitigate the chances of dropping out of the top 5. Just like last season, finish 5th and the odds favor a drop out of the top 5.

For instance, the odds are 33% of dropping out of the top 5 if they finish 3rd, 43.7% if they finish 4th and 55.6% if they finish 5th.
Interestingly, if they finish 5th, the odds of finishing 1-4 are all relatively equal. 10.5% chance to finish 1, 2 or 4 and 10.6% chance to finish 3rd. Kind of weird how that 10.6 pops in there.

People are focused on the odds of winning the #1 pick but it's really important to stay in the top 5.

Yeah, that's where the odds are kinda effed up. There's actually a greater chance that the team that finishes 5th worst picks LOWER than 5th, same with the 6th spot. It's not until the 7th spot that the odds to pick lower than 7th than are lower than the odds to pick at or higher than 7th.