How will the draft lottery shake out?

[Bensational]

And if Cade is the undisputed #1 pick then we’ve only decreased our odds by 4.3% in our drop down, from 15% to 9.7%. Stock markets aren’t built on an 85% chance of failure, gambling addictions are.

Our odds haven't decreased by 4.3% in this case. They have decreased by 30%. 4.2 is a huge chunk out of 14. Let me put it in terms one can personalize... suppose you have a job that pays you $50,000 per year, but management comes to you and tells you that they are slashing your salary to $35,000. This is what has happened to our odds. These numbers are changing by the day due to the results of games, but the idea is fairly straightforward. If we end up 6th, then our odds of winning the lottery will have declined by 36% from what they were when we had the 2nd-best odds.

What you are arguing is that this change is negligible when compared to the total amount of salary paid out to employees. One could take your argument further. If we make the playoffs, we only damage our odds of winning the Cade Cunningham sweepstakes by 14%! In reality, our odds of winning the lottery would have declined by 100%. We would have no chance of winning the lottery.

Right right I see what your saying. It’s just a very exaggerated way of looking at our odds because you’re looking at the percentage of a percentage. Whilst to us it’s a 30% decrease in chances, it’s still a lottery and that decrease is only worth 4-5%
overall. Same way if the Spurs somehow jumped from having a 1% chance to a 14% chance they’ve improved by 140% - which sounds impressive until you realise they still only have a 14% chance to win.

A lot of people keep talking like the standings are a hard reflection of the end results. Would you put a thousand dollar bet down that Houston wins the lottery? They’ve got 30% better chances than us, must be a sure thing right?

[Bensational]

Schrödinger’s cat experiment is just a simplified example of probabilistic quantum mechanics theories. It doesn’t only hold specifically to binary outcomes. The experiment can be expanded to larger systems through Wigner’s Friend.

Basically, the ‘system’ of the nba draft lottery still has too many variables to determine an answer with high certainty. We still have games to play, and the lottery to play out. The team’s result is in a superposition until the lottery is drawn.

So we are presently both winners of the draft and losers of the draft, the same way the cat is both alive and dead at the same time.

Orlando can draft , depending of final seeding from 1# to 8th . So there are 8 different outcomes.

Schrodinger's cat experiment has only 2 outcomes. Cat lives or cat dies.

Thinking about this again, where the Magic end up, 1-8 is still decided one pick at a time. We either win the 1st pick, or we don’t. Then we either win the 2nd pick, or we don’t.

So you can still make the comp in that regard, but you’re right that the comparison is still muddied since we don’t have even odds of each of those outcomes.

[thelead]

And if Cade is the undisputed #1 pick then we’ve only decreased our odds by 4.3% in our drop down, from 15% to 9.7%. Stock markets aren’t built on an 85% chance of failure, gambling addictions are.

Our odds haven't decreased by 4.3% in this case. They have decreased by 30%. 4.2 is a huge chunk out of 14. Let me put it in terms one can personalize... suppose you have a job that pays you $50,000 per year, but management comes to you and tells you that they are slashing your salary to $35,000. This is what has happened to our odds. These numbers are changing by the day due to the results of games, but the idea is fairly straightforward. If we end up 6th, then our odds of winning the lottery will have declined by 36% from what they were when we had the 2nd-best odds.

What you are arguing is that this change is negligible when compared to the total amount of salary paid out to employees. One could take your argument further. If we make the playoffs, we only damage our odds of winning the Cade Cunningham sweepstakes by 14%! In reality, our odds of winning the lottery would have declined by 100%. We would have no chance of winning the lottery.

Right right I see what your saying. It’s just a very exaggerated way of looking at our odds because you’re looking at the percentage of a percentage. Whilst to us it’s a 30% decrease in chances, it’s still a lottery and that decrease is only worth 4-5%
overall. Same way if the Spurs somehow jumped from having a 1% chance to a 14% chance they’ve improved by 140% - which sounds impressive until you realise they still only have a 14% chance to win.

A lot of people keep talking like the standings are a hard reflection of the end results. Would you put a thousand dollar bet down that Houston wins the lottery? They’ve got 30% better chances than us, must be a sure thing right?

I'm not sure how to help you understand percentages but we'll use the real life example of the NBA lotto. There are 1,000 combinations with 4 winning combinations (really it's 1,001 but let's just use the nice round number of 1,000).

When the Spurs increased their odds from 1% to 14%, they went from 10 lotto 'tickets' to 140... out of 1,000. That is VERY significant. How can going from 1% to 14% not viewed as impressive?

When we dropped from 15% to 9.7%, you say that it's 'only' a 5% drop but we went from holding 150 lotto tickets (out of 1,000), to 97. Again, that's pretty significant when there are only 1,000 combinations to begin with.

I'm just having a hard time understanding why this is hard to grasp.

[Bensational]

Our odds haven't decreased by 4.3% in this case. They have decreased by 30%. 4.2 is a huge chunk out of 14. Let me put it in terms one can personalize... suppose you have a job that pays you $50,000 per year, but management comes to you and tells you that they are slashing your salary to $35,000. This is what has happened to our odds. These numbers are changing by the day due to the results of games, but the idea is fairly straightforward. If we end up 6th, then our odds of winning the lottery will have declined by 36% from what they were when we had the 2nd-best odds.

What you are arguing is that this change is negligible when compared to the total amount of salary paid out to employees. One could take your argument further. If we make the playoffs, we only damage our odds of winning the Cade Cunningham sweepstakes by 14%! In reality, our odds of winning the lottery would have declined by 100%. We would have no chance of winning the lottery.

Right right I see what your saying. It’s just a very exaggerated way of looking at our odds because you’re looking at the percentage of a percentage. Whilst to us it’s a 30% decrease in chances, it’s still a lottery and that decrease is only worth 4-5%
overall. Same way if the Spurs somehow jumped from having a 1% chance to a 14% chance they’ve improved by 140% - which sounds impressive until you realise they still only have a 14% chance to win.

A lot of people keep talking like the standings are a hard reflection of the end results. Would you put a thousand dollar bet down that Houston wins the lottery? They’ve got 30% better chances than us, must be a sure thing right?

I'm not sure how to help you understand percentages but we'll use the real life example of the NBA lotto. There are 1,000 combinations with 4 winning combinations (really it's 1,001 but let's just use the nice round number of 1,000).

When the Spurs increased their odds from 1% to 14%, they went from 10 lotto 'tickets' to 140... out of 1,000. That is VERY significant. How can going from 1% to 14% not viewed as impressive?

When we dropped from 15% to 9.7%, you say that it's 'only' a 5% drop but we went from holding 150 lotto tickets (out of 1,000), to 97. Again, that's pretty significant when there are only 1,000 combinations to begin with.

I'm just having a hard time understanding why this is hard to grasp.

What are you talking about? What am I not grasping? I understand percentages. I understand what we’ve cost ourselves and I’m comfortable with a 5% fluctuation knowing that the winning lottery combination could be handed to any team regardless of how many tickets they have in the lottery.

How can I help you understand this? Maybe try addressing the OP of this thread? If you’re so confident in the outcome of statistics simply list the lottery results in order of most likely to least likely and call that the result. Put some money on it. Go on. Put some money down that Houston or Detroit win the lottery. Not with me, with a betting agency. What are you prepared to stake on the position you’re so incensed that we’ve lost?

But you won’t because you know the same thing the rest of us do - it’s a lottery, and both those teams still have 86% chance of losing you whatever money you put on it.

[KillMonger]

[thelead]

Right right I see what your saying. It’s just a very exaggerated way of looking at our odds because you’re looking at the percentage of a percentage. Whilst to us it’s a 30% decrease in chances, it’s still a lottery and that decrease is only worth 4-5%
overall. Same way if the Spurs somehow jumped from having a 1% chance to a 14% chance they’ve improved by 140% - which sounds impressive until you realise they still only have a 14% chance to win.

A lot of people keep talking like the standings are a hard reflection of the end results. Would you put a thousand dollar bet down that Houston wins the lottery? They’ve got 30% better chances than us, must be a sure thing right?

I'm not sure how to help you understand percentages but we'll use the real life example of the NBA lotto. There are 1,000 combinations with 4 winning combinations (really it's 1,001 but let's just use the nice round number of 1,000).

When the Spurs increased their odds from 1% to 14%, they went from 10 lotto 'tickets' to 140... out of 1,000. That is VERY significant. How can going from 1% to 14% not viewed as impressive?

When we dropped from 15% to 9.7%, you say that it's 'only' a 5% drop but we went from holding 150 lotto tickets (out of 1,000), to 97. Again, that's pretty significant when there are only 1,000 combinations to begin with.

I'm just having a hard time understanding why this is hard to grasp.

What are you talking about? What am I not grasping? I understand percentages. I understand what we’ve cost ourselves and I’m comfortable with a 5% fluctuation knowing that the winning lottery combination could be handed to any team regardless of how many tickets they have in the lottery.

How can I help you understand this? Maybe try addressing the OP of this thread? If you’re so confident in the outcome of statistics simply list the lottery results in order of most likely to least likely and call that the result. Put some money on it. Go on. Put some money down that Houston or Detroit win the lottery. Not with me, with a betting agency. What are you prepared to stake on the position you’re so incensed that we’ve lost?

But you won’t because you know the same thing the rest of us do - it’s a lottery, and both those teams still have 86% chance of losing you whatever money you put on it.

It is a lottery. No one is saying that it's not but your argument is essentially 'who cares if you have 999 of the 1,000 tickets, only the winning ticket counts so I'm fine with my 1 ticket'. That's fine if that is your argument but I would rather be the person holding the most tickets/chances possible.

[Bensational]

I'm not sure how to help you understand percentages but we'll use the real life example of the NBA lotto. There are 1,000 combinations with 4 winning combinations (really it's 1,001 but let's just use the nice round number of 1,000).

When the Spurs increased their odds from 1% to 14%, they went from 10 lotto 'tickets' to 140... out of 1,000. That is VERY significant. How can going from 1% to 14% not viewed as impressive?

When we dropped from 15% to 9.7%, you say that it's 'only' a 5% drop but we went from holding 150 lotto tickets (out of 1,000), to 97. Again, that's pretty significant when there are only 1,000 combinations to begin with.

I'm just having a hard time understanding why this is hard to grasp.

What are you talking about? What am I not grasping? I understand percentages. I understand what we’ve cost ourselves and I’m comfortable with a 5% fluctuation knowing that the winning lottery combination could be handed to any team regardless of how many tickets they have in the lottery.

How can I help you understand this? Maybe try addressing the OP of this thread? If you’re so confident in the outcome of statistics simply list the lottery results in order of most likely to least likely and call that the result. Put some money on it. Go on. Put some money down that Houston or Detroit win the lottery. Not with me, with a betting agency. What are you prepared to stake on the position you’re so incensed that we’ve lost?

But you won’t because you know the same thing the rest of us do - it’s a lottery, and both those teams still have 86% chance of losing you whatever money you put on it.

It is a lottery. No one is saying that it's not but your argument is essentially 'who cares if you have 999 of the 1,000 tickets, only the winning ticket counts so I'm fine with my 1 ticket'. That's fine if that is your argument but I would rather be the person holding the most tickets/chances possible.

No, that’s the reductive take on me being comfortable with what we’ve lost, which is <5%.

You’ve still not said what draft position is going to win. What’s the delay? You’ve got statistics behind you.

[BCS]

Well...since odds aren't important who cares who shoots the most important free throws to win the game. Let 60% shooter Dwight Howard instead of 90% Chris Paul shoot. There is still a chance Dwight makes them....right.

This is what I hear when ppl say the worse odds don't matter...smh.

Yes Dwight can make the free throws and win the game just like Paul can miss them but you play the %'s. You'd be pissed if Dwight gets the ball in such situation.

Sent from my SM-A716U using RealGM mobile app

[Bensational]

Well...since odds aren't important who cares who shoots the most important free throws to win the game. Let 60% shooter Dwight Howard instead of 90% Chris Paul shoot. There is still a chance Dwight makes them....right.

This is what I hear when ppl say the worse odds don't matter...smh.

Yes Dwight can make the free throws and win the game just like Paul can miss them but you play the %'s. You'd be pissed if Dwight gets the ball in such situation.

Sent from my SM-A716U using RealGM mobile app

Who is saying odds don’t matter?

Your analogy would work better if the example was we’d lost our 85% FT shooter because we kept him on the court and he’s now injured, and instead we have the next best guy who’s shooting 80% instead.

How are you feeling then?

[SOUL]

Well...since odds aren't important who cares who shoots the most important free throws to win the game. Let 60% shooter Dwight Howard instead of 90% Chris Paul shoot. There is still a chance Dwight makes them....right.

This is what I hear when ppl say the worse odds don't matter...smh.

Yes Dwight can make the free throws and win the game just like Paul can miss them but you play the %'s. You'd be pissed if Dwight gets the ball in such situation.

Sent from my SM-A716U using RealGM mobile app

Why does the argument go straight to what people aren't saying?

Nobody is saying outright that the odds don't matter, people are saying that the whole doom and gloom posting is starting to frustrate people. We get it. The Magic suck, are unlucky, cursed. If we got finished first in losses we'd still get the 5th pick, etc.

Nobody with understanding of the lottery is saying that percentages do not matter at all, we're saying that there is still a good chance of the Magic getting top 4 even if they royally **** up with wins like they've been doing. It's not as high as a chance as if they were to continue to lose, but it's not at a point to start all this Eeyore depressed posting about how we're screwed yet again. If we had made it so that there was a 1/100 chance or something, yeah, sure, everybody deservedly should pile on the franchise, but the fact that I can go on Tankathon and have us get top 4 the same amount of times when we were the 2nd/3rd worse shows me that there isn't some insurmountable task of moving up.

Percentages matter--of course they do, but some people are acting like they have no idea how we'll ever move up when it's not farfetched at all.

[SOUL]

Hell, I'm even against the theory of winning now equaling some sort of positive and valuable lessons for the young guys. It doesn't mean anything. Half of these guys won't be here in a few years and we may even have a new coach. It's just nice that they're getting reps and can show what they're capable of instead of it being some hidden skill.

It's just that if you want to tank, you have to accept that teams, especially the Magic, will win dumb games. It's frustrating but the guys who had huge games in these wins are mostly people we didn't expect, or situations where we come back from being 20+ points down in the late 3rd like the Memphis game.

[thelead]

What are you talking about? What am I not grasping? I understand percentages. I understand what we’ve cost ourselves and I’m comfortable with a 5% fluctuation knowing that the winning lottery combination could be handed to any team regardless of how many tickets they have in the lottery.

How can I help you understand this? Maybe try addressing the OP of this thread? If you’re so confident in the outcome of statistics simply list the lottery results in order of most likely to least likely and call that the result. Put some money on it. Go on. Put some money down that Houston or Detroit win the lottery. Not with me, with a betting agency. What are you prepared to stake on the position you’re so incensed that we’ve lost?

But you won’t because you know the same thing the rest of us do - it’s a lottery, and both those teams still have 86% chance of losing you whatever money you put on it.

It is a lottery. No one is saying that it's not but your argument is essentially 'who cares if you have 999 of the 1,000 tickets, only the winning ticket counts so I'm fine with my 1 ticket'. That's fine if that is your argument but I would rather be the person holding the most tickets/chances possible.

No, that’s the reductive take on me being comfortable with what we’ve lost, which is <5%.

You’ve still not said what draft position is going to win. What’s the delay? You’ve got statistics behind you.

No one knows what the results will be but you keep referring to losing a third of your chances as inconsequential and I find that funny. Where are you pulling the 15 to 9.7 (which is greater than 5 by the way) from? I’m not quite sure what odds those numbers are referencing.

In the grand scheme of things we went from holding more than half the winning tickets (~521) to 424 tickets in a week. If we end up at 6 by ourselves, that number will drop some more. To me, that is not insignificant.

[Xatticus]

Well...since odds aren't important who cares who shoots the most important free throws to win the game. Let 60% shooter Dwight Howard instead of 90% Chris Paul shoot. There is still a chance Dwight makes them....right.

This is what I hear when ppl say the worse odds don't matter...smh.

Yes Dwight can make the free throws and win the game just like Paul can miss them but you play the %'s. You'd be pissed if Dwight gets the ball in such situation.

Sent from my SM-A716U using RealGM mobile app

Why does the argument go straight to what people aren't saying?

Nobody is saying outright that the odds don't matter, people are saying that the whole doom and gloom posting is starting to frustrate people. We get it. The Magic suck, are unlucky, cursed. If we got finished first in losses we'd still get the 5th pick, etc.

Nobody with understanding of the lottery is saying that percentages do not matter at all, we're saying that there is still a good chance of the Magic getting top 4 even if they royally **** up with wins like they've been doing. It's not as high as a chance as if they were to continue to lose, but it's not at a point to start all this Eeyore depressed posting about how we're screwed yet again. If we had made it so that there was a 1/100 chance or something, yeah, sure, everybody deservedly should pile on the franchise, but the fact that I can go on Tankathon and have us get top 4 the same amount of times when we were the 2nd/3rd worse shows me that there isn't some insurmountable task of moving up.

Percentages matter--of course they do, but some people are acting like they have no idea how we'll ever move up when it's not farfetched at all.

I've only read a couple posts along those lines and they are coming from Skin. Has anyone else taken this tack?

It's just frustration. We've seen this before. For me, the frustration comes from a failure to appreciate what's at stake here. What is actually gained from watching one last hurrah from the old guard? What is gained from bringing back Ennis? What is gained from giving auditions to a bunch of journeymen that are auditioning for their NBA lives? What's at stake is odds in a lottery that has the potential to reverse the fortunes of this franchise. One of these things possesses infinitely more potential value than the others.

This front office spent the better part of the last three years sitting on their hands, and now they are making transactions almost daily to kick the tires on every 25-year-old free agent that is hoping for one last chance at an NBA career? It's just odd. I really don't want to get ahead of the game here because the lottery hasn't happened, but at the same time, it's difficult to sit idly by while we get passed up by teams in the tank race. We've seen this movie before and it was terrible. I'm hoping the outcome is different this time.

[SOUL]

Well...since odds aren't important who cares who shoots the most important free throws to win the game. Let 60% shooter Dwight Howard instead of 90% Chris Paul shoot. There is still a chance Dwight makes them....right.

This is what I hear when ppl say the worse odds don't matter...smh.

Yes Dwight can make the free throws and win the game just like Paul can miss them but you play the %'s. You'd be pissed if Dwight gets the ball in such situation.

Sent from my SM-A716U using RealGM mobile app

Why does the argument go straight to what people aren't saying?

Nobody is saying outright that the odds don't matter, people are saying that the whole doom and gloom posting is starting to frustrate people. We get it. The Magic suck, are unlucky, cursed. If we got finished first in losses we'd still get the 5th pick, etc.

Nobody with understanding of the lottery is saying that percentages do not matter at all, we're saying that there is still a good chance of the Magic getting top 4 even if they royally **** up with wins like they've been doing. It's not as high as a chance as if they were to continue to lose, but it's not at a point to start all this Eeyore depressed posting about how we're screwed yet again. If we had made it so that there was a 1/100 chance or something, yeah, sure, everybody deservedly should pile on the franchise, but the fact that I can go on Tankathon and have us get top 4 the same amount of times when we were the 2nd/3rd worse shows me that there isn't some insurmountable task of moving up.

Percentages matter--of course they do, but some people are acting like they have no idea how we'll ever move up when it's not farfetched at all.

I've only read a couple posts along those lines and they are coming from Skin. Has anyone else taken this tack?

It's just frustration. We've seen this before. For me, the frustration comes from a failure to appreciate what's at stake here. What is actually gained from watching one last hurrah from the old guard? What is gained from bringing back Ennis? What is gained from giving auditions to a bunch of journeymen that are auditioning for their NBA lives? What's at stake is odds in a lottery that has the potential to reverse the fortunes of this franchise. One of these things possesses infinitely more potential value than the others.

This front office spent the better part of the last three years sitting on their hands, and now they are making transactions almost daily to kick the tires on every 25-year-old free agent that is hoping for one last chance at an NBA career? It's just odd. I really don't want to get ahead of the game here because the lottery hasn't happened, but at the same time, it's difficult to sit idly by while we get passed up by teams in the tank race. We've seen this movie before and it was terrible. I'm hoping the outcome is different this time.

Seen a lot throughout multiple threads -- "Since we're not picking top 4 anymore", "We've placed ourselves out of top picks", the usual doom posting before it happens. I understand the frustration but I'm not going to complain about something that hasn't happened and for some reason this time it hasn't bothered me as much. I could ask for less minutes from certain players but they've also sort of helped in the tanking (Harris, Bacon, Ross). Like my reply a few days to you, I think we could've traded these guys way before this trade deadline to accelerate the process and have a worse record this year.

But there will always be something for people to bitch about. If we got 1st and finished 5th people would say how tanking doesn't work and want to abandon developing young players again, or people thinking we should've run it back and not moved Vuc. I think a lot of us know what ideally we want the team to do, it's just not as practical as we'd like to think it is. Some of it like moving players at earlier points in time is practical versus asking our guys to suck on purpose or not play certain players on the odd chance they'll go off is a bit less practical (at least at the time when Horford did it). During the last few weeks we've seen most of the tanking teams do similar things.

[Bensational]

It is a lottery. No one is saying that it's not but your argument is essentially 'who cares if you have 999 of the 1,000 tickets, only the winning ticket counts so I'm fine with my 1 ticket'. That's fine if that is your argument but I would rather be the person holding the most tickets/chances possible.

No, that’s the reductive take on me being comfortable with what we’ve lost, which is <5%.

You’ve still not said what draft position is going to win. What’s the delay? You’ve got statistics behind you.

No one knows what the results will be but you keep referring to losing a third of your chances as inconsequential and I find that funny. Where are you pulling the 15 to 9.7 (which is greater than 5 by the way) from? I’m not quite sure what odds those numbers are referencing.

In the grand scheme of things we went from holding more than half the winning tickets (~521) to 424 tickets in a week. If we end up at 6 by ourselves, that number will drop some more. To me, that is not insignificant.

I’m just using the tankathon odds but made a typo which threw it out. It’s actually 14% chance down to a 10.6% chance, presently. 3.4% overall, or 25% less tickets than what we had before.

The loss is significant, but we don’t know what the consequences will be yet. It could turn out to be a fortunate significance.

[Def Swami]

All I know is pain. All I expect is pain.

[Knightro]

It is pretty wild that with just 6 games to go the Magic can finish anywhere from the 2nd worst to the 6th worst record.

[BCS]

Well...since odds aren't important who cares who shoots the most important free throws to win the game. Let 60% shooter Dwight Howard instead of 90% Chris Paul shoot. There is still a chance Dwight makes them....right.

This is what I hear when ppl say the worse odds don't matter...smh.

Yes Dwight can make the free throws and win the game just like Paul can miss them but you play the %'s. You'd be pissed if Dwight gets the ball in such situation.

Sent from my SM-A716U using RealGM mobile app

Who is saying odds don’t matter?

Your analogy would work better if the example was we’d lost our 85% FT shooter because we kept him on the court and he’s now injured, and instead we have the next best guy who’s shooting 80% instead.

How are you feeling then?

The 14 to 9 % chance at a 1st pick sucks but its not my main concern. I am looking at the 50 to a possible 30ish % at a top 4 as the most hurtful aspect. That is a big drop, reason for the Dwight vs Paul analogy.

[VFX]

All I know is pain. All I expect is pain.

This is Orlando. I expect nothing less than pain.

[Bensational]

Well...since odds aren't important who cares who shoots the most important free throws to win the game. Let 60% shooter Dwight Howard instead of 90% Chris Paul shoot. There is still a chance Dwight makes them....right.

This is what I hear when ppl say the worse odds don't matter...smh.

Yes Dwight can make the free throws and win the game just like Paul can miss them but you play the %'s. You'd be pissed if Dwight gets the ball in such situation.

Sent from my SM-A716U using RealGM mobile app

Who is saying odds don’t matter?

Your analogy would work better if the example was we’d lost our 85% FT shooter because we kept him on the court and he’s now injured, and instead we have the next best guy who’s shooting 80% instead.

How are you feeling then?

The 14 to 9 % chance at a 1st pick sucks but its not my main concern. I am looking at the 50 to a possible 30ish % at a top 4 as the most hurtful aspect. That is a big drop, reason for the Dwight vs Paul analogy.

Ahhhh copy. I get you now.