The NBA held coin flips today to break ties in draft ordering for lottery and playoff teams alike. Betty over there is making sure no one slipped a lead bearing into the Clippers' balls in advance of the May 19 that will decide who gets Blake Griffin, who gets Ricky Rubio (maybe), and who gets the tissue box.
After the jump, the final odds at the No. 1 pick for each lottery team.
It's a supposed down draft in 2009, but that's what they said in advance of 2006 (no more high school kids) and 2008. Once you get beyond the top couple players of 2007, it's easy to argue that 2006 and 2008 beat that one on talent produced. All of this is to say that we won't know if this is a truly weak draft until roughly this time next year.
So there's still a real prize for the unfortunate of the NBA. His name is Blake Griffin, stud big man (and would-have-been 2007 lottery pick) of Oklahoma. Ricky Rubio, that mysterious Spaniard teenager, has also given fans of the bleak a reason to live. So where do we stand in terms of teams captured the lion's share of ping pong balls come the May draft lottery? Find out after the jump.
Oklahoma City has gone 3-3 over the past 11 days, a spell more surprising than Boston's falter, all told. It would appear that at 6-32, with the Thunder on pace for 13 wins, Philadelphia's futility record (9-73) is safe. Huzzah!
But another facet of the winning attitude is that the Ping Pong Derby has tightened significantly. The league's four worst teams sit within only three games of each other. Injuries have played significant roles for all but the Thunder, but Washington seems less than likely to get a full complement of players soon. L.A. and Sacramento could leap out of the mire (following miraculous Minnesota), and Memphis has a serious shot at falling back into the bottom five.
By this time last season, we knew a few things: Seattle and Miami were completely awful, and Boston had been darn good. At the extremes, the six-week mark is as good a time as any to take stock. So who's on track to keep the fingers crossed one night in May? Here's a look at the current status of the NBA's Ping Pong Derby.
Each ping pong ball represents a 1% chance of the team winning the top overall pick in the June draft as of today. Oklahoma City -- challenging for the worst record in NBA history -- has a clear advantage in the Derby after 26 games. But Washington and Minnesota have been just awful enough to remain within spitting distance of the true bottom.
The Kings (lost 10 of last 11) and the Clips (two straight wins) are headed in opposite directions. The teams tied for sixth with seven wins apiece -- Indiana, Charlotte, Golden State -- could go either way.
We had two ties among the lottery ranks as of Thursday morning, but the league settled those late Friday. Minnesota and Memphis had been tied with the third worst record, and New York and the Clippers had shared 5th place in Bizarro World. The coin picked the Wolves and Knicks as victors in their flippin' wars.
It means little in a practical sense going into the lottery. For instance, Minnesota will have 138 combinations out of 1,000; Memphis will have 137. The difference is 0.1%. Where the real impact comes, though, is at the June draft. If the lottery holds everyone to form, Minnesota picks third, Memphis picks fourth, New York picks fifth, and L.A. picks sixth. The lowest Minnesota can pick is sixth; Memphis could drop to seventh. It's a bit of difference.
And while this is less serious than dropping out of the Top 3 on draft day, or losing LeBron James to a blind man, Memphis continues to be snake-bitten in these draft proceedings. Remember, the Grizz finished with the worst record in the league last year, but got lotto-leaped by Portland, Seattle, and Atlanta. In 2004, the Grizzlies owed Detroit its lotto pick unless it was the #1 pick. The Grizzlies won the #2 pick, which became Carmelo AnthonyDwyane WadeChris Bosh ... nevermind.
The Sacramento Kings visited the NBA draft lottery for the first time in almost a decade last May; Phil "The Third Brother, Who Runs The Palms Full-time and Once Bagged a Pre-Breakdown Britney Spears and Is, Therefore, Pretty Lucky" Maloof didn't have luck on his side, as the Kings stuck at #10. New year, new plan: The Kings will send a season ticket holder to rep the franchise on ESPN this time.
Once entries (50-word explanation of the person's luck) are in (the deadline's Monday), a Kings panel will narrow down the semi-finalists. Those contestants will go to ARCO Arena to film a short video, and fans will vote on this online. The finalists from there will get drawn out of a hat. The winner flies to Jersey with Phil and sits in the Kings seat as Adam Silver announces Sacramento as the winner of the #1 pick the order for the 2008 draft.
There's a catch: To be a contestant, you have to have had season tickets for 2007-08, and you have to renew your 2008-09 season tickets by Monday. Ploy to incrementally increase the number of season tickets sold, or inventive way to drum up the team's web operations? You decide!
The Sonics decided to win out (two-game win streak! woo!), while Memphis and the Knicks stoked the Derby fire with nothin' but losses to finish out the year. All the developments of the past few days have been tallied, and here's your Ping Pong Derby: Final Report.
Miami ends up with a 25% shot at Pick #1, and a 64% probability of getting a Top 3 pick. They cannot fall further than 4th. Seattle's got a 20% chance at #1, and a 56% probability of sticking in the Top 3.
The two ties make things ... interesting. The league will flip a coin in each case later this week. The result will have no real bearing on the lottery proceedings on May 20 -- Minnesota and Memphis, for example, will split the balls available for the #3 and #4 teams. If it's an odd number, the coin flip winner will take the extra one. But the coin flip does have serious import with regards to draft order. A Minnesota coin flip win means Minnesota picks ahead of Memphis, unless Memphis vaults into the Top 3 by way of lottery win. It also means the lowest Minnesota could pick would be #6, while Memphis could fall as low as #7.
The same goes for New York and the Clippers. Last season, there was a three-way tie between New York, Charlotte, and Sacramento for #8. The coin flip results ended with Charlotte picking #8, New York giving Chicago its #9 pick, and Sacramento picking #10. That's a pretty big difference. The gulf between #3 and #4 (or #5 and #6) doesn't seem to be as large, but if some prospect comes out and wows everyone next month, this coin flip could end being huge.
The NBA held coin flips today to break ties in draft ordering for lottery and playoff teams alike. Betty over there is making sure no one slipped a lead bearing into the Clippers' balls in advance of the May 19 that will decide who gets Blake Griffin, who gets Ricky Rubio (maybe), and who gets the tissue box.
It's a supposed down draft in 2009, but that's what they said in advance of 2006 (no more high school kids) and 2008. Once you get beyond the top couple players of 2007, it's easy to argue that 2006 and 2008 beat that one on talent produced. All of this is to say that we won't know if this is a truly weak draft until roughly this time next year.
We had two ties among the lottery ranks as of Thursday morning, but the league settled those late Friday. Minnesota and Memphis had been tied with the third worst record, and New York and the Clippers had shared 5th place in Bizarro World. The coin picked the Wolves and Knicks as victors in their flippin' wars.
The Sacramento Kings visited the NBA draft lottery for the first time in almost a decade last May; Phil "The Third Brother, Who Runs The Palms Full-time and Once Bagged a Pre-Breakdown Britney Spears and Is, Therefore, Pretty Lucky" Maloof didn't have luck on his side, as the Kings stuck at #10. New year, new plan: The Kings will send a season ticket holder to rep the franchise on ESPN this time.
