The San Antonio Spurs at the time of writing this are 20-59 with 3 games remaining in the season. It’s been a tough year but as we enter into the off-season the Spurs have guaranteed themselves the best odds in the upcoming draft lottery. For most Spurs fans we’re not use to losing seasons and not used to looking ahead at the Draft Lottery. This begs the question for most fans, how do the odds stack up for the Spurs? Here’s a look at how the draft lottery works since the new changes in 2019 and how the Spurs just might get lucky.
The NBA Draft Lottery is the process in which the NBA selects the Top 4 picks in the upcoming NBA Draft with weighted odds based on team record of the 14 teams that missed the playoffs that year. Fourteen ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14 will be placed in a lottery machine. There are 1,001 possible combinations when four balls are drawn out of 14, without regard to their order of selection. Before the lottery, 1,000 of those 1,001 combinations will be assigned to the 14 participating lottery teams. All 14 balls are placed in the lottery machine and they are mixed for 20 seconds, and then the first ball is removed. The remaining balls are mixed in the lottery machine for another 10 seconds, and then the second ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the third ball is drawn. There is a 10-second mix, and then the fourth ball is drawn. The team that has been assigned that combination will receive the No. 1 pick. The same process is repeated with the same ping-pong balls and lottery machine for the second through fourth picks.
In 2019 the weighted odds changed to give the worst 3 teams that season the same odds for the #1 pick (14.0%), #2 pick (13.4%), #3 pick (12.7%), and #4 pick (12.0%). This means this year Detroit, Houston, and San Antonio all have 52.1% chance of getting a Top 4 pick or 40.1% chance of getting a Top 3 pick, which are the best odds among the 14 teams in the Draft Lottery. With the Spurs sitting with the 3rd worst record this season with no chance of falling out of the Top 3 pre-lottery positions, which means they have guaranteed themselves the best odds of getting the #1 pick. However, because they could potentially finish with the 3rd worst record, they still have a slight chance (7.0%) of getting the 7th overall pick, which would be worst-case scenario. For that to happen mathematically it would mean 4 teams outside of the Top 3 got all 4 of the top picks in the lottery, so a very slim chance of that.
Despite the 3 worst team’s even odds of getting a top 4 pick, the built-in sliding scale where the 3 teams with the worst record can’t get worse than a certain pick based on the 4 picks available via the lottery. These are the possible lowest drafting positions based on pre-lottery positions:
· 1st overall pre-lottery team can’t get lower than the 5th pick. (Detroit)
· 2nd overall pre-lottery team can’t get lower than the 6th pick. (Houston)
· 3rd overall pre-lottery team can’t get lower than the 7th pick. (San Antonio)
\*Since 2019 no team who’s been in the Top 3 pre-lottery positions has ever been pushed to their lowest drafting position.
As I’m writing this both Detroit (#1) and Charlotte (#4) are currently locked in their pre-lottery positions meaning no amount of winning or losing will move them further up or down from where they are currently at, but Houston and San Antonio aren’t locked in the #2 and #3 positions yet. Which for the most part didn’t mean anything until a couple of days ago when the Houston Rockets defeated the Denver Nuggets giving the Rockets 20 wins on the season. This means both the Spurs and Rockets have 20 wins on the season with only 2 games left for the Spurs and 3 games left for the Rockets. If both teams lost all of their remaining games, they would end with the exact same record. That would mean a tie breaker would be used to determine their order in the Draft Lottery. ~~The first tie breaker would be the head-to-head matchups during the season, but Houston and San Antonio tied their season series 2-2. The next tie breaker for these 2 teams would be winning percentage in the division which currently is Houston at 25% (4-12) over San Antonio at 13.3% (2-13). Despite the Spurs having 1 final division game this season San Antonio cannot tie the winning percentage in the division with the Rockets, meaning the Rockets would actually move up in the standings over the Spurs. All that being said if both teams lose out the remainder of the season the Spurs will actually move up to 2nd in the pre-lottery position. It won’t mean much except their odds of staying in the Top 5 are better and their lowest possible draft position post-lottery will be 6th instead of 7th.~~ If both teams end with the same record at the end of the season the NBA will use a different method to determine the tiebreaker as opposed to their standard for playoff seeding. In 2021 they flipped a coin and 2022 they did a drawing to determine tiebreakers.
Looking back at the last few drafts since the new changes has shown some interesting statistics. Recent history doesn’t bode well for the team with the worst record. In fact, since 2019, none of the teams coming into the Draft Lottery with the worst overall record have landed the #1 pick:
|Year|Worst Record Team|Draft Position|Pre-Lottery Position|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|2019|New York Knicks|3rd|1st|
|2020|Golden State Warriors|2nd|1st|
|2021|Houston Rockets|2nd|1st|
|2022|Houston Rockets|3rd|1st|
​
Of course, with the new weighted odds having the worst record doesn’t guarantee anything except staying in the Top 5 and over the last 4 years of the new system the worst record has yet to drop out of the Top 3.
But what about the 2nd and 3rd teams with the worst record in the draft? The 2nd worst team has won the #1 pick 2 of the last 4 years in 2021 (Detroit) and 2022 (Orlando). Cleveland had the 2nd worst record in 2019 and 2020, both years they received the #5 pick.
The teams with the 3rd worst record have won the #1 pick only once since 2019, it was Minnesota in 2020. Outside of Minnesota winning the Draft Lottery, Phoenix selected 6th in 2019, Orlando selected 5th in 2021, and Detroit selected 5th in 2022.
On average since the new system in 2019:
|Pre-Lottery Position|Average Draft Position Since 2019|
|:-|:-|
|1st|2.5|
|2nd|3.0|
|3rd|4.25|
Looking specifically at the San Antonio Spurs, they’ve been in the draft lottery now 3 times since 2019, 2020 (11th), 2021 (12th), and 2022 (9th), never having better than 4.5% chance at getting the #1 pick. In those 3 years they’ve never risen or fallen out of the spot that they were pre-lottery. The 3 times prior to 2019 happened in 1987, 1989, and 1997, which 2 of those 3 they ended up with the #1 pick.
In 1987, 7 teams were involved in the NBA Draft Lottery and all had equal (14.29%) chance to get the #1 pick. That year the Spurs had the 4th worst record and won the Draft Lottery despite all 7 teams having the same odds. The Spurs drafted David Robinson in 1987 1st overall.
The Draft Lottery of 1989 had similar odds only this time it included 9 teams with the worst records, and all had 11.11% odds of winning the top pick. The Spurs had the 4th worst record, despite not winning the draft lottery they moved up 1 spot to 3rd drafting Sean Elliot.
The last time the Spurs were in the Draft Lottery pre-2019 was in 1997, which was a more conventional Draft Lottery than it was the decade prior. The Celtics (27.51%), Spurs (21.6%), and Nuggets (16.51%) all had the top 3 odds based on having 3 of the 4 worst records that season (Vancouver had the worst record but being a recent expansion team was not allowed to select first in the draft). However, the Boston Celtics owned 2 of the top 4 odds to win the #1 pick giving them a total of 36.31% chance to get the #1 pick. But it was the Spurs who had the 3rd worst record who ended up winning the 1997 Draft Lottery and drafting the franchise superstar Tim Duncan.
Quick anecdote about randomness of ping-pong balls: Every year the NBA does a mock draft lottery the night before to test everything and make sure it’s working properly. Last year during rehearsal the Spurs actually won the #1 pick with only a 4.5% chance at landing the top pick. Obviously it doesn’t mean anything during rehearsal, but it does mean that anything can happen and there are plenty of crazy stories to back up low and high odds of winning that coveted top pick.
In Summary:
· Spurs guaranteed themselves the best odds at drafting Victor Wembanyama.
· Finishing with the 3rd worst record Spurs can still fall to 7th in Draft Lottery.
· Last time the Spurs finished with the 3rd worst record (1997) they won the #1 pick.
· Regardless of lottery finish this will be the highest pick for Spurs since 1997.
· You never know how the ping-pong balls will bounce.
· Go Spurs Go!
​
2023 NBA Draft Lottery is on May 16th at 7PM CT.
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2023 NBA Draft Lottery Odds table:
[https://www.tankathon.com/pick\_odds](https://www.tankathon.com/pick_odds)
How the NBA Draft Lottery Works:
[https://www.nba.com/news/nba-draft-lottery-explainer](https://www.nba.com/news/nba-draft-lottery-explainer)
by Ghosty11111
5 Comments
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[May 16th at 7PM CT][0]
[0]: https://timee.io/20230517T0000?tl=Breakdown%20of%20the%202023%20NBA%20Draft%20Lottery
Fantastic stuff.
It’s a little funny that I genuinely don’t know if the head to head tiebreaker would (or should) give the team with more or less wins the better draft odds.
Nice write up man, well done.
Nice write-up man…..good work!! ✊🏾✊🏾