I’ve seen some people discuss the possibility of the Raptors potentially moving up to acquire the 5th odds as the season is winding down and competitive teams may start to rest their best players i.e. play most of the game with bench players and in general operate at a low enough threshold for a bad team to potentially get a win – or wins, depending on how the remainder of the season goes.
Let’s break it down. The Toronto Raptors have 6 games left in the season, 4 of which are playoff teams:
* Miami Heat (2x)
* Indiana Pacers
* Milwaukee Bucks
* The non-playoff games are the Wizards and the Nets
* The Nets game is the 2nd night of a back-to-back where Brooklyn will have rest days between its game on the 7th and then
Toronto’s upcoming schedule is something of a contradiction in that they should also be able to eke out one of those garbage time game wins. The Bucks have the 2nd seed on lock after all, and they don’t need to risk a very late season injury to Dame or Giannis.
Beyond the slew of injuries that’s seen the Raptors start G-League players due to how depleted their rosters have been, the **Miami Heat** and **Indiana Pacers** are locked in to a very contentious race to avoid the play-in race, with the Heat only a half game ahead of the Pacers, the 76ers (8th seed in the play-in race) in the mix and the Knicks potentially falling in to it due to a series of injuries and thus the two teams are unlikely to best resting anyone able to play until the seeding has been mathematically decided – and it very well could come down to the final few games with how close things currently stand.
The **Washington Wizards** and **Brooklyn Nets** are both eliminated from even the play-in but while both teams are bad, they aren’t as likely to be as competitive a tank-off as it might first appear to be; the Wizards have the same odds as the 1st and 3rd worst teams in the league do at a Top 4 pick so them intentionally losing this or any further games that are winnable (what few there are for the Washington anyway) doesn’t really help them in any way besides lend itself to potentially poor habits forming. The Nets don’t own their pick so the results don’t matter for them either way but with the game being the second night of a back-to-back for the Raptors, it’s less winnable than it otherwise would or should be. Still, both are probably the remaining chances this team has to breaking their current losing streak.
If the Raptors lose to both the Nets and Wizards, it’s very likely they don’t win another game this season. That said, even in a best (Worst? It would be unequivocally the longest losing streak in franchise history and one of the longest losing streaks in NBA history if every game was lose from here on out) case scenario, the Raptors lowest achievable record would be ***23-59***. As of right now, that’s good enough (bad?) for the 6th best odds. That gives the Raptors a roughly 45 percent chance of keeping their pick, which is equivalent to flipping a coin where one side weighs slightly more than the other.
That said, the currently lottery standings are not set in stone aside from the Top 2. Let’s assume that the above record does happen. What would it take for one of the teams ahead of them in the lottery standings to overtake the Raptors and for them to move up to the 5th best pre-lottery odds.
|*Team*|*Games Ahead (Pre-odds position)*|*Games Left for the team’s season*|*Record needed for Raptors to tie for 5th best odds*|*Record needed for Raptors to solely own the 5th best odds\**|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|***San Antonio Spurs***|5 (tied for 3rd best)|6|5-1|6-0|
|***Charlotte Hornets***|5 (tied for 3rd best)|6|5-1|6-0|
|***Portland Trailblazer***|3 (5th best)|6|**3-3**|**4-2**|
Detroit and Washington have been omitted since, as mentioned before, even them going on a hot streak wouldn’t match the Raptors current worst achievable record. It’s worth noting that in the event of a tie, the teams sharing the same record will share the average odds of a Top 4 pick, with a coin flip to determine the pre-lottery position. That said, this should serve to illustrate the predicament the Raptors would be in even with them losing the rest of their games this season.
TL;DR There is a very, very slim chance another team drops to 6th – and an even smaller fraction of odds where there ends up being a 3 or 4-way tie.
Go ahead. [Flip that coin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0QoDOSHS10).
https://preview.redd.it/xivp4cydjjsc1.png?width=1942&format=png&auto=webp&s=e69bdbc69d75b31a2c21fb6df0863e7fffc3bb14
by CazOnReddit
2 Comments
So Portland’s winning percentage is appx. 26.3% rn, let’s just use that and say that Portland has a 26.3% chance of winning against any of the last 6 games. That would mean (0.263)^4 x (1-0.263)^2 x100 = approximately 0.25%. Now the raptors have a 30.3% winning percentage. Let’s say they lose all six of their games which equates to (1-0.303)^6 x 100 = approximately 11.4%. Multiply these together and we get approximately 0.0298% chance of this occuring. Odds of this happening is rarer than the Lakers getting the #1 pick this year lmao
And I thought was wordy…