The Ugly Side of Luck
2013-05-21
Every year at roughly this time, representatives from 14 NBA teams gather in one of the most uncomfortable collections of current and former players, old, rich white men and Nick Gilbert the world has ever seen to battle and win favor with the gods, David Stern and Adam Silver, using the most devastating and soul-crushing weapon the world has ever known: probability. The winner will have the chance to draft a 6-11 center with a bum knee, a 6-4 athletic marvel with a picture-pretty shot who has been criticized by, among others, his college coach for not being “assertive” enough, or taking a pass and, for the first year, utilizing the option of forgoing this year’s selection for the same slotted spot next year.
Yeah, just kidding about that last option. Sorry.
Outside of actual in-game action, the single best on-screen moment in the NBA season is (shockingly) the draft lottery. More specifically, it is the lead up to the lottery results, when each team’s representative is introduced and captured on camera, if briefly, in amazing comic squirm. It’s the NBA’s version of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Consider the following:
1.) This is, essentially, the NBA’s roll call of its losers for this (and, in most cases, several) season(s). For all the build up of dangling this year’s best college players in front of these win-starved teams, the only way they can broadcast this beautiful train wreck is to attach it to a playoff game. So, all of these team reps, knowing their shortcomings are being paraded out by the league in advance of a Conference playoff game, seem to call out to the audience from behind watery eyes, “Please, this is the part of the season where we get to disappear! Let us go away! Why are you making us do this?!”
2.) There is that beautiful moment when the draft’s winner is assured and we get to see the look of utter disgust on the face of the runner up, whose team is often more deserving than the winner for being even more bereft of luck.
Remember David Kahn’s passive-agressive comments when Nick Gilbert won the Cavs the 2011 draft? Remember Jerry West in 2003 when he realized that the Grizzlies had a chance to draft LeBron James, only to be reminded that a first rounder with only number one protection is always too steep a price for Otis Thorpe?
The players in attendance seem generally uninterested in representing their teams, while the team owners and GMs care a little too much.
3.) The fall-out of the draft lottery is a fascinating study in fan base psychology/paranoia. It can’t be a coincidence that the Cavs got the number one pick the year after LeBron left, can it? And you say the New Orleans Hornets got the number one pick following a year that saw them owned and operated by the NBA? Huh. So, who is in line this year? Seeing as how the worst teams will want to still be bad for next year’s boffo draft class — and given all the poo-pooing prognosticators are doing on this year’s group of young men — we’re probably in line for a team with a little bit of talent already jumping up and grabbing the top spot. Maybe that’s a team like Portland (league still owes them for Greg Oden), Minnesota (league owes it to Kevin Love … for some reason) or Oklahoma City (wherein every TV set across the country simultaneously explodes) [Correction: Toronto’s pick that, at its current slot, goes to OKC is top-3 protected … so, unfortunately, this gorgeous scenario cannot play out.].
The relative down-ness of this year’s draft just makes it all the more awkward. Tonight, someone will inevitably/hopefully make some thinly veiled comment or disgusted facial expression all over Nerlens Noel or Ben McLemore.
The NBA would like us to believe that its draft lottery is an exciting event promising the chance for franchise altering change. But it’s actually the ugly side of luck. The fact that these 14 team reps are gathered in a broadcast studio is because they are not the lucky ones. The lucky ones are the ones still playing. These 14 team reps are put (arguably unfairly) in a position to expose the true emotions of the NBA’s left-outs: jealousy, suspicion and indifference. Even the team granted the number one pick is not especially lucky this year. That team is the unluckiest of the luckiest of the unluckiest.
May that unluckiest of the luckiest of the unluckiest be the Cavs…
I have a little different view on the odds. Orlando- 100% gets top 3 pick. 99% to get #1 or #2. They have been known for having a center- Shaq, Howard. Noel could be the new guy. Sacramento- About 25% chance top 3. I know they just got a new ownership, but we can’t really let them win, can we? Utah- 25% chance. Haven’t gotten their new franchise PG since DWill. They could probably pull off Trey Burke with a #3. Cavs- I’ll say 75% top 3. I think the NBA would see some financial benefit if Cleveland actually had… Read more »
And any winner can be a good story.. The Magic because Howard left.. The Bobcats because they are about to be resurrected as the Charlotte Hornets and as a aid to the owner who brought the league to new heights. The Cavs because there couldn’t be a more marketable 2014 first round 1 vs 8 playoff series than Lebron vs the Cavs. The Suns because Phoenix is one of the few teams in the league that is the most popular sports team in their city. There might be 4 in the entire league. The Pelicans because…Fuck it! It’s a great… Read more »
There are media representatives at each lottery event. It its highly implausible that the lottery gets rigged and the league keeps everyone from whistle blowing. Some people can’t be convinced…but that is a sad indictment of those particular individuals. Obviously, I would love for the Cavs to get the first pick…and would be disappointed with six. But sometimes crap happens. That’s why there is a lottery. I strongly suspect the Cavs pick fourth. That is the Nick Gilbert effect…if you believe in superstition. Because the last two years, that is what the Cavs pick became. Kyrie was the Clippers pick.
@Cody
The NBA survive Donaghy and another work stoppage. They survived that abomination in the 2002 Playoffs between Sacramento and Los Angeles. They survived the superteam in Miami.
They are basically a league where only 2-3 teams per year has even the slightest legitimate shot at winning anything and they continue to survive that.
They would survive a rigged lottery…hell, look at all the people who really believe it is rigged and still watch.
Gotta agree though, that first sentence was a doozy. Try to keep sentences under 63 words, 5 commas, 5 ands, and a damn colon! I can see after restructuring it in your head a couple times how it might seem to flow, but damn is it tough to parse initially. Grover, there is actually a 10.97% (see footnote if your are a math nerd) chance that the top pick would win exactly 3 times in 22 years, not even counting the chances that they could win less. So the fact that it has happened this little is unlikely, but nothing… Read more »
I thought the league suffered a black-eye from the Tim Donaghy scandal. Would they really risk further damage from fixing the lottery? The fall out would be devastating for the leagues rep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Draft_Lottery The history of the lottery is pretty interesting. I don’t doubt the “cold envelope” theory that got Ewing to the Knicks, but there’s just too many disparate vested interests in it for the league to be putting a fix on it anymore. The lottery’s been pretty difficult to fix since 1990. Do you think if for one second 13 other billionaires thought they weren’t getting a fair shake in the lottery that they would just keep quiet about it? There would be depositions upon depositions filed in comic sans if that were the case. It’s simply luck and probability.… Read more »
Lottery odds as I see them:
Sacramento: 50%
Orlando: 30%
Charlotte : 15%
Phoenix : 5% (for losing Nash to a rival for nothing)
Washington, Cleveland, Portland, Minnesota, Detroit, New Orleans, Philly, Toronto, Dallas, Utah : 0%
I am also severely struggling with my typing today…
I’m sort of half heartedly want the Cavs to win the lottery, and then trade down to pick up current or future asset(s) and draft a guy like Bennett who we later find out was their top guy all along. I think the Cavs have shown over the past 2-3 seasons that they are going to draft THEIR guy regardless of what the media thinks they should do. In the event they end up with the #1 overall pick (or #2 or #3…), I hope they don’t allow themselves to be pigeonholed into taking Player A when they wanted Player… Read more »
I’m thinking the Magic. They have the Dwight story, and it’ll help alleviate the Grover’s of the world pointing out that the 25% chance has only come up 13% of the time.
(But seriously, 22 is way too small of a sample to be pointing out anything meaningful in such a large, uneven distribution. It would barely be relevant for a coin flip)
t-minus 4 hours… this would be a lot more exciting if I knew who I wanted the cavs to take.
@ Jon
Obviously it’s impossible to prove now, but I was predicting that New Orleans would win the last lottery for weeks before it happened. Many people were.
@Josh
I didn’t say there was a great story every year. Just that the lottery is predictable. I predict that either Orlando or Sacramento will win tonight. I realize this isn’t a bold prediction or anything, but (as I said) there isn’t always a great narrative to fulfill.
WHOA! Any of you look at the address bar?
This is page/post #19,992?
What is the blog planning for #20,000?????????????
p.s. there is ALWAYS a good story, no matter who wins…
Grover- You are incredibly incorrect. Go look at a random 22 free throw sample from Dwight Howard. Are all his 22 free throw samples exactly 57.7 percent, which is his career average? Are they even close? No. Because odds are 100 percent meaningless in a small sample size. If it’s so “incredibly hard” to achieve this deviation randomly, why does it happen pretty much every time you flip a coin 22 times? As Corey said, the odds reset every year, so the team with the best odds not winning one year does not make it any more likely to win… Read more »
@Josh – “What was the great story when Chicago won the Rose lottery?” Um, how about he 1.7% chance they had of winning the lottery, and just so happen to land a star who is a hometown kid? Maybe that’s the story? What would have been better – Rose in Miami, or Rose in his hometown of Chicago, a giant market? You seem to think that unless EVERY lottery is fixed, then NONE can be fixed. That just isn’t true. The NBA isn’t going to shoot themselves in the foot and blow their cover (if they were into fixing) by… Read more »
Josh-
Your statistical analysis is a bit off.
If the #1 teams are expected to win 25% of the time, but only win 13.6% of the time, that’s not 11.4% less than they should have; you are using nominal terms. In percentage terms, that’s 46% less than they should have. Even for a small-ish sample size, that’s so far outside any boundary of standard deviation, it’s incredibly hard to achieve randomly.
It’s not predictable if you can explain why it’s a great story AFTERWARDS. It’s predictable if you can predict what’s going to happen BEFORE IT HAPPENS. It’s the same with Nostradamus’s so-called predictions. People find the “predictions” among a bunch of vague nonsense after the event has already occured.
Vesus, It’s not even remotely predictable. You can make a case for a good “story” for most horrible teams who have a chance to win it. Losing franchise players like Lebron, CP3 and Howard typical makes your team terrible, dramatically increasing your odds of winning the lottery. What was the great story for Toronto winning the Bargnani lottery? What was the great story for Portland winning the Oden lottery (especially when the premier NBA franchise Boston Celtics had a very high chance of winning it)? What was the great story for the Bucks winning the Bogut lottery? What was the… Read more »
OKC can’t actually win the lottery, the pick is protected 1-3.
Draft lottery may not be fixed, but it certainly is surprisingly predictable. The team with the best “story” seems to win the lottery very often. Pretty convenient that New Orleans won after the CP3 debacle and the new ownership. Question is, which “story” trumps all others this year? Is it Orlando losing Howard, Sacramento finding new ownership, or the Bobcats just being terrible for so very long? As a dark horse, this is the 10 year anniversary of Cleveland winning the Lebron lottery. However, I’m pretty certain we aren’t winning it this year. Again, I don’t know if the lottery… Read more »
@Josh
Bingo. The odds reset each year. Just because you have a 25% chance of winning doesn’t mean you’re due to win this year because the worst team hasn’t won it in 4 years. The sample size is way to small to say that distribution is wrong.
grover- You have to be kidding with you think the lottery is fixed. The weighted lottery system has existed for 22 years. In those 22 years, the team with the best odds of landing the top pick has won 3 times, or about 13.6 percent of the time, or about 11.4 percent less than they “should” have. And this is your evidence it is fixed? I just flipped a coin 22 times. It came up heads in just 7 of them. That’s almost 20 percent less than it should have!! GOD IS CLEARLY FIXING MY COIN FLIPS. Percentages and odds… Read more »
@Kevin- No, not Orlando; it’ll be Sacramento. Stern cut the new ownership group a deal to keep the team there. They get the #1 pick as part of the deal. Cavs will draft 5th. The reason why it’s fixed is partially in many of the storylines that Gordon laid out. But aside from all of the side-theatre….just look at the numbers. Teams with the highest odds of landing- not only #1 picks, but top-three picks- are abysmally poor. The odds just don’t support the numbers being that skewed for 30 years. Even though the worst team has 25% odds of… Read more »
Some people are going to think the lottery is fixed no matter what. Some people actually think the Holocaust was faked and that 9/11 was an inside job…Also some people like to be peed on.
*Also, I sincerely disagree with the 2nd to last paragraph. The teams that are still playing in the playoffs are not there because they are LUCKY.
Oops
@ Cory
No, it’s not. But who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory? Perhaps a few of the ping pong balls are lighter, or filled with helium to make them rise to the top.
Also, I sincerely disagree with the 2nd to last paragraph. The teams that are still playing in the playoffs are not there because they are unlucky. And to say the NBA Draft Lottery isn’t about luck is pretty ludicrous. Look at next season, when teams are hoping and praying for the right to draft Andrew Wiggins – THAT is exactly why the NBA Draft Lottery is shown on T.V. Because it IS exciting. Do any of you remember the 2003 lottery? I went nuts when they announced Cleveland would be picking #1, knowing they would be drafting the “next Michael… Read more »
@Josh – if it is indeed top 3 protected, then it wouldn’t be. But if it isn’t, and OKC can move into the top 3 after the tragedies that just occurred, it might make sense. Just a thought.
*Bulls won the lottery with a 1.7% chance.
Isn’t the OKC/Toronto pick top three protected? Why would it be so hilaroius/shocking if the Toronto pick won the lottery?
There might be plenty of reasons as to why it is not fixed, but to say the Knicks wouldn’t have been terrible for years and the Cavs and Bucks wouldn’t have won the lottery if it was fixed, are not any of those reasons. Cleveland won the lottery and right to draft LeBron James, a hometown kid. Then they won the lottery a year after LeBron spurns the Cavs on a national stage. Seems like a “sorry we didn’t foresee this happening” from the NBA, which they then fixed with the new CBA a year later. The Hornets (Pelican) win… Read more »
Coming from someone who loves this blog, this was a tough read. I stopped reading after (just barely) making it through the first sentence…the writing was unbearable!
@Ross. I completely agree.
The Knicks wouldn’t have been dog shit for a decade if the lottery was fixed. The Cavs and Bucks wouldn’t have won the lottery if it was fixed. It’s not like there isn’t a journalist from each city in the drawing room. Mary Schmitt Boyer has been in the room before and said it’s impossible to fix it. If it was fixed the journalists in the room would have bum rushed the exit door and trampled someone to death to break that story. It’s not fixed.
Not that they would do it, but if the NBA held the lottery and draft on the same night it would become a major sporting event rather than a halftime show. Especially in years where there is a an uber-franchise future altering talent. I don’t see why it couldn’t be possible. It’s not like GM’s don’t have months to evaluate the players and build draft boards. The lotto teams have a draft pick floor three picks below their finish in the standings to so they’d still have an idea of their range. There would be some serious excitement not knowing… Read more »
Amused by how many people believe that the NBA Draft Lottery is fixed.
Yeah, Kevin, Orlando makes the most sense. Of course, Charlotte is over there saying, “We’ve never had any great players to lose!! Come on, guys!” Think the OKC scenario is a hilarious possibility, though. The Cavs fan side of me wants either 1 or 3 so we can be assured of some version of Noel or Porter and avoid dodging the McElmore question. The sick, twisted side is just curious what we’d do if we fell all the way to 6. Can Chris Grant shock the world by talking himself into a 7-1 skinny French kid with some of the… Read more »
Orlando wins this year, right? First Cleveland gets top pick after Lebron leaves, then New Orleans after Paul…now the Magic after DH. I thought everyone knew that.
I’m not superstitious but I still don’t want to get pick #2…with the exception of Durant, that has been a pretty lousy pick to have most years….I’m thinking we stay at 3 and add our James Harden, whomever that may be.
Four leaf clover – check
Horseshoe – check
Salt over shoulder – check….OK, all set.
I’m predicting we get #2. Just a feeling…
I hope I am wrong but I am predicting that we end up in the 4th slot again for the 3rd year in a row.