Lottery Night Fever

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

The day has arrived. Countless hours of team executives making phone calls and watching tape in boardrooms and dank film rooms. Fans of those teams pouring over NBA rumor threads and pining in comments sections to whoever will listen about their fervent wish for a better basketball tomorrow. None of that means a thing when the ping pong balls start spinning.

Some people say you make your own luck in this world. Those people didn’t wait for the bouncing of ping pong balls to determine the course of a franchise for the next half decade. There’s something so pure about the fate of multi-million dollar organizations being constrained by the vagaries of something so simple and random. Your excel sheets can’t help you now, Mr. Hinkie.

For the Sixers’ sake, here’s your primer for what to hope for when they start revealing teams sometime after 8pm tonight.

All teams are listed in the order their cards would be shown as of now.

Convert Heat Pick = 9.06% chance

14. Oklahoma City

13. Phoenix

12. Utah

11. Indiana

If any one of the four teams above jump into the top-3, and you don’t see their placard raised before Miami’s (actually, it would be a Sixers placard saying ‘from Miami’ at the bottom in this scenario), do a little dance. The Sixers have a late lottery pick.

Convert Lakers Pick = 17.28% chance

10. Miami

9. Charlotte

8. Detroit

7. Denver

6. Sacramento

5. Orlando

In order to receive LA’s selection, Philadelphia needs 2 of the 10 teams above to move into the top-3 (with the Lakers also not being the third team in the top-3 in that case). Basically, any team not being shown in the order laid out here is good for the Sixers up until this point.

Sixers Pick Lands Top Three = 46.9% chance

4. LA Lakers

Really, the worst case scenario is the Sixers not receiving either of the other two picks while falling out of the top-3 themselves. This outcome is a greater possibility than a zealous Sixers nation would like to admit. We want the Lakers card to be shown before that of the Sixers.

Sixers Land Number 1 Overall Pick = 15.6% chance

3. Philadelphia

2. New York

1. Minnesota

Hey you, the guy pining for D’Angelo Russell and saying it’s better for the Sixers to finish 3rd than 1st. You realize the team can play Karl Towns alongside either Noel or Embiid, right? He has that kind of skill set. And ask the 2009 and 2010 Lakers if having 3 all-star caliber big men is workable. Plus, if Hinkie and company decide they’re better off drafting Russell and trading down, you can get future first-rounders just for moving back a spot or two. Remember the Elfrid Payton trade? So hope for #1.

#OneSixEleven = 0.28% chance

The best possible scenario: the Sixers receive the 1st, 6th, and 11th picks in the drafts. Hey, stranger things have happened.

May the odds be ever in our favor.