Tiebreakers Set Lottery Stage for Sixers

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

Friday afternoon, the NBA streamed its drawing for regular season tiebreakers and corresponding draft position, a ping pong ball viewing experience that really made you question how you’re spending your finite amount of time on this Earth. Two of the tiebreaker scenarios affected the Sixers, and as these things tend to go, the Sixers did not exactly come out on top.

The Miami pick, which could have ended up as high as 21th, settled in the worst possible position of 24th. Meaning, whoever the Sixers take with the 24th pick will be the return for trading away Thad Young, which is really sad considering they were one game away from getting Miami’s pick last year in the 11th spot and possibly having Justice Winslow fall one more pick to them. Now, watch the next Serge Ibaka or Rudy Gobert be selected 21st or 22nd, and everyone blame Sam Hinkie that he didn’t put the Sixers franchise in the right position to take him.

As for the Kings tiebreaker, that actually did go in the Sixers favor, with Sacramento winding up in the 8th spot, when they could have been 9th or 10th. However, things work differently in the lottery, and the Sixers will only receive one extra lottery ball combination, while the rest are split evenly between the three teams (SAC, DEN, and MIL).

Pending the lottery, here’s everything we now know about where the Sixers will be drafting come June.

Sixers own first round pick (including the odds from the Sacramento swap):

1st overall = 26.9%

2nd overall = 22.6%

3rd overall = 18.2%

4th overall = 32.3%

Lakers first round pick (with Sixers receiving it):

4th overall = 31.87%

5th overall = 12.36%

24th overall pick (via Miami)

26th overall pick (via Oklahoma City)

Best-case scenario: 1st, 4th, 24th, 26th

Worst-case scenario: 4th, 24th, 26th

Given how the lotteries have shaken out the last couple years, and the entire front office fiasco, I think the karmic universe owes it to Sixers fans to have things slide move toward the best-case scenario end of that spectrum. Or maybe the NBA conspiracy theorists are right and Adam Silver made a wink-wink deal with Sixers ownership about the #1 pick for installing Jerry Colangelo as an advisor. Either way, we’ll find out next month with the lottery.