Aloha. I have about 15 minutes to get up a lottery post (if Hawai'i hasn't moved in time-relation to the world again) before all the silt hits the river floor and the conspiracists start rolling. Thus, no time for advanced non-analysis. Just a little side-spit. The NBA Lottery is the ugly step-sister that you have to dance with before you get to marry whichever cinderella-man you eventually want to end up (or trade along with cash considerations). But it's also where a lot of the drama for the draft is set up.With this in mind, I wanted to take a quick look at some of the memorable lottery windfalls and flubs. First, the obvious ones. The inaugural set the tone. Ewing to New York. In those days there were seven envelopes. No ping-pong balls. Other notables were Shaqtus & Penny/C-Webb to Orlando, Duncan to San Anton, and Rose to The City of Wind. Most of those "windfalls" did not actually lay far outside of reasonable reason. They were within the top five teams likely to snab that prized young'n. It's not that much of a reach for any of the top five teams in the lottery to win, as they have at least 9% chance to win. That second Orlando pick was the real doozy of this lot, as the Magic were the least likely in the bunch to land the top pick. Too fast, too young, as evident by the so soon after immolation. The other notable lottery windfall? New Jersey in 2000. They were seventh most likely to win the top pick, which may not seem like much of a slide from top five. However, it represents a probability drop from ten or more percent to less than five percent likelihood. What they did with their windfall? Kenyon Martin.
Anyway, I'm not much of a statnik, and I didn't write my undergraduate research on the topic, but I thought it was at least mentioning. By my observations, no other team has won the lottery with less of a percentage besides that 1994 Orlando prestidigitation feat. For New York to win this year's lottery, a much blog-o-touted desire of David Stern's? They have less than 3% chance. Blake Griffin, I hope you like small town dining. Or perpetual losing at the hands of Mike Dunleavy, Sr. and Donald Sterling. Speaking of flubs, what are the big ones? We all know the many draft flubs that seem inavoidable. Olowakandi, Kwame Brown, Joe Smith, Sam Bowie, and Andrea Bargnani come to mind (though not without reason or redemption). The only real name-recognition lottery flub, however, is the one where Boston was highly thought about to land Tim Duncan, but instead wound up with the third pick and Chauncey Billups (not such a bad looking pick now, huh?). Cheers!
EDIT: 8:30 EST is when it goes down? Oh well, I have a meeting anyway.
UPDATE: Sacramento drops to fourth and the Wiz to fifth (updated live). This effectively crushes Sacto's future hopes and Oklahoma's dreams of doing like Chicago and Cleveland and keeping their native son.
Oh man, astronomical groan. Clippers get another first pick. So put three years (and a month) on the clock for Blake Griffin's eventual trading to his real team. Although Griff and Boom Dizzle is not without a little intrigue. It also makes the number two pick debatable, because Memphis doesn't necessarily need another guard like Rubio.
Chicago sent an exec last year, and the Clips sent one this year. C-Webb, DJ Augustin, and a Sacramento fan recently failed to pull the first pick for their teams. Apparently gimmicks are not the way to go for lottery luck.
