Chances for the Wolves:
1st: 5.3%Â (5.3%)
2nd: 6.0%Â (11.3%)
3rd:Â 7.0% (18.3%)
6th:Â 44.0% (62.3%)
7th:Â 33.0% (95.3%)
8th:Â Â Â 4.5% (99.8%)
9th:Â Â Â 0.1%Â (99.9%)
Everyone knows the Wolves have never caught a break in the lottery. I'm predicting 7th. I'm also predicting that McHale won't be sitting there.
Update: Who the hell is Zarko Duricic? He's the director of player personnel of the Timberwolves. So I'm right about that no-brainer.
Update II: The Wolves are at six. No one jumped ahead of them, but they didn't jump up, either. Portland, who could do no worse than fourth, ended up fourth.
Update III: Chicago is the big winner at no. 2. (Thanks Isiah!) Toronto gets the #1 pick. With a good young team and a good new GM in Bryan Colangelo (the architect of the Phoenix Suns). I think things are looking up for the Raptors.
Wow, I must be missing something important here. How complicated is this process that the Wolves could be 1-3, 6-9 but not 4th or 5th? I don't follow.
Either way, I guess I don't trust the Wolves to draft anyone worthwhile. My analogy for this situation:
Timberwolves:KG::Juan Castro:Home Runs
Well, the Wolves were sixth. They pick the top three places and the rest of the teams go in reverse order of their records. So, they could have been one, two, or three. If their name wasn't picked, the worst thing that could happen is that three teams with better records hit the lottery. That wasn't going to happen.
Maybe you can remind me, SBG. Didn't the Magic get incredibly lucky one year? They drafted Shaq with the #1 pick, had a much better season, just missing the playoffs, then got the #1 pick again and drafted Anfernee? Is my memory correct? And what were the chances of that happening?
That's almost exactly what happened. Back then, each team got one ball in the lottery and Orlando had the best record of the non-playoff teams. What happened there was this. Orlando got the number one pick and took Chris Webber. Then, they traded him to Golden State for Penny Hardaway and three number ones. At the time it looked for all the world that Orlando was going to be a dynasty. Then, Shaq went to LA, Hardaway went to Phoenix and it all came apart.
Now, the teams have different numbers of balls in the lottery based on their record.
Okay, I guess that system kind of makes sense. I was thinking they would randomly pick for each spot with weighted balls. I mean, why stop at 3?
But back with the unweighted system, that's pretty crazy. I do like the idea of randomizing things a bit so teams don't start tanking on purpose at the end of the season, not that that stopped the Wolves. Trading away 3 number one picks? Apparently they didn't know that they could get rid of those by breaking the rules for pursuing an overrated player.
SBG, are you sure there was only one ball per team? Moss thought it was always weighted. But there was a year when the team with only one ball (and the least chance) won the lottery -- was that the Knicks and Patrick Ewing?
Moss wonders if Vegas would take bets on the outcome of the lottery. Slotting the Pups would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Pretty sure about that Moss.
The Ewing thing was what precipitated the lottery. They only had the two worst teams eligible to get the number one pick. There were two envelopes in a bowl and David Stern himself picked the envelope with the Knicks logo on it.
Legend has it that the envelope with the Knicks envelope was in the freezer right before the selection to ensure that Stern picked the Knicks.
Nope, Moss, you were right all the way around. There were seven teams in the Ewing lottery. I am sure I heard that Ewing was an envelope deal many times. In 1990, it was weighted for the first time. Orlando had one ball out of 66 and still hit it with Webber/Hardaway. The lottery was weighted further in favor of the crappier teams since then.
I, too, thought the draft was always weighted. But it wasn't nearly as extremely weighted as it is today.
Just did a quick Google search and it looks like the system changed a lot over the years. But as late as 1990, the worst team got 11 balls and the "best" team got 1 ball with all spots up for grabs in the lottery.
In 1994 there were 1000 lottery balls and the worst team had 25% of those with the number dropping to 5 balls for the "best" squad.
I love the Ewing-Knicks conspiracy theories about how they got the #1 pick. Almost as much as I loved Ewings 14 steps to take out the Pacers back in the mid-90s.
Sincerely,
A still-bitter Pacers fan
SBG, the first lottery did indeed use envelopes in a drum, picked out by Stern like he was chairman of a raffle. Seven teams had an envelope in the drum, but Stern quiet possibly could have devised a scheme to let him recognize the Knicks envelope by touch.
The Warriors and Pacers tied for the worst record the prior season. Golden State by chance was drawn from the drum first, giving them the #7 pick. Fortunately for them, though, they used it to pick Chris Mullin. The Pacers won the #2 pick, and used it to take Wayman Tisdale--a good pro player, but he only stayed in Indiana for 3.5 seasons.
More trivia about the 1985 draft:
The Clippers had the #3 pick, which they used to take Benoit Benjamin. Other 1st rounders they passed on: Xavier McDaniel, Chris Mullin, Detlef Schrempf, Charles Oakley, Joe Dumars, A.C. Green, Terry Porter, and... Karl Malone, taken at lucky #13 by Utah.
At the time, the draft went to 7 rounds. Milwaukee used its #21 pick in the 7th round that year to select a player from American International University, who did not make the team. In fact, he didn't surface in the NBA for another 5 years, when he played 3 games for Philly and then hooked up with the Warriors. For the '91-92 season, the Warriors brought him back and played him in 79 games, 32 starts. He then spent a season in Portland before getting traded to the Rockets, where he became a key sub/3-point gunner on their two championship teams, and he later played in the same role for the Spurs' championship team in '99. Who was that '85 afterthought? Mario Elie.
Mario Elie, a seventh round pick. Unbelievable. I do remember that the draft was longer than two rounds. Talk about a waste of time. I remember that NDSU had a guy named Lance Berwald who was a stud at the D-II level and he got drafted in the fifth round of the 1984 draft (you know, the Sam Bowie draft). I was a big fan of his and pretty excited about that... thinking he'd be playing with Kareem and Magic. That is, until I read his quote in the paper that the most he expected out of the deal was a pair of shoes. He was heading to Europe to play. I guess I was a little naive back then. Then again, Matt Doherty was taken in the sixth round that year. Back then, the draft was 10 rounds and sprinter Carl Lewis was taken in the tenth round by Houston.
I can't believe Augie actually had a guy play in the NBA (and several drafted).
(The reason I went to search was in hopes that the long NBA drafts went deep enough in the 80's/early 90's to catch the former Augie star who became a phy ed teacher and was convicted of sleeping with one of his students.)