NBA Draft Lottery 2014: Updated odds for No. 1 pick
By Josh Hill
The NBA Draft is just around the corner but before we can start speculating too much about who will go where, we first need to see where teams will be picking. That’s what the NBA Draft Lottery is for as unlike the NFL, the NBA doesn’t award it’s worst team the first pick and instead holds a lottery that is meant to discourage tanking.
Obviously, that doesn’t happen but the Lottery lives on regardless, even if fans are sick of the broken system. The lottery works so that the team with the worst record gets the most ping pong balls in the lottery and the odds lower as the draft order does. From here, things work just like the lottery with only the top three teams determined by the draw.
This gives teams lower than the top half of the draft a chance to win the lottery , thus skewering the final draft order. Here’s a look at the draft lottery odds heading into the final games of the season:
| Rank | Team | Record | GB | Odds top pick | Odds top 3 pick | Odds top 5 pick |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Milwaukee | 15-65 (.188) | – | 25.0% | 64.3% | 100.0% |
| 2 | Philadelphia | 17-63 (.213) | 2.0 | 19.9% | 55.8% | 100.0% |
| 3 | Orlando | 23-57 (.288) | 8.0 | 15.6% | 46.9% | 96.0% |
| 4 | Utah | 24-56 (.300) | 9.0 | 11.9% | 37.8% | 82.7% |
| 5 | Boston | 25-55 (.313) | 10.0 | 8.8% | 29.1% | 55.3% |
| 5 | LA Lakers | 25-55 (.313) | 10.0 | 6.3% | 21.5% | 21.5% |
| 7 | Sacramento | 28-53 (.346) | 12.5 | 4.3% | 15.0% | 15.0% |
| 8 | Detroit | 29-52 (.358) | 13.5 | 2.8% | 9.9% | 9.9% |
| 9 | Cleveland | 32-49 (.395) | 16.5 | 1.7% | 6.1% | 6.1% |
| 10 | New Orleans | 32-48 (.400) | 17.0 | 1.1% | 4.0% | 4.0% |
| 11 | New York | 35-45 (.438) | 20.0 | 0.8% | 2.9% | 2.9% |
| 12 | Denver | 36-44 (.450) | 21.0 | 0.7% | 2.5% | 2.5% |
| 13 | Minnesota | 40-40 (.500) | 25.0 | 0.6% | 2.2% | 2.2% |
| 14 | Phoenix | 47-33 (.588) | 32.0 | 0.5% | 1.8% | 1.8% |