The NBA Draft Lottery is an annual event selecting the top picks of the following NBA Draft. The NBA Draft is an annual North American event in which the National Basketball Associations (NBA) thirty teams (29 in the United States and one in Canada) can select players who wish to join the league. ...

History

First established in 1985, it was at first a chance drawing for all first-round picks, with all non-playoff teams (in 1985 there were seven non-playoff teams in the National Basketball Association) having equal chance of landing the number one pick. The New York Knicks won the lottery in 1985 and made Patrick Ewing the number one pick. Some in the NBA were concerned about results when the worst team, the Golden State Warriors, drew the seventh and final lottery draft position. Also, controversy over the "frozen" envelope of the New York Knicks also developed into fact or fiction is rabid in speculation[1]. 1985 NBA Draft - 18 June 1985 See also: List of NBA Drafts, NBA Draft // (*) compensation for draft choices traded away by Ted Stepien This draft marks the first time the NBA Draft Lottery was introduced it was put into place so teams did not have to intentionally lose games to... “NBA” redirects here. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Patrick Aloysius Ewing (born August 5, 1962) is a Jamaican-born American former NBA player. ... The Golden State Warriors are a professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. ...

In 1986, many lottery teams had traded their first-round draft picks, and as a result, the top two teams in the Draft Lottery were playoff teams, with the eventual NBA champion Boston Celtics picking second, a pick (Len Bias) which would eventually haunt the franchise (Bias, expected to be a star for years to come, died two days after the draft of a cocaine overdose; the team has not won a championship since). The Philadelphia 76ers, who won the lottery on the draw from a trade with the then-San Diego Clippers in the late 1970s where the Clippers picked up Joe Bryant in return for the 1986 first-round pick, traded it to the Cleveland Cavaliers afterwards. The 1986 NBA Draft is perhaps most notable for the drug-related death of highly-touted Len Bias less than two days after being selected second overall by the defending champion Boston Celtics. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Leonard Kevin Bias (November 18, 1963 – June 19, 1986) was an American college basketball player who suffered a fatal cardiac arrhythmia that resulted from a cocaine overdose less than 48 hours after being selected by the Boston Celtics in the 1986 NBA Draft. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979. ... Coaching the Los Angeles Sparks, July 3, 2006 Joseph Washington Jellybean Bryant (born October 19, 1954, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American former professional basketball player and a current WNBA coach. ... The Cleveland Cavaliers (also known as the Cavs) are a professional basketball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. ...

In 1990, however, the NBA changed the format of the lottery to give the worst team the most chances of landing the top pick. For the 11 non-playoff teams that season, the team with the worst record would have 11 chances, the second worse would have 10, etc. However, the Orlando Magic defied the odds by gaining two number one picks consecutively, despite the fact that they were the best non-playoff team the second year. 1990 NBA Draft - 27 June 1990 - New York City, New York Derrick Coleman 1. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

Beginning with the 1995 lottery, the chances were weighed even more, so that the best non-playoff team would only have a slim (0.5%) chance of receiving the top pick. The heavy weighting of the current lottery has been ridiculed as providing incentives for lottery-bound teams to tank at the end of the season. Teams unlikely to make the playoffs, and thus likely to be part of the draft lottery, often "rest" their best players in order to have the best possible chance of receiving a very high draft pick. 1995 NBA Draft - 28 June 1995 - Toronto, Ontario Round 1 See also: List of NBA Drafts, NBA Draft ...

The term "lottery pick" in the NBA usually denotes a pick of one through fourteen overall. Also, non-playoff teams in the NBA are called "lottery teams".

Process

The lottery is normally held during the fourth week of May. The 2007 draft lottery will be held Tuesday, May 22nd.

Fourteen ping pong balls numbered 1-14 are placed in a standard lottery machine and four balls are drawn at random to determine the winner. Just as in most traditional lotteries, the order of the numbers are not important, so although there are 24 different permutations of the same four numbers being drawn, all are treated as the same combination. That is, 1-2-3-4 is considered to be the same as 3-4-2-1. By eliminating the importance of the order of the numbers, the 24,024 (14! / 10!, or 14x13x12x11) possible combinations are reduced to 1,001. Of these, 1,000 are divided among all the non-playoff NBA teams. One sequence (11-12-13-14) is not assigned, and is ignored if drawn; this has never occurred in practice. Permutation is the rearrangement of objects or symbols into distinguishable sequences. ... For factorial rings in mathematics, see unique factorisation domain. ... In combinatorial mathematics, a combination is an un-ordered collection of unique elements. ...

In the event a lottery pick is traded to another team, the record of the original team (whose pick it was before the trade) matters in determining eligibility for the lottery, and assignment of chances.

As of 2005, with 30 NBA teams, 16 qualify for the playoffs and the remaining 14 teams are entered in the draft lottery. These 14 teams are ranked in reverse order of their regular season record and are assigned the following number of chances:

1. 250 combinations, 25% chance of receiving the #1 pick
2. 199 combinations, 19.9% chance
3. 156 combinations, 15.6% chance
4. 119 combinations, 11.9% chance
5. 88 combinations, 8.8% chance
6. 63 combinations, 6.3% chance
7. 43 combinations, 4.3% chance
8. 28 combinations, 2.8% chance
9. 17 combinations, 1.7% chance
10. 11 combinations, 1.1% chance
11. 8 combinations, 0.8% chance
12. 7 combinations, 0.7% chance
13. 6 combinations, 0.6% chance
14. 5 combinations, 0.5% chance

In the event of a tie, each tied team receives the average of the total number of combinations for the positions involved. In 2007, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Portland Trail Blazers tied for sixth, resulting in each team getting 53 combinations (the average of 63 and 43). Should the average number not be an integer, a coin flip is then used to determine which team or teams receive the extra combination(s). The Minnesota Timberwolves are a professional basketball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. ... The Portland Trail Blazers are a professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. ... The integers are commonly denoted by the above symbol. ...

The lottery is conducted with witnesses verifying that all 14 balls are represented once as they are placed in the lottery machine. The balls are placed in the machine for 20 seconds to randomize prior to having the first ball drawn. The remaining three balls are drawn at 10 second intervals. NBA League Officials determine which team holds the winning combination and that franchise is awarded the #1 overall draft pick. The four balls are returned to the machine and the process is repeated to determine the second and third picks. In the event that a combination belongs to a team that has already won its pick (or if the 1 unassigned combination comes up), the round is repeated until a unique winner is determined. When the first three teams have been determined, the remaining picks are given out based on regular season record with the worst teams getting the highest picks. This assures each team that it can drop no more than 3 spots from its projected draft position.

In the case where a lottery team trades its pick to a playoff team, the playoff team assumes the lottery team's position in all draft lottery situations, unless provisioned by the conditions of the trade.

For the 2007 NBA Draft, the NBA determined tie breakers on April 20th, 2007. The 2007 NBA Draft will be held on June 28, 2007 at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden in New York City. ...

Here are the odds for each seed to get specific picks in the 2007 lottery (rounded to 3 decimal places):

Lottery ceremony

The actual lottery (the draw of the ping-pong balls) is conducted in private, though observed by independent auditors and representatives from each team. The results are subsequently presented in a short ceremony (typically broadcast live during the halftime of an NBA playoff game), in which the order of the lottery is announced in reverse order, from 14 down to 1. Representatives from each NBA franchise with a lottery pick, typically a general manager or other team executive, are present at the lottery ceremony. At the ceremony, it is often the case that the team who wins the number one pick will, if there is a consensus best player in the draft (or the team has decided whom to select), then unveil a team uniform with that player's name on it. In 1989, the lottery-winning Sacramento Kings made light of this tradition by unveiling a Kings' uniform with a question mark on it, as there was no clear-cut #1 pick that year. (The Kings eventually selected Pervis Ellison). 1989 NBA Draft - 27 June 1989 - New York City, New York See also: List of NBA Drafts, NBA Draft First Round Second Round Miami Heat - Sherman Douglas, G, Syracuse Categories: 1989 in sports | NBA Draft ... The Sacramento Kings are a professional basketball team which is based in Sacramento, California. ... Pervis Ellison (born April 3, 1967 in Savannah, Georgia) is a former college and professional NBA basketball player. ...

External links

• Draft Coverage @ Fantapedia.net
• NBA.com: Let the ping-pong balls fall
• 2007 NBA Draft Lottery Preview