The 2015 Draft Lottery: Everything You Need To Know... - Sixers.com
As fans, we often take games comprised of thousands of independent and unique events and reduce them down to a handful – a bounce of the ball in the final minute that went one way as opposed to another, a controversial block/charge call down the... On May 19, the 14 teams that missed out on postseason play will converge upon New York City to engage in a confusing and esoteric process that uses ping pong balls and factorial functions to determine the order of this year’s draft. The 14 non-playoff teams are ordered by final record – worst to best – and are allotted pre-determined lottery odds based upon that order. If two teams finish the season with a same record, their odds are split evenly and a coin is flipped to determine which team is awarded an extra combination (if the total is an odd number) and is slotted higher in the case that neither is awarded... Indiana won the ensuing coin flip and as a result was awarded eight combinations as opposed to the seven allotted to Boston. We’ll talk more about what exactly these combinations mean later, but for now think of each as one chance out of 1,000 that a particular team will be awarded the top pick. A few paragraphs down is a look at each team’s odds of picking in each of the top 14 spots in this year’s draft. Source: www.nba.com
