NBA Draft Lottery 2016: 76ers win No. 1 pick, Lakers pick 2nd

Fans of the Sixers and our Sixers Blog, Liberty Ballers got together for a huge draft party. Their reaction to the results being announced was so freaking great.

Sam Hinkie may be gone from the Sixers but his legend lives on.

Here’s the full draft order:

1. Philadelphia 76ers

Breathe easy, Los Angeles Lakers fans. The Lakers landed in the top three of the lottery, which means the franchise will keep its pick in the 2016 NBA Draft. The Lakers finished with the No. 2 selection, while the Philadelphia 76ers will pick first. L.A. also had the second-best odds in the lottery entering the night.

Had the Lakers’ pick fallen outside of the top three, the pick would have been sent to the 76ers. The Lakers traded the rights to the pick to the Phoenix Suns in 2012 for Hall of Fame point guard Steve Nash. Phoenix sent those rights to Philadelphia in a multi-team trade that netted the Suns point guard Brandon Knight and sent former Sixers point guard Michael Carter-Williams to Milwaukee.

Now, they’ll have to decide who they’re going to take. LSU’s Ben Simmons and Duke’s Brandon Ingram are the top prospects in this year’s draft after stellar seasons as college freshmen.

Simmons has been the projected No. 1 pick since signing at LSU in November 2014 as the 2015 high school class’ top prospect. LSU didn’t make the NCAA Tournament, and even declined entering other postseason tournaments, but Simmons still impressed in his short collegiate career. He averaged an incredible 19 points and 12 rebounds

The logos in this video each appear for an amount of time corresponding to their weighted odds of winning the first pick in Tuesday night’s NBA Draft lottery. Tap to stop and see who you get!

If you can get this to stop on the Magic, Jazz or Bulls, please send me a screencap. I’ve been trying for like an hour and I don’t even like any of those teams. They each appear for a single frame!

Those two prospects are LSU’s Ben Simmons and Duke’s Brandon Ingram. For a long time, Simmons, an Australian phenom, was viewed as the easy No. 1 selection thanks to his multifaceted game at 6’10. But as the college season wore on and LSU struggled before ultimately failing to make the NCAA Tournament, his flaws came under the microscope. He doesn’t have an outside shot, and there have been questions about his motor and mentality when it comes to taking over games.

Meanwhile, Ingram has gained more supporters over the course of the year. He’s a long, smooth player with a more refined jumper at 6’9, which is becoming more and more important in today’s NBA. SB Nation’s Paul Flannery was at the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago last week and reported that there was little to no consensus on the top pick. Whichever team wins it will have some debating to do.

The weighted draft lottery system the NBA uses to determine the top three draft selections has been in effect since 1990. While some changes have been made as more teams have come into the league, the general process has remained consistent.

With 14 non-playoff teams participating in the lottery, 14 ping-pong balls numbered 1-14 are placed in a machine. The balls are mixed for 20 seconds before the first one is drawn. The remaining balls are then mixed for 10 seconds before the second one is drawn. This process continues until four balls have been drawn to create a four-digit combination to determine the No. 1 pick.

Draft season is officially here. The order at the top of the 2016 NBA Draft will be determined on Tuesday night with the annual draft lottery. There are some huge stakes heading into the drawing.

The Los Angeles Lakers enter the lottery with the second-best odds, but have a 44.2 percent chance of losing the pick because of their 2012 trade for Steve Nash. If the Lakers land outside the top three, the selection will go to the 76ers. Philadelphia’s own selection enters the lottery with the best odds of landing the top pick. With a little luck, the Sixers could supercharge their rebuild in new GM Bryan Colangelo’s first season.

There’s always a playoff game after the NBA Draft Lottery, and said game is almost always overshadowed by the bounce of the balls in the hopper. This is entirely appropriate considering the stakes. In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, either the Cavaliers will do what is expected of them or the Raptors will stun Cleveland into panic. Whichever the case, a Game 2 on Thursday and a Game 3 on Saturday will further refine the story that comes out of the series. Teams lose Game 1 and come back to win the series all the time. (This postseason, the Raptors do it all the time!)

Meanwhile, what happens backstage at the lottery will reverberate around the league for the next 7-9 years and perhaps beyond.

The Suns have the fourth-best odds of winning the lottery at 11.9 percent, while the Timberwolves have an 8.8 percent shot of adding yet another top pick to their roster.

Date and time: Tuesday, May 17, 8 p.m. ET

The league initially had teams picks in reverse order of their records, from worst to best, and included a territorial pick, allowing franchises to select players from colleges near their area. That changed in 1966, when the worst teams in each division determined who would pick first by virtue of a coin flip. That rudimentary system was used for 19 years, until 1985, when a lottery was first instituted.

The biggest winners in lottery history are the Clippers, who have gotten the top pick five times. They only got to use it three times, as they had traded it the two other times, in 1986 and 2011. The Cavaliers won it three times (2003, 2013, 2014) and got to select first overall in 2011 thanks to receiving the Clippers’ pick in a trade. The Magic won it three times, getting it in back-to-back years in 1992 and 1993 as well as in 2004.

There’s no consensus top prospect this year, as both Brandon Ingram and Ben Simmons have been projected to be selected first throughout the year. The 76ers have 25 percent chance to be able to choose between them if one of their combination is the lucky one on Tuesday. Even if they don’t get the No. 1 pick, they will select no lower than fourth, which means they will get an opportunity to grab one of the best players in the class.

If the picks goes to Philadelphia, the Lakers will not only be giving up the possibility to select a good prospect but also giving up a great trade asset that could come in handy if a star becomes available in the offseason. Needless to say, that’s the nightmare scenario. On the other hand, they have a 19.9 chance of leapfrogging the Sixers and getting the top overall pick, which would obviously give it more value. There’s a lot riding in this lottery for Los Angeles.