How does the NBA draft lottery work? It sounds so endearingly stupid

There are some strange things about this strange world that we don’t question simply because we’re used to them.

Take Crocs, for example. There’s no reason platypus bill-shaped rubber shoes should be acceptable. They don’t even keep out the rain, which is the only useful thing rubber shoes do. Yet I’ve owned three pairs (one of which was fleece-lined), and Mario Batali — a smart, successful guy! — has made them His Thing. Humans can adapt to anything.

Sports in general is a weird and manufactured concept if you stop and think about it. They don’t really ... matter? [* extremely Stephen A. Smith voice *] HOWEVER: We care about them, they’re exciting, they make us feel alive, and they’re a glorious escape from this often garbage world. So they’re therefore very important.

Sports’ importance doesn’t mean we should ignore how weird some of the things within sports are, though.

Things like the NBA draft lottery.

Now, if you’re an NBA fan, you’re probably reading this and thinking, “What do you mean? The draft lottery isn’t weird. It’s just what we do.”

That’s exactly my point. Just because it’s what we do doesn’t mean it makes sense. To show you NBA heads just how weird it is, let’s pretend you’re explaining how it works to someone who is completely clueless.

Your friend, not a sports person: “What are you watching?”

You, a sports person: “This thing called the NBA draft lottery.”

Friend: “Cool. Want a beer?’

You: “Sure, I’ll take a Miller High Life.”

Friend: [*hands you a High Life*] “So this NBA thing is to draft players?”

You: “No, because it’s not a draft, it’s a draft lottery.”

Friend: “OK, so it’s a lottery to draft players?”

You: “Kind of. It’s not a lottery to actually draft players, it’s a lottery to determine the order in which each team that didn’t make the playoffs gets to actually draft players.”

Friend: “But you just said it’s not a draft.”

You: “Right, because it isn’t a draft, it’s more of a draft for the draft.”

Friend: “You sound crazy. Are you on any meds that don’t mix well with alcohol? Like, should I be worried, are you high?”

You: “No, I’m not high, I’m just —” [*frustrated sigh*]

“OK, listen. The league puts a bunch of ping pong balls into a big air blower thingy. The balls have numbers on them, and teams are assigned four-ball combinations. The teams that were bad last season have more ping pong combinations in there than other teams, so that their ping pong balls have a higher chance of getting picked first. The order that the ping pong balls get spit out in is the order in which teams get to draft players. But only the three worst teams get to go completely by chance — after that, the teams just go in order of worst to best.”

Friend: “So you’re watching someone pick ping pong balls out of an air blower?”

You: “No, that happens in a room with a door closed. I’m watching them announce the order that the balls got spit out in after they get spit out.”

Friend: “Wait, so you don’t even get to watch the fun part? The ping pong ball part?”

You: “No. Can I have another beer? This is stressful.”

Friend: “Sure.” [*hands you another High Life*]. “So you just watch a guy read the order that the ping pong balls got picked in?”

You: “Yeah.”

Friend: “Why is there a representative from each team there, then?”

You: “I don’t know, to make it seem important?”

Friend: “Is it important?”

You: “Yeah, it’s literally the most important thing. Like, no basketball game I watched this year determines the future of a team more than this moment. My team could suck, but if we get a good draft pick, there might be hope.”

Friend: “Does this happen anywhere, like, cool?”

You: “I mean, this year it’s in Brooklyn at the Barclays Center, so, sure I guess. But it used to happen in New Jersey. Secaucus.”

Friend: “Why?!”

You: “Because that’s where league headquarters are.”

Friend: “So they made people from each team, some of them professional basketball players, go to New Jersey to just stand there while some dude announces the results from ping pong balls you don’t even get to see?”

You: “Yeah.”

Friend: “Is this sports?”

You: “What even is sports?”

Friend: [*shakes head, leaves the room*]

See what I mean? It sounds insane when you lay it all out. The best part is that there’s even a draft lottery lottery — earlier this month, the NBA put ping pong balls in an air blower to break down which team gets to have more ping pong balls in the air blower when it comes time for the real draft lottery. They did this, of course, to break ties between teams with the same terrible records, like the Timberwolves and the Knicks.

This is like probability inception. We’re so far down the rabbit hole of drafting that we’ve drafted ourselves and we are all now NBA players.

But it’s also an example of what makes the NBA so delightful. Basketball is a league in which players hold petty grudges (hello, Russell Westbrook), throw copious amounts of shade (what’s up, John Wall?), and generally act like high schoolers (hey, banana boat crew!) in the most delicious way. It’s as much fun to watch these guys grandstand as it is to watch them play basketball, so of course their draft is preceded by a spectacle of ping pong balls that you don’t even get to see.

I must begrudgingly add that the draft lottery makes some sense in theory. If teams knew that they could completely tank to secure the worst record in the league and be guaranteed the first pick, they would. This way, they’re only guaranteed a better chance of getting the first pick if they tank. Which doesn’t stop teams from tanking, but hey, I guess it’s something.

Because this is the NBA, there are plenty of conspiracy theories about the draft lottery. Remember the Frozen Letter? In 1985, before the draft was weighted and they bothered with ping pong balls, the league just picked an envelope out of a gigantic plastic ball to determine which non-playoff team got the first pick. Fans are convinced that the league froze the Knicks’ envelopes so that they’d know to grab it for the No. 1 pick. Conspiracists believe the NBA wanted the Knicks to be better since they’re in New York, a big money market, and would bring in more money for the league if they didn’t suck. That’s how they got Patrick Ewing.

Who knows if this is true. But then again, who knows for sure it isn’t?

At any rate, the NBA draft lottery is the best example we have of the beautiful silliness of sports and the absolute delight that is professional basketball. I laugh just thinking about it; it’s the epitome of something mattering so much, being so stupid, and still eliciting so much joy or pain.

I’ll drink to that, and you should, too. Put you Crocs-clad feet up on the coffee table, open a fresh High Life, and turn on ESPN at 8:30 p.m. ET.