The 2017 NBA Draft Lottery is finally happening on Tuesday (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). The drawing is held behind closed doors with witnesses, and the results are revealed in the most excruciating, dramatic method possible. It’s basically a half hour of torture for fans of the league’s very worst teams.
The most hilarious possible NBA Draft Lottery results
Many involve the Kings falling flat on their faces.
Sergio Estrada-USA TODAY Sports
There’s a twist this year: A bunch of the high picks have been traded. Some of those trades have conditions on them. That means that who gets those picks depends entirely on where they land in the lottery. The most high-profile example is the Lakers pick, which transfers to Philadelphia if it’s not in the top three.
In other words, there is a huge opportunity for bedlam. To set the stage, we put together the five most hilarious possible lottery results. Fingers crossed we get one of them!
1. The Lakers fall to No. 4 and lose their pick
This isn’t hilarious solely for Lakers haters. Remember, L.A.’s inexplicable winning streak to end the season after the Lakers’ brain trust did everything they could to set up the team to tank out? This was some really egregious tanking ... and it didn’t work!
L.A. won five straight in April to “fall” into the third-worst record after gaining control of the second-worst record for much of the season. That dropped the Lakers’ odds of keeping their pick from better than 54 percent to 46 percent. How amazing would it be if the Suns — who ended up in that second-worst slot — stayed in the top three and the Lakers fell out and gave their pick to Philadelphia?
See each team’s odds of winning the 2017 NBA draft lottery, and everything else you need to know. Here are several scenarios for how it could shake out:
2. The Sixers lose the lottery but still get picks Nos. 1 and 4
This is a twist on Scenario No. 1. The Sixers could completely lose the lottery with their own pick — falling down to No. 6 despite the fourth-worst record — and still walk away with the No. 1 and No. 4 picks thanks to ... Sam Hinkie!
If the Kings win the No. 1 pick, Philadelphia will swap its own pick (which could be as low as No. 7) for that choice. If the Lakers fall to Nos. 4 or 5, the Sixers would get that one, as well.
So, the most ridiculous scenario is for the Sixers to win No. 1 via the Kings, No. 4 via the Lakers, and then give up No. 6 to the Kings. (The Sixers can’t both fall to No. 7 and get No. 4. If Philly’s own pick goes down to No. 7, they either wouldn’t have the L.A. pick or it’d be No. 5.)
3. The Kings get No. 1 and lose it to Philadelphia
Yet another twist. Sacramento has won the lottery once in 21 trips. (That No. 1 pick was Pervis Ellison. Good job, good effort.) In the Kings’ current streak of 10 straight lotteries (this is No. 11), Sacramento hasn’t moved into the top three even once. When they had the best odds to land Blake Griffin in 2009, they fell to No. 4.
It’s essentially fate that they win No. 1 now when they have a pick swap option with the Sixers alive due to the still-insane Hinkie Heist of 2015. The thing is that this isn’t a terrible outcome for the Kings: They’d miss out on Markelle Fultz, but they’d still get the Sixers pick in the swap, which is likely to be No. 5 or 6 in such a scenario. It’s better than the No. 8 they are most likely to get otherwise, and it’s much better than a cruel scenario we’ll get to in one second.
But it’s still so, so screwed up.
4. The Wolves move up thanks to the Knicks’ win in the season finale
All the Knicks had to do to clinch the sixth-worst record in the NBA was lose their final game of the season. Instead, they won a heartbreaker against the Sixers. That result helped Philadelphia improve its pick situation and, critically, let the Timberwolves tie the Knicks for the sixth-worst record.
That dropped the Knicks’ odds for No. 1 from 6.3 percent to 5.3 percent and it dropped their odds for a top-three pick from 22 percent to 18 percent. Now imagine the Wolves nab No. 1 overall, or just a top three pick with one of the combinations the Knicks gave up by winning that game against the Sixers. Imagine that drops the Knicks to the No. 7 pick.
Imagine what that would do to New York’s psyche.
Imagine.
Go Knicks.
5. The Kings end up with no picks
The Kings have their own pick with conditions and the Pelicans’ pick with conditions. We’ve discussed the Sixers’ swap option with the Kings’ pick. There’s another condition: If it falls out of the top 10, it gets sent to the Chicago Bulls thanks to a 2011 JJ Hickson-for-Omri Casspi deal. (The Kings got Hickson in said deal and waived him within months. Yeah.) The condition on the Pelicans’ pick: New Orleans keeps it if it lands in the top three.
You see where this is headed.
If the Mavericks, Pelicans, and one of the Hornets, Pistons, Nuggets, or Heat all leap into the top three, the Kings wouldn’t get New Orleans’ pick and would fall to No. 11 overall, which would mean giving their own pick to the Bulls.
Instead of walking away with two top-10 picks and a bright future, the Kings would spend the next month scouting second round prospects. Luckily for Sacramento, the odds of this happening are incredibly small. Never before have three low-odds teams jumped into the top three.
But if it could happen to anyone, it’d be the Kings.
