NEW YORK -- The NBA Draft Lottery will be held Tuesday night at the Hilton New York, an annual rite of passage that alters the competitive arc of franchises and the fates of multiple future All-Stars.
The only tradition more entrenched in basketball lore than the lottery itself is the conspiracy theories that accompany it. The most infamous example was the assertion -- never substantiated -- that the NBA somehow rigged the 1985 drawing so commissioner David Stern would know he was drawing the Knicks' envelope (which was supposedly frozen or otherwise doctored) to award the flagship franchise with No. 1 pick Patrick Ewing.
Theories, rumors and other fantastic innuendos that subsequent drawings were fixed -- for example, to reward the Cleveland Cavaliers with the No. 1 pick in the past two lotteries (and three of the past four) to compensate for the loss of LeBron James as a free agent in 2010 -- ring even more hollow. The league's drawing procedures have become more complex over the years, to the point where the activities that play out before the results are announced on live TV are straight out of a spy novel -- and seemingly impenetrable to ill-intentioned hands.
Nonetheless, with the Knicks (19.9 percent) and Lakers (11.9 percent) possessing the second- and fourth-greatest statistical chance of being awarded the No. 1 pick, you can just imagine the silliness that would ensue if one of those outcomes happened. Even a statistical novice like myself can figure out that there's nearly a 1 in 3 chance that the Knicks OR the Lakers secure the No. 1 pick. But rest assured, neither the sobering realities of probability nor the ironclad safeguards implemented by the NBA and the accounting firm Ernst & Young will be enough to dissuade conspiracy theorists from amplifying their flimsy tales.
| 2015 NBA Draft Lottery Percentages Per Pick | ||||||||||||||
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| MIN (250) | 25.00 | 21.51 | 17.77 | 35.72 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| NY (199) | 19.90 | 18.81 | 17.12 | 31.86 | 12.31 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| PHI (156) | 15.60 | 15.74 | 15.59 | 22.57 | 26.48 | 4.03 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| LAL (119) | 11.90 | 12.60 | 13.30 | 9.85 | 35.07 | 16.03 | 1.25 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| ORL (88) | 8.80 | 9.66 | 10.68 | 0.00 | 26.15 | 35.99 | 8.36 | 0.37 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| SAC (63) | 6.30 | 7.10 | 8.12 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 43.95 | 30.47 | 3.97 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| DEN (43) | 4.30 | 4.94 | 5.79 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 59.93 | 23.22 | 1.79 | 0.03 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| DET (28) | 2.80 | 3.26 | 3.89 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 72.44 | 16.79 | 0.81 | 0.01 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| CHA (17) | 1.70 | 2.00 | 2.41 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 81.31 | 12.20 | 0.38 | 0.002 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| MIA (11) | 1.10 | 1.30 | 1.58 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 86.97 | 8.88 | 0.18 | 0.001 | 0.00 |
| IND (8) | 0.80 | 0.95 | 1.15 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 90.74 | 6.28 | 0.08 | 0.0001 |
| UTA (7) | 0.70 | 0.83 | 1.01 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 93.53 | 3.90 | 0.02 |
| PHO (6) | 0.60 | 0.71 | 0.87 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 96.02 | 1.80 |
| OKC (5) | 0.50 | 0.59 | 0.73 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 98.18 |
| Odds per 1000 for each team in parentheses | ||||||||||||||
According to a detailed explanation published on the NBA's media website, this is how the lottery drawing will go down Tuesday night:
The official drawing will be completed in a conference room at the Hilton, separate from where the results will be announced on ESPN. Present will be NBA officials, representatives of the 14 participating teams and members of Ernst & Young and approximately a dozen media members. Cell phones and any other devices with Internet connectivity will be confiscated.
Media have been allowed to witness the drawing since at least 2004.
Fourteen ping-pong balls labeled 1-14 -- weighed and measured by Smartplay International, the manufacturer of the lottery machine -- will be placed in a hopper. The number 14 is coincidental to the number of participating teams; it is used because exactly 1,001 combinations of four balls exist. Before the drawing, 1,000 of those combinations will be assigned to the 14 teams based on each team's designated odds. The Timberwolves, with the league's worst record, will receive 250 combinations; the Knicks 199; the Sixers 156; and so on.
The 1,001st combination will be unassigned. If that combination is drawn, the balls will be returned to the machine, and four balls redrawn. Similarly, if the same team's combination is drawn twice, the second result will be discarded and the balls are drawn again.
The balls will be mixed for exactly 20 seconds, as determined by a timekeeper with a stopwatch with his or her back to the machine. Then the first ball will be drawn. The balls then will be mixed for 10 seconds before each of the second, third and fourth drawings. Whichever team has that combination of numbers -- in any order -- receives the No. 1 pick.
The process will be repeated for the second and third picks, with teams 4-14 ordered in terms of record and/or tiebreakers, if applicable. It is important to point out that the same 14 balls will be used for each drawing.
At this point, three people will leave the room and convene in a second room: Two NBA lawyers and Denise Pelli, a partner at Ernst & Young. There, Pelli will fill each envelope with the appropriate team logo based on the draft order. Pelli then will be escorted by security guards to a third room, where deputy commissioner Mark Tatum will announce the results live on TV.
Neither Tatum nor any of the team representatives or media members in the third room for the live announcement will be aware of the results before they are read on the air; in fact, Pelli will be the only person in the room who knows. Those besides Pelli who were present in the drawing room remain sequestered there until after the results are announced on TV.
Still don't believe it? The drawing will be video-recorded and published on NBA.com for all the world to view after the televised announcement. This is the video from last year's lottery drawing.
If you're a Knicks or a Lakers fan, you could safely argue that none of the other teams has as much riding on this lottery as yours. This is especially true where the Lakers are concerned, since if LA falls out of the top five -- a 17.28 percent probability -- its pick goes to Philadelphia via a three-team trade with Phoenix that sent point guard Brandon Knight to the Suns.
But bear in mind that the probability of the Lakers or Knicks getting the first pick (31.8 percent) is greater than that of the Lakers losing their pick.
It all depends on how the ping-pong balls bounce. And despite all the conspiracy theories, nothing else.
Options for DJ: There's little, if any, doubt that the Clippers will convey a five-year, $109 million max offer to center DeAndre Jordan as soon as the floodgates open on the free-agent negotiating period at 12:01 a.m. ET July 1. But like other free agents -- Marc Gasol, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Love, etc. -- Jordan will have options. And while a four-year, $80 million deal to leave the Clippers won't be especially enticing, Jordan, 26, could instead choose to bet on himself by agreeing to a two-year deal -- with the Clippers or another team -- with a player option for 2016-17 that would allow him to earn many more millions over the next six years than he could by signing even a five-year max with LA this summer. The other irony for the Clippers, who are hard-capped with few options to improve the supporting cast: The only realistic way to open significant cap room to lure a top free agent would be if Jordan left. And that's where Jordan may be able to find something besides money on the open market that the Clippers can't offer: a leading role, as opposed to being the third wheel behind Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.
Russell's stock rising: While the smart money is still on Jahlil Okafor and Karl-Anthony Towns going 1-2, in some order, on draft night, there was some palpable buzz at the Chicago draft combine last week that multiple teams have not written off DeAngelo Russell if they come out of the lottery with a top-two pick. The Knicks and Sixers, who have the second- and third-best chances statistically of winding up with a top-two pick, are viewed by rival executives as the most likely to depart from traditional thinking on Okafor-Towns.
