Read the opposing argument from Babe Ruthless .
I have a question for you: Quickly, what you know about the NBA draft lottery?
I’m waiting.
No, I’m sorry. The team with the worst record does NOT necessarily get the first pick in the draft lottery. You must be confusing that with the other major sports! If that’s what you want, join millions of others and go watch the NFL Draft each April.
If the New Jersey Nets played in the NFL, they would be sitting in the catbird’s seat right now. They’d be able to have the luxury of choosing Kentucky point guard John Wall or Ohio State’s Evan Turner, the consensus top two players in the draft. There’s a wide belief that there’s a significant drop-off from those two players to other players like Georgia Tech’s Derrick Favors and Wall’s collegiate teammate Demarcus Cousins.
How exciting would it be for the Nets organization to have the first pick in the draft? They are coming off a horrific season in which they finished with an embarrassing 12-70 record. Yes, I’m aware that the Nets have a new majority owner in Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov (with a name like that, he should have been in the recently completed eighth and final season of “24” on Fox). Yes, I know that the Nets are in the process of building a new arena in Brooklyn. But all of that extra-curricular excitement behind the scenes is easily superseded by the disastrous 2009-2010 season.
You would think that a 12 win season could earn a team a number one overall draft pick. But that is not the way the NBA draft lottery works. According to the most recent NBA draft lottery odds, the Nets, thanks to their 12 win season, had a 25 percent chance of winning the lottery. They had a better chance of getting good service at the local McDonalds. The Washington Wizards, the eventual winner of the “Wall-Turner sweepstakes” had only a 7.6 percent chance of winning. If you’re in the Nets’ front office you may be thinking, “Hey, if we had won 14 more games, and if our players had carried around guns in the locker room, maybe we would have won the lottery.”
The facts state that since 1990 only three teams with the worst record have “won” the lottery. In 1990, the Nets won the lottery and drafted Derrick Coleman. The Cleveland Cavaliers had the worst record in 2003, and they were rewarded with the first pick… and we know who they chose. The same thing happened with the Orlando Magic in 2004, and I’m pretty sure we’re all aware who they chose, also. Contrarily, in 2008, despite having less than 2 percent chance of winning the lottery, the Chicago Bulls did in fact win the lottery and earned, or lucked into, the right to draft Derrick Rose. The Bulls had the ninth worst record in the league that year. Not the worst! The ninth worst record!
In order of fairness, the teams with the worst record should be “rewarded” with the top pick in the following draft. The Nets, quite frankly, earned this honor, which is necessary to properly rebuild! But, in the interest of unfairness, that’s not how it turned out.
Now, I think I’ll go buy a scratch-off lottery ticket!
