Loose Talk: The Editors’ Take
Those who read my last column know that I wrote about the specifics of the NFL Draft. It is a nationally televised event, and the draft order is known months ahead of time. The first selection is made by the team with the weakest record, then the second weakest record, all the way up to the reigning Super Bowl Champions. Because the NFL Draft is organized in the same fashion each year without any randomness, it is impossible to rig. On the other hand, the NBA Draft is ordered by what is called the “draft lottery,” an event that isn’t publicized. Conspiracies have been circling around it’s fixing since the “Frozen Envelope” theory that emerged in the draft’s inaugural year, 1985. The inner working of how the NBA Draft is ordered is arguably the most confusing structure for a draft in any major sport, and due to its element of randomness, no team is guarenteed a No. 1 overall pick, or even a pick in the top three, as the New York Knicks recently learned.
Before the lottery, each of the 14 teams is assigned a set of 4 numbers between 1 and 14, and if those four numbers are the four numbers that are the outputs of a machine, that team is awarded that respective pick. However, not all sets are created equal. For those of you that are in MAT320 or higher, you should know that this is an example of a combination: because 1-2-3-4 is regarded the same as 4-3-2-1, the order does not matter. Therefore, the amount of possible combinations is 14! (the total number of balls) divided by 4!(14-4)! (the number of balls that emerge for each pick). This amounts to 1001 total combos, and since any combo of 1-2-3-4 is not assigned to any team, that leaves 1000 total combos left to be split up amongst the 14 teams.
However, would it not be unfair (and mathematically impossible) to award an equal share out of the 1000 picks to the 14 teams? Surely a struggling team like the Minnesota Timberwolves deserves better odds to win the first pick than the mighty Oklahoma City Thunder? Duh! After 1993, the draft was created with weighted odds, where the worst team in the league is given 25 percent odds to win the lottery, the best non-playoff team is given 0.5 percent odds to win the lottery and the rest of the odds are created off of an aggregate ranking of each teams’ season record. This is why “tanking” is a dangerous strategy in the NBA—even if a team is the worst in the league, it will never have better than a 1 in 4 shot of getting the first pick. In fact, the lottery is only employed for the first three selections. After that the draft order for 4-14 is created by just using regular season standings.
“Okay,” one might say. “That makes sense. It’s mathematically sound, deincentivizes tanking for a season, and creates a little bit of randomness in the draft. So why do I always hear conspiracy theories about how the draft is rigged?” Well, the thing is: nobody sees the lottery. Nobody knows what numbers a team has, nobody knows what Ping-Pong balls come out and the general public has no way of knowing if there was a physical lottery at all. Using this formula, the order for the NBA draft could be constructed by a random drawing just as easily as it could’ve been created by an NBA intern named Steve with an RNG generator and 10 minutes to spare. Or, as many would like to speculate, the NBA lottery is artificially created by the NBA itself in order to create better “stories” for the league and maintain viewer interest.
Skeptics say that the Cleveland Cavaliers’ three number one overall picks in four years with 15.6% and 1.7% odds was “compensation” for the departure of LeBron James. The 2012 draft going to the New Orleans Hornets with 14.8% odds with a once-in-a-generation player sitting at #1 was to solidify the team in New Orleans and generate revenue for a new franchise. The Chicago Bulls won the 2008 draft with 1.7% odds so that they could pick a flourishing Chicago-born talent to reignite the city’s love for the game. And in 1985, the New York Knicks were handed Patrick Ewing on a silver platter to bring money back to the NBA via a big-market team.
Do I belive this? Not really. Are Cleveland’s successes suspicious? Maybe. Do I think the lottery should be televized? Absolutely. However you want to look at it, the NBA Draft is a confusing event that could probably be a lot simpler and more transparent. And yet, tradition marches on. This past Tuesday night, the order for the next draft was released. The winners of the draft were the league’s worst: the Minnesota Timberwolves. Next up was the L.A. Lakers and the Philadelphia 76ers for lottery picks No. 2 and No. 3. From there, the records went in order from worst to first: the New York Knicks, the Orlando Magic, the Sacramento Kings, the Denver Nuggets, the Detroit Pistons, the Charlotte Hornets, the Miami Heat, the Indiana Pacers, the Utah Jazz, the Phoenix Suns and the Oklahoma City Thunder. Did the NBA screw over the Knicks to teach the league not to tank? Did Minny end up with the No. 1 to expand a young franchise into the Canadian market? Will the Atlanta Hawks win the NBA Championship? You decide.