FanPost

Draft Lottery Probabilities


I posted this in the comments in the front page post on the Warriors winning the coin flip with the Wizards, but I'll repost it here. In the chart, a zero with no decimals is a real zero - there's no way for New Jersey to fall past the #5 spot, since only three spots are chosen by lottery. A zero with decimals (ie 0.000) means that the probability is below the three decimal limit I set - it's possible for New Orleans to fall three spots, but it's incredibly unlikely.

Since we only have one more combination than the Wizards, we basically have the same odds of getting into the lottery (hitting the John Wall/Evan Turner sweepstakes), but we have a much better chance of staying in the top 5 (DeMarcus Cousins/Derrick Favors/Wesley Johnson). Plus, in a weird statistical quirk, we have a better chance of landing the #5 pick than they do. The complete odds for the 4/5 slots:

GSW - WAS

1) 10.4 to 10.3

2) 11.2 to 11.1

3) 12.1 to 12.0

4) 9.9 to 0

5) 37.4 to 23.8

6) 17.9 to 34.4

7) 1.5 to 8.3

8) 0 to 0.4

Full size chart: http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/2482/draftlottery.png

Draftlottery_medium

This FanPost is a submission from a member of the mighty Golden State of Mind community. While we're all here to throw up that W, these words do not necessarily reflect the views of the GSoM Crew. Still, chances are the preceding post is Unstoppable Baby!