The NBA's Strange Draft Lottery ✍🏼

The Hawks pulling off an all-time upset isn’t the story from yesterday’s Draft Lottery.

Sure, Alex Sarr - the 7’1 big man from France will probably go number 1 to Atlanta…

But what’s really interesting is the 6 years of data we have since NBA flipped the lottery odds.

From 2015 through 2018, the worst team in the league (with the highest chances to land the #1 pick) won the lottery.

In 2019 the NBA switched gears.

Load management and tanking discussions were in full force and the NBA’s plan was to level the field.

Since 2019 (the Zion draft) the bottom 3 teams have received an equal chance of landing the top pick.

Yesterday was the 6th lottery since the change and not once has the league’s ugliest team won the lottery.

Just a month ago the Hawks were in the play-in tourney, but after winning with a tiny 3% chance…

They’re 1st on the clock in June.

I’m not criticizing the changes.

I’m almost never in favor of rewarding front offices who intentionally lose games, but the lottery system hasn’t really made an impact

Take a look at the bottom 6 teams from this year:

None of them (at any point in the season) even pretended to be competitive

Now let’s go a step further…

The NBA is preparing to expand to Seattle and Vegas.

Call me crazy, but before they add more teams and water the league down…

They should make sure 20% of their franchises aren’t intentionally losing games.

- FMS

(Free to play)

Tonight’s winner will be shipped a pair of Yeezy Foam Runners

Note:

Upon a tie, players are emailed a split gift card for the displayed value of the sneakers