The Cold Hard Truth

[lunar]

Over the past few weeks i have watched poster after poster scream about how and why the hawks should "tank" the season and increase the odds to get a top three pick in the draft. seeing as though i already knew that "tanking", even if implemented (which i seriously doubted), was futile, i reserved my self to the fact that we were locked into the number four seed and at the mercy of the draft lottery. therefore i wasn't particuluary interested when i would come on here and heard the same arguments over and over again. that was until i saw all the numbers experts threw around saying that we had a such and such chance of going up and down in the draft. so to see for myself who was right and who was wrong, i decided to do a little bit of research into what our chances were of going up or down in the draft. what i found was an actual study published in the American Journal of Undergraduate Studies. so for those of you who want to know what the real chances of us keeping our pick (which most of you have nightmares about.) this is the official process of what the probability of us keeping our pick.

Study

for those of you who don't feel like reading or can't keep up with the figures, this is what it boils down to.

the probability of us getting the number one pick if we stay at four is 12%

the probability of us getting the number two pick if we stay at four is 12.7%

the probability of us getting the number three pick if we stay at four is 13.41%

the probability we stay at four is 10%

the probability we drop to the five or six spot is 51.89%

to recap, the chance we move up in the draft is 38.11%, the chance we stay at four is 10%, and the chance we drop is 51.89%. and if history is any indicator, we are going to be handing that pick over to phoenix.

2006-2007

Atlanta

???

2005-2006

Atlanta (loss tie-breaker with Charlotte)

5th

2004-2005

Utah

6th

2003-2004

LA Clippers

2nd

2002-2003

Miami (25-57)

5th

2001-2002

Denver (27-55)

5th

2000-2001

Vancouver (23-59)

6th

1999-2000

Vancouver (22-60)

2nd

1998-1999

Denver (14-36)

Traded pick to Toronto

5th

1997-1998

Golden State (19-63)

5th

1996-1997

Denver (21-61)

5th

1995-1996

Milwaukee (25-57)

4th

since 1996 when the new rules were implemented the number 4 team has moved up 2 times, stayed at four 1 time and moved down 8 times.

i'm not here to get into an argument into how depressed the state of the hawks is, or about how much you hate the coach or GM. i just want to give you the real information on the one thing you care about the most.

[DJlaysitup]

Well Lunar...history doesn't mean spit in a fair lottery. 38.11% beats anything you get at the fifth worst and isn't as good as the lower three. Simple reality and simple statistics.

But 38.11% beats the heck out of 27% or so. Does it beat it if another team gets lucky and gets Oden?...nope - but we need 1-2-3 (no 4)

So yeah, we gotta get lucky, luckier than some. But we got a chance from our 4th worst record (if we get it) getting us enough balls to get us a top three pick. A decent chance. I'll take it - although I wish BK had made that a top 5 protected pick.

I'll take the lottery and us with the 11-15 pick and a better than 1/3rd chance at a 1-2-3.

I'm a gambler...so I love this stuff...it's like getting a 10-9 against a K-Q....you both have live cards and each can straighten. Sometimes you gotta gamble...no choice.

[bfwolf]

Seriously, I don't get these people who moan about how the lottery odds are against us so we shouldn't worry about the lottery. Well, no s*** they're against us. We're one of the worst teams in the League. The odds of us achieving real success in the next few years are pretty slim no matter how you slice it. This lottery offers the best odds we've got.

[CBAreject]

I don't know why these numbers required a "study". I made an excel sheet a few years back with all the probs in it. Took me a little over an hour. Just takes basic conditional probability.

Also, a list of what happened to the 4th team over the course of history means absolutely nothing in this lottery. Drives me nuts when I read where someone else has said "the worst team has only gotten the #1 pick 3 times since the lottery was changed". That's like 3 times in 16 years, when we would expect it to be 4 times in 16 years. They act like that's proof of something. I believe Diesel is one of the people who likes to use this in his rigged arguments. Dunno. Haven't read his posts in about a year.

I wonder if those same people would flip a coin 16 times, get 9 heads, and then argue that the coin must be weighted. They might also flip it twice, get two heads, and then argue that a tails is "due" on the third flip.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

It gives credence to the total probability issue getting a top 3 pick overall, and the concrete evidence about the chances that each pick has.

But I'll quickly compare the Draft to what you see on TV with Texas Hold-Em.

Like the draft, Texas Hold-em has three elements to it, that determines the winner. And if the draft were shown live, the process would become as clear as ever.

Everybody in the NBA draft knows what percentage chance they have to get that first pick. That is set in stone and is undeniable. In Texas Hold-Em, you have to wait for the flop to happen, in order to see your chances to win the hand.

So the flop happens, and the percentages of the person with the best hand comes into play.

But also like Texas Hold-Em, your percentages to win the hand change, as soon as that 2nd card ( the Turn ) drops. In Poker, that could be a dramatic shift. In the draft, the fall of ping-pong balls could either win you that 2nd draft position, or leave you waiting on the 3rd.

Then the river card decides the winner of the hand in Texas hold-em. With the draft, the odds of you obtaining a top 3 pick before the draft started, are irrelevant, by the time the 1st and 2nd selections are decided. So if you have a 38% of obtaining a top 3 pick, that all goes out the window, if you miss on picks 1 and 2. The only thing that matters at that point, are your percentage chance of getting that 3rd position.

So to me, it's simple.

- The 37% overall chance of obtaining a top 3 pick doesn't matter to me, when that 1st selection is chosen, because we already know our chances to get that 1st pick are. Just under 12% for the 4th worst team.

- And if we miss out on the 1st and 2nd position, the overall chance of obtaining a top 3 pick doesn't matter to me then either, because the only thing that matters when position 3 is chosen, are your ACTUAL chances to get that pick. That 37% chance of getting a top 3 pick doesn't mean jack then.

- Therefore, I view getting the #2 position in the same light.

And that's why I don't stress over a 3% shift in odds per position, because I view the draft lottery as 3 different selection processes . . which it is.

And it's interesting to see just how unpredictable this lottery has been in the past 11 years. The 3rd worst team has obtained the top pick more than any other team. And Lunar has correctly pointed out that the team that finished 4th worst, has dropped in the draft 8 out of 11 times since 1995.

That means that although the odds are heavily stacked against teams #5 - #14 getting a top 3 pick, one of those teams have managed to do that over 70% of the time.

The odds tell you one thing. The actual lottery events tell you another.

Because of it's unpredictibility, I don't even bother stressing about the lottery. But that's just me.

[bfwolf]

Northcyde, I'm not saying this to try and insult you, but all your post does is expose your ignorance of statistics. It takes an issue which is really quite straightforward and make it confusing.

With the 4th worst record, the odds of getting a top 3 pick before the draft starts are 38%. Those are the only odds that matter because those are the only odds that we can affect. If they do the drawing for the first two picks, and we don't get it, we can't go back in time and say "OK guys, we didn't get the 1st 2 picks and the odds of getting the 3rd pick aren't that great, let's not tank!" Unlike Texas Hold'em, there are no decisions to be made in the middle of the lottery. All we can impact are our odds of getting a top pick ENTERING the draft. And we know exactly what those odds are. 38%. And we know exactly how much they'd improve if we had the 3rd worst record. Another 10%. And if you think this is a 2-man draft, you can do the same calculation and determine our odds improve 6% for getting a top 2 pick if we went from the 4th worst record to the 3rd worst record.

Looking at it as 3 separate drafts simply muddies the waters of a very clear situation.

And looking at history is even worse. This is a lottery. We KNOW what the odds are. EXACTLY what the odds are. A small historical sample size is completely meaningless, and again only confuses a very clear situation.

[AHF]

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Northcyde, I'm not saying this to try and insult you, but all your post does is expose your ignorance of statistics. It takes an issue which is really quite straightforward and make it confusing.

With the 4th worst record, the odds of getting a top 3 pick before the draft starts are 38%. Those are the only odds that matter because those are the only odds that we can affect. If they do the drawing for the first two picks, and we don't get it, we can't go back in time and say "OK guys, we didn't get the 1st 2 picks and the odds of getting the 3rd pick aren't that great, let's not tank!" Unlike Texas Hold'em, there are no decisions to be made in the middle of the lottery. All we can impact are our odds of getting a top pick ENTERING the draft. And we know exactly what those odds are. 38%. And we know exactly how much they'd improve if we had the 3rd worst record. Another 10%. And if you think this is a 2-man draft, you can do the same calculation and determine our odds improve 6% for getting a top 2 pick if we went from the 4th worst record to the 3rd worst record.

Looking at it as 3 separate drafts simply muddies the waters of a very clear situation.

And looking at history is even worse. This is a lottery. We KNOW what the odds are. EXACTLY what the odds are. A small historical sample size is completely meaningless, and again only confuses a very clear situation.

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Nice post.

[Guest Walter]

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Northcyde, I'm not saying this to try and insult you, but all your post does is expose your ignorance of statistics. It takes an issue which is really quite straightforward and make it confusing.

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Essentially, choose the simple, elegant explaination (the complex one is generally inaccurate, untruthful, and/or in this case disengenuous).

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With the 4th worst record, the odds of getting a top 3 pick before the draft starts are 38%. Those are the only odds that matter because those are the only odds that we can affect. If they do the drawing for the first two picks, and we don't get it, we can't go back in time and say "OK guys, we didn't get the 1st 2 picks and the odds of getting the 3rd pick aren't that great, let's not tank!" Unlike Texas Hold'em, there are no decisions to be made in the middle of the lottery.

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Stop the draft! We want a tank-do-over.

Northcyde, just state that you don't like the 47% odds of a 3rd worst team or the 38% odds of of a 4th worst team getting a top 3 pick. It won't help you because you must know the odds of improving this team that tanking precludes us from doing (what exactly does tanking preclude us from doing?...nothing that I can see.) are FAR less than either 48% or 47%. But at least you aren't injuring yourself with other, less managable, sharp-edged argumentation.

W

[thescout5]

To each his own on his opinion of the lottery all I have to say. You can believe what you want on chances at the lottery it still comes down to a crapshoot. The Hawks while obviously having less balls than the top 3 picks it only takes one right ball to hit the big number of 1st or 2nd in the draft. Memphis,Boston,Bucks by no means have it wrapped up and it would serve them right tanking and instead get left out in the cold while the Hawks grab the prize.

[bfwolf]

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To each his own on his opinion of the lottery all I have to say. You can believe what you want on chances at the lottery it still comes down to a crapshoot.

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This reminds me of Anchorman where Ron Burgundy is discussing the etymology of "San Diego" with Veronica Corningstone.

Ron Burgundy: Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means a whale's vagina.

Veronica Corningstone: No, there's no way that's correct.

Ron Burgundy: I'm sorry, I was trying to impress you. I don't know what it means. I'll be honest, I don't think anyone knows what it means anymore. Scholars maintain that the translation was lost hundreds of years ago.

Veronica Corningstone: Doesn't it mean Saint Diego?

Ron Burgundy: No. No.

Veronica Corningstone: No, that's - that's what it means. Really.

Ron Burgundy: Agree to disagree.