The NBA today decided several coinflips for draft order between teams that finished with identical records, with the Kings losing their tiebreaker with the Jazz, putting them in the 5th spot for the upcoming draft lottery. Unlike playoff seeding which is determined by various tiebreaker and head to head scenarios, draft order is instead decided by random chance when it comes to a tie. The Sacramento Kings and Utah Jazz were the highest profile of these tied teams as both finished the season with the same 22-60 records. While Sacramento’s odds for a top-4 pick essentially didn’t change (the Kings and Jazz split ping pong balls evenly), there is a decent difference on the odds on where they could potentially fall and now the Kings could fall as low as 9th (although the odds of the at are extremely low). Despite their slot being 5th, the Kings only have a 2% chance of actually picking 5th, the second lowest odds of any spot they could draft.
Here are the full odds for the Kings after the coin toss:
- 1st: 11.5%
- 2nd: 11.4%
- 3rd: 11.2%
- 4th: 11.0%
- 5th: 2.0%
- 6th: 18.2%
- 7th: 25.5%
- 8th: 8.5%
- 9th: 0.6%
It should be noted that the Kings entered the All-Star break with the NBA’s worst record, but went 10-16 after the All-Star break to drop several spots in the standings. Washington ended up with the league’s worst record at 17-65 and will have a guaranteed top-5 pick. Indiana has the second best odds, and Brooklyn finished 3rd. The tanking done this season caused such a furor in league circles that changes are all but guaranteed to take place as soon as next season. The likely scenario being floated around is some sort of flattening of draft odds so that losing doesn’t add any incentive, but we won’t know what changes will be made for certain, and any changes made will likely have their own set of problems.
The NBA Draft lottery is set to take place on May 10th, with the NBA Draft taking place on June 23rd and 24th.
From becoming the first team eliminated from the playoffs to having the best odds of picking #7 is the chef’s kiss of Kangz tomfuckery.
I am sure that Vivek is elated. The #1 pick will make roughly $52m over the first four years of the contract, while #7 will make $28m.
I can damn near say for certain that someone in Vivek’s orbit or Vivek himself hasn’t crunched some numbers on that.
“Is AJ and #1 all that better than Acuff Jr. at #7 when you take into cost of contract over time?” is very likely a question that has been asked to AI by the Kings front office.
The Jazz even won the second to last game and would’ve gifted us the 4th position….but of course, Kangz just had to win that same night as well…
Greatest odds at getting the 7th pick, you say? Jerry, would you care to comment on that?
Kings #7 picks
1992 – Walt Williams
1998 – Jason Williams
2013 – Ben McLemore
If you pick 7, pick a Williams
Badge Legend