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.
He needs to be running a 7-Eleven instead of a Basketball team.
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…
I still can’t believe the NBA let the Jazz improve their draft position after being fined during the year for tanking, it should’ve been an automatic loss.
Silver is such a clown.
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
Also Bismack Biyombo (traded along with Beno Udrih for the 10 pick* and John Salmons).
*Jimmer!!!
And Bobby Hurley.
And Lionel Simmons.
43 1st round draft picks in all, with 6 of them coming out of the 7 hole.
I believe this is when the youths would yell “6-7”.
In 2013, we were supposed to pick CJ McCollum. But Kangz wanted the falling dagger that never worked out for them.
There’s a 65.9% chance I’ll be boycotting this team again next season!
I’m much closer to 100%. I had a fabulous time not spending one second of my time watching the Kings this year. Wake me once they show even a shred of competence.
Vlade Divac’s major contribution to the Kings, post-2003 will be screwing them out of a generational talent. It’s looking more and more like Doug Christie’s major contribution to the Kings, post-2003, will be screwing them out of a generational talent. We all know who is ultimately behind this, and maybe blind luck will save them one day. This is such a hopeless organization.
Exactly. Good job Doug md Co. Goong against logic and reason is Kings basketball.
that bullshit Doug spewed about not making and how Dallas ended up with 1. Dumbass.
why not have best odds possible? And if you know how important getting the top pic is Doug why not tank.
Hate them
It’s pretty wild when you think about it. A guy who’s jersey hangs in the rafters is a key figure in why this franchise can’t get out of their own way. The Kings are still having to clean up his mess.
Crazy stat:
In his 5 years as GM Vlade had 7 first round picks in 4 drafts. Of those, just one became an NBA starter. Fox.
In Monte’s 4 first round picks, 3 became NBA starters. Keegan, Hali, and Davion.
Monte was hired as GM after an real search while consulting an outside firm. Vlade was hired without a search because Vivek liked him. Perry was hired the same way Vlade was.
If you listen to local media the blame for this roster is all Montes fault and Scott Perry just can’t make any moves as the contracts are so bad. I’m not saying Monte wasn’t without fault but I think on balance he did ok
Not getting Fox & Co. a proper forward was his worst mistake IMO. Beam team was great but needed Precious three years ago.
Trey Lyles was the same as Precious, and arguably better.
Fair point. I really liked Trey. Glad he’s killing it in Spain.
When your team owner hires people in key positions without a search and select those that no other team would success isn’t the goal !
“The NBA today decided on several coin flips,”… However, no coin was actually used in the procuring of these outcomes. Instead, according to commissioner Silverstein, “we felt it better to apply the concept of cash considerations, rather than apply the principles of random chance through a transparent process with our fanbase.”
All this change will do is increase the number of teams that have an incentive to tank. Rich people always think they’re smarter than everyone else yet they continually come up with the poorest of ideas.
And we, the people/fans end up having to suffer for their dumb ass ideas and egos.
When did it become a thing that having money equals intelligence?? It does not
Case in point – Vivek.
Yeah, I’m at a loss that if your idea to prevent tanking is put in a system where more teams have better odds of moving up? That don’t make no sense. If it was just worst team gets the best pick, like football, then fewer teams would feel the need to tank the later part of the season.
You want to prevent tanking? How about shorten the season and expand the playoffs to all 30 teams. Have a winners bracket then a losers bracket after round 1. Incentive the losing bracket with something like pick placement or a monetary prize to the winners.
NBA April Madness would be sick. Have some actual Cinderella stories for a change.
Yup, I’ve even toyed with idea of pool play, similar to how FIFA and the in season tournament goes. Put them in ranked pools, teams play each other 2-3 times. Top two teams of each pool move onto the knockout stage of the tournament. It would awesome to get some Cinderallas every year. It would cure tanking!
I have to think the current in season tournament is somehow a trial run to see if they can pull that off as an actual playoff model and expanding to 32 teams makes it all even easier.
They should also lump all teams into the rankings/tourney. No more East/West separation.
Correct. Add Seattle and Vegas. 62 game season. No conferences. 16 teams that don’t make playoffs have their own “playoffs”/tournament to establish draft order.
Why not do several things
A lottery or pool tournament where doing well will gain you more shots in the lottery
Your combined record or the last 2 or three seasons
The lottery itself
and if you finished in top 3 the previous year you can’t pick in the top 3 the next year
Make the lottery based on a composite of the these, which would make tanking less viable
Or maybe I’m way off base here
Sure sounds a lot better than anything the league is proposing.
Some tanking is inevitable. When the worst record gets the highest pick or best odds (under this stupid lottery), and the next worst the next highest pick and so on, teams who are already bad will intentionally lose to get that higher pick.
If you “flatten the odds” too much, you give already good teams high picks and make reasonable parity even less likely. That’s the point of worst team gets highest pick – parity.
Instead of trying to defeat tanking, just let it be. End the lottery which clearly does not work. Don’t try to give good teams Dybantsa. Let tanking be – it is inevitable.
This this this. The draft is supposed to be there to HELP bad teams, the way the NBA does is does not create parity like the NFL does. NFL is ran so much better from a league parity view it’s not even close. From scheduling based on where you placed in division, to salary cap and draft. NFL it’s really hard to stay absolute trash for too long.
The NBA doesn’t give a shit about tanking…Silver is just a whore to his gambling app overlords.
yeah a straight up record flip like NFL the tanking issue would decrease dramatically.
First- could not hold onto 1,2 or 3 positions in draft
second- let Jazz tie ( that was preventable)
third lose a 50/50 coin flip
Fourth- will “allow” 4 teams to jump over the 5th position, ending with the 9th pick. Great/ All that junk we had to put up with this year and this is what we get?
Some of this is intentional, some of it dictated by the stronger tanking of others, some determined by luck but the 4th move is pure bad karma, Kings.
There was no value in beating duds, Clips or Toronto at the end. There was no value in losing to the Pacers after being down by 22.
This is pure heartbreak.
The difference between 8 and 9, and even 6 and 7 is significant. One slot and you guys could not protect it.
Wait, 0.6% chance of picking 9th, how does that work? I thought the most teams could slide was 3 spots?
A free fall is not a slide.
The most is 4 spots. The lottery is to decide the top 4 picks in the draft.
I would like to thank the Kangz braintrust (I use that term VERY loosely since it implies they actually do have brains) for taking any semblance of hope many of we fans may have had at the All Star break and just driving it into the ground down the home stretch by winning meaningless games. Short of a miracle this franchise is forever doomed under the current owner, management and coach. Talk about not being able to read the room.
A few weeks back I predicted that the Kings would end up picking 7th, and here we are with our highest odds being….7th.
I swear, this team….
But according to fans on Reddit, the late season wins were worth it because it’s helping build a culture of winning. Doesn’t matter to them that we now have an almost 45% chance of picking 6th or 7th.
It’s our favorite spot! Vivek has indeed taken us back to the glory days. Unfortunately, it’s the glory days of the early 90’s! Where we were terrible, in no man’s land and always seemed to pick at 7. That time frame yielded us Lionel Simmons (’90), Walt Williams (’92) and Bobby Hurley (’93) at the 7 spot. Honorable mention goes to getting Brian Grant (’94) at the 8 spot during that time.
I also think its funny that we are “5th”, but have the one of the lowest odds of picking 5th.
In another draft I would be more bummed. I think AJ has distanced himself as a clear #1, but there are arguments for Peterson and Boozer. The strength of this draft is not at the top but in the depth. The difference between pick 1 and 10 isn’t as great as in years past. Last year had decent depth as well with Cooper Flagg being a clear #1, and he’d be a clear #1 this year as well. But past #1, there were a lot of good prospects 1-9, with Kon being a steal at 4. We’ll see something similar this year. I think this draft is deep 1-10 and the difference between pics 4-10 are minimal.
I think the Kings will look for their next PG to lead the team. Acuff? no thanks. Flemings? I can see the vision there, even if a bit undersized. Brown Jr.? I don’t think so.
I like what Caleb Wilson brings to the court. He probably will never be this dominant offensive player that teams covet (Siakam is the ceiling, or so I have heard). But he does all the other things that this team needs. Rebounding, perimeter defense across multiple position, weak side shot blocker, rim runner, lob threat. Take the SF/PF to try and compliment Murray, and don’t try to force a PG to this roster through the draft.
Agreed. Might as well go big.
PG skills are very important, perhaps the most important. But there are many competent players who have them compared to players with competent 4/3 big wing skills. Value is important, and so is rarity.
they will take a sf/pf and trade lavine for Ja
Ja/monk/murray/rookie/sabonis
carter/nique/hunter/cardwell/max
Calling my shot
Swap Nique and Monk (if he’s still on the roster), and I can see that lineup.
Yup. Very solid chance of that happening.
The Vivek special: doubling down on an even worse move. Turn LaVine’s $50 million into Morant’s $85 million, hamstring yourself financially for another year, and move from a guy who isn’t good to a guy who won’t play and is liable to land himself in jail.
It’s the one trade I can totally see happening. It takes the Kings below the 1st apron and closer to the tax line, it fills a position of need, Grizz get rid of Morant without having to attach a pick, and it still gives Vivek his”star.”
Inevitably, LaVine will arrive in Memphis and work out a buyout that saves the Grizz even more money and the Kings will be left holding Morant’s bag.
100% happening
Ha! Saw this on Hoopshype the other day:
I think it’s adorable that they said Western Conference “contenders”. I wonder what we’d be competing for? Contending for last place? In that case, nailed it!
Well, we are contending for the top draft pick.
I don’t think Flemings is undersized at all. He’s 6’4″ 190lbs at age 19. That’s bigger than Fox is now.
I’ve heard some differing numbers on a few podcasts. He doesn’t look big when he’s on the court, to me at least.
Hopefully he gets some official measurements at the combine.
Assuming we are drafting 4th or 6th I would love to have Wilson or Fleming.. not sure Fleming will be at 6
One of them will be there at #5, but both might be gone by 6th. Should the Kings drop I fear it’s gonna come down to Acuff Jr. or Wagler, and I think we all know who Vivek will favor.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I do get some Haliburton vibes from Wagler. I hope he comes in for a workout.
It’s interesting you say that as I got that feeling as well and started researching it and a lot of similarities with Tyreses being a better facilitator passer, but tyrese also had a second year of college to develop..I could see him on the kings if we kept Keegan or had another guard who could be a combo guard too .. Nique/Carter
I think it’ll be Acuff if we’re picking 4th on down. And wouldn’t be surprised if we trade down from 1-3 to pick him.
I like Wilson. I think he is an excellent compliment to this overall roster assuming we keep Sabonis or Raynaud you have a lot of front line flexibility when you include Hunter
I see a lot of Kevin Garnett in Wilson’s game.
The best odds being 7th is very on brand.
Vivek’s favorite number! He said so himself in 2013!
It really is a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point!
No separate thread to discuss the playoffs?
Some good series developing.
I’m rooting for the Blazers and Pistons this year. If the Spurs beat Portland I’ll root for them. Wemby’s fall looked nasty. Hope he’s alright.
Yeah, that was bad. I hope he is fine and can resume playing soon.
5th worst record with 2% chance of 5th pick is wild, like let’s make this as unnecessarily complicated, ineffective, and not fun as possible.
NBA draft system is stupid and boring. Make it fun, cool, and simple. Do a tournament or something, these new changes are going to be the same nonsense and some teams will outmaneuver the anti tank policies anyway.
You can’t dodge a tournament and it gives the losing bracket fanbases something to get into. Do something new and fun, not the same complicated and weird tweaks.
Hello 7th pick!!
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